This is a guest post written by Joel Ohman. Joel is a Certified Financial Planner™ and the founder of 5 web startup companies. Among the 1000+ websites that he owns, his latest project is www.creditcardchaser.com where he helps people proactively search and compare different credit card offers.

One of the biggest challenges facing many small business owners is the issue of how to manage a company that is bursting at the seams because of rapid growth. Many entrepreneurs love what they do and work hard to turn their “baby” of a business idea into a money making business. However, if an entrepreneur does not prepare themselves properly then they may just find that their baby of a business has turned into a growth spurting teenager complete with hormonal issues and a desire to take your car out for a spin and party with their friends until the wee hours of the night. Firm control and smart planning can help you to manage this enviable problem of a rapidly growing small business. Here are some of the best ways that you can prepare.

#1 Document Business Processes

While you were just starting out and scrambling to get new customers and bring money in anyway that you could it was not as important for you to document your workflow. You likely started out as just a one person shop and as the founder you filled the roles of sales person, accountant, manager, IT support, and a multitude of other roles that are crucial for any startup company but that often do not have dedicated employees filling those roles at first. Filling so many roles it is easy to justify to yourself that you know exactly where everything goes and what to do and how to do it and you cant be bothered with wasting time writing things down.

Guess what? Those times are over. It’s acceptable to take a scatter shot approach to formal structure when launching your company with little or no employees but when you find yourself beginning to bulge at the seams (and I mean your company not you personally – although if you work in front of a computer all day then maybe both of those things begin to happen in parallel ) then its time to commit to getting organized.

What this means practically speaking is that you need to document how to perform all of the various tasks in your business. This means coming up with a detailed employee handbook, training materials, a list of expectations, and preferably some way to keep new employees accountable so that you can be assured that new hires will be held to the same high standards that you have held yourself to.

After all, what you have been doing is working right? – Without proper documentation your new hires may or may not end up replicating your success and scaling the growth of your successful business model but rather just watering it down.

When you sit down to take your first crack at documentation it may seem overwhelming at first but use an electronic solution (even if its simply just a word processing program) so that you can constantly revise and update your documentation as necessary.

#2 Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

One common pitfall of small business owners that are experiencing a rapid increase in sales and dramatically increased cash flow is to take on too much too soon. If you currently have 5 employees and take on an average of 15 new projects every month then even if your profit has increased wildly think long and hard before deciding to hire 20 new people all at once and think that you can take on 60 new projects anytime soon.

Manage your growth responsibly by realizing that much of this growth process will be a learning experience for you that should not be rushed. Time to train employees, unforeseen administrative expenses, out dated infrastructure, and other concerns will likely be daily issues that could manifest as major problems if you attempt to ramp up the expansion process too quickly.

As you being this “ramping up” process you may find yourself needing to outsource some of the common business tasks that to date you have handled internally. This brings us to the next major area that you should have a firm grip on: know when to outsource.

#3 Know When to Outsource

2 years ago when your company was still in its infancy you maybe used QuickBooks from your home office to do your accounting, you managed your customer databases yourself, and you ran to the post office yourself every day to ship packages but now you are beginning to realize that there is just not enough hours in the day for you to continue to do all of those tasks (and a hundred others) yourself.

If the above scenario sounds at all like you then you are likely a great candidate for finding ways to outsource many of those non primary business tasks. I have always been a firm believer in outsourcing as many things as possible from the very beginning (for example, when building the credit card finder portion of one of my websites I knew that I could build it myself but it would likely take me 10 times as long and be half as professional looking than if I enlisted the help of my coding genius business partner) but I certainly realize that when you are first starting a company that funds are limited and if the owner doesn’t do something then it likely won’t get done at all (because there is no one else around to do it – or at least not enough money to pay someone to do it).

Calculate where your time is most valuable (i.e. “on the phone making sales” or “training new sales people”) and figure out how to do more of whatever “that” is and outsource many of the other mundane things that have previously sucked up too much of your time (i.e. “reconciling bank statements” or “managing the server”). For example, you may have read through the awesome ultimate small business startup guide 7 times but unless you are an accountant by trade then likely you will save yourself both time and money outsourcing your accounting to a CPA or other qualified professional.

Enjoy the Experience!

The problem of how to handle a company that is growing rapidly is a great problem to have. Enjoy the experience and I hope that some of these critical tips will help you to make smart business decisions that will propel your company to even higher levels of success!

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