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Taming the Growth Monster: How to Regain Control and Scale Sustainably

We find our clients only knock on our door when their business is booming, their inbox is full of new client requests, their team is expanding (or needs to), and they’re in the throes of success. It’s the entrepreneurial dream, right? But amidst the excitement, a creeping sense of chaos has usually begun to emerge…
 
The symptoms often include systems buckling, schedules getting overloaded, communication failing, and a sense of losing control. Having worked with hundreds of clients in this stage of growth, let us share some strategies for taking back control and locking down sustainable growth.
 


1. Map Your Business: Take a step back and map out your entire business operation. Identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas where you’re struggling or spending too much time. This will help you prioritise areas for improvement and delegation. This process should be iterative, especially in the growth stage. What worked in 2023 won’t be the same in 2024 and will need tweaking again in 2025.
 
2. Process Power: Create clear processes and systems for both you and your team to follow. This could involve developing SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), utilising project management tools, or implementing automation where appropriate (but don’t get over-excited on the latter – more on that later!).
 
3. Planning Sessions With Yourself: Schedule dedicated time for strategic planning, away from the daily grind. Hold separate sessions with yourself (or the key stakeholders) for marketing and operations, allowing for focused brainstorming and goal setting. Being ‘busy’ is not an excuse, these sessions should be prioritised to help rein in the madness of a thriving business. One tactic we recommend, and use ourselves, is a ‘problem/improvement’ list for both marketing and operations. Anytime ‘something’ comes up, we dump it on the list so come our next planning session, our agenda has written itself and we can prioritise directly from this list. No head-scratching about what has been painful recently.
 
4. Time Tracking for Clarity: Time tracking isn’t just for junior staff. Track your time to identify where your hours are truly going. This will reveal prime candidates for delegation or outsourcing, freeing up your time for higher-level activities. Our Virtual CoOp have been called life savers, self care and part of the team….whatever youwant to call it, our team of virtual specialists reduce your load whilst sustaining business growth!
 
5. Take Time To Get Back to Basics: Refocus on your core offerings and unique value proposition. Streamline your products or services, refine your messaging, and ensure your marketing efforts are laser-focused on what truly sets you apart. As your business has grown and evolved, these essential moving parts have often gotten messy, only adding fuel to the fire. Take a step back, consolidate, refine or redefine, and start to get a hold of things rapidly.
 
6. Communication Templates: Develop templates for common emails, proposals, and other communications. This saves time, ensures consistency, and frees you from reinventing the wheel every time. Literally every cloud-based tool offers templates, so there is no excuse but to invest time in these. Sure, you still need to customise in many cases, but having a structure or a long template to delete irrelevant content from will literally save you hours in composition and consolidate comms.
 
7. Peak Operations Program: Consider utilising a specialised service like our Peak Operations Program. We’ll review your current processes and tech stack, identifying areas for optimisation and providing tailored recommendations to streamline your operations and maximise efficiency, and then execute the plan on your behalf. Easy!


 
Resisting Temptation: Avoiding Quick Fixes
 
While we have lots of tips on what you *should* do, we have also learned about areas where you need to exercise restraint with some seemingly quick-fix temptations:
  • Don’t Automate Too Early: Ensure your processes are well-defined and optimised before introducing automation. Otherwise, you’ll simply automate inefficiencies or have to update your automations down the line.
  • Don’t Outsource What You Love: Delegate tasks you dislike or struggle with, but retain ownership of the aspects of your business that bring you joy and fuel your passion. Or else, what’s the point of owning a business?
  • Don’t Follow Every Coaching Trend: While seeking guidance is valuable, avoid blindly following every coaching trend. Develop a strategy that aligns with your unique business and values.

 

Red Flags: Spotting the Signs of Impending Implosion
 
Now you have some tips, let’s identify those tell-tale signs that your growth spurt might be headed for a stumble. Do any/all sound like you?
 
  • Constant Firefighting: You’re spending more time putting out fires than focusing on strategic initiatives.
  • Communication Breakdowns:** Misunderstandings and miscommunications are becoming the norm, leading to frustration and inefficiency.
  • Overwhelmed and Overworked Team: Your team is showing signs of burnout, with morale plummeting faster than a kookaburra swooping for its lunch.
  • Systems Overload: Your existing systems and processes can’t keep up with the increased demand, leading to errors, delays, and customer dissatisfaction.
 
Remember, sustainable growth requires a solid foundation. By implementing these strategies, you’ll regain control, build a more resilient and efficient business, and ensure your success doesn’t come at the expense of your freedom.
 
 
Remember, we are here to help. Optimise your processes, technology and resourcing with our Peak Operations Program or lighten your load by outsourcing Administrative and Marketing tasks to Virtual CoOp, our team of Australian virtual specialists. Or combine both for maximum impact. Get in touch today to learn how!

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Litsa B.
Can I say “I love working with Empire Virtual Support”? Well, I do. Knowing that I am dealing with experts in the areas that I need support gives me peace of mind. I know the work I need to have produced is going to be done in an efficient manner, and I don’t have to worry about explaining my needs or chasing people down. Needless to say, I’ve never had to go to another provider.
Response from the owner: Thanks Litsa :) We love working with you too :)
Alex C.
With Empire Virtual Support my business, The People Factor, has a full support structure that enables us to manage large contracts efficiently. The Empire Virtual Support team handle scheduling and other admin tasks, as well as acting like a corporate shared service function by providing marketing, analytics, project management, invoicing and process re-engineering. This solves the problem of scale for me: I scale up during busy periods and scale down in quieter months.What stands out is their Virtual Assistant (VA) model, which allows me to draw from a pool of assistants, each of whom are experts in their field. This has been both time saving and cost effective as I only buy the time I need for a given piece of work. I don’t get involved with resource acquisition, planning or management. I simply allocate tasks and team at Empire Virtual Support do the rest.
Willem P.
My websites were busted… poorly built (my a “friend of a friend!”) with outdated designs on an old template and lots of broken stuff in the back end.I needed a one stop shop to fix it all: new but matching designs for both, new templates, fresh text, the lot… oh, and can you shift them both to a new hosting partner at the same time?Empire did the lot. I gave my brief to Charlie who understood exactly what I needed, and passed on clear instructions to her web designer.A few short chats and emails was all it took to get it all sorted, and I was back up an running in no time.No hassle, built as agreed, and on time and to budget.I can definitely recommend Charlie and her team.Pics below of my new websites… same look and feel for consistency, but different enough to obviously be different. Pretty cool, huh?
i’ara Specialist Support C.
The Empire Virtual Support team work very hard to make our website work perfectly for us. Thankful to Charlie and the team!
Sarah G.
My life admin “Fairy Godmother.”Charlie and her team have been an absolute dream. I was matched perfectly with a VA who understands what I need, and gets the job done. Highly Recommend.
Response from the owner: Thanks so much Sarah, so happy we make your life just that little bit easier :)
Colleen B.
We have worked with Empire Virtual Support for over 2 years now and couldn’t be happier with the results!Empire not only created us a new logo, but took our basic and not very engaging website and transformed it into one that is professional and fun. The feedback from both our clients and staff has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve noticed an increase in inquiries since the updates were made. Working with the team was a breeze; they understood exactly what we needed and spoke in simple terms that made the entire process hassle-free.We have also worked with Empire to improve our operations seeking guidance and implementation support to optimise our tech stack. Beyond this, the support we’ve received for administration has truly lightened the load for us as a small business.More recently, the Empire has supported us with social media content and ads with great results.Overall, Empire Virtual Support has made a significant positive impact on our business. We highly recommend their services to anyone looking to upgrade business processes or marketing!
Sue W.
Having a team of Australian-based administration, providing one-on-one support for me, has been essential. Without Empire Virtual Support, there’s no way I could have mobilised Live Work Cancer.Empire Virtual Support has brought the capability to ensure I can deliver my services to my customers. It’s been a really great pleasure to work with Charlie and her team.Working with Charlie and the team has provided a mechanism for me to look after myself. My well-being and self-care are absolutely essential for me to be able to do the work I do.With Empire’s support, I’ve been able to work at a pace three to four times more than if I was doing it myself. I would have achieved less than 30% of what I’ve been able to do in partnership with Charlie and the team.Empire’s team brings a great suite of tools and technology to ensure I’ve got access to project statuses and deliverables. They research and find the best technology that aligns with my business needs.I just want to say thank you again for everything you do. It is a lonely space, and having this support behind me, with me, through me, is an amazing experience.What keeps me going is knowing I can do stuff, even when it’s hard. Having all my eggs in the basket of direct selling into corporate and government can be disappointing, but Empire’s support keeps me motivated.
Catherine L.
We highly recommend Empire Support to any business owner, Empire Support has set us up for future success. We know we can eventually sell our business or get it valued without anyone negotiating down because we have all the right systems in place but for now with the SOPs and VAs provided by Empire Support, we no longer need to worry about day-to-day operations. Everything is managed efficiently, and this has taken immense pressure off us. Give it a go, you won’t look back, we have the perfect work, life balance that makes us love our business again. Thanks to all the team at Empire Virtual Support.
Response from the owner: Oh thanks so much Catherine, we are so happy to play a small part of EIR’s future growth and success :)
Joel S.
Charlie and the team at Empire are fantastic! They deliver a very high quality service and advice, always with a smile on their face.Whenever I throw a problem at Empire team it’s sorted quickly and to a very high standard. I would recommend them to anybody looking for virtual assistance and bookkeeping services.
Response from the owner: Thanks Joel we appreciate you taking the time to share :)
Vanessa A.
The team at Empire are professional, experienced and always there when you need support. As a small business owner, having this level of support is a game changer. I highly recommend if you need to level up, connect with Charlie. Thank you team at Empire
Dhania M.
Before we engaged Empire Virtual Support, I was finding it really difficult to stay on top of all of the tasks that I needed to do. When I did have time, I was finding myself mentally depleted, and just not able to focus. As a business, we weren’t realising our full potential. We had this vision of what we wanted to be, but we weren’t taking the right steps or achieving that. So I really needed to find support, so that I could focus on that bigger-picture stuff.Now, I feel like I don’t have to worry, I can pass on tasks to people I trust who are really competent at what they do, really enjoy what they do and are so approachable. Each individual person that I’ve worked with at Empire has been able to collaborate with me in a way that understands what my business problem is, and provide solutions. I have found a lot more clarity in what it is that I need to focus on and can work on growing my business into the business that I want it to be. It has been an absolute weight off my mind having Empire along for this ride, I really feel like they’re part of the team. And they’re working towards these common goals with us. I keep finding new things for them to do and it always surprises me that it’s just so easy for them to just pick up and run with.Big thanks to Charlie and the team, highly recommend!
Valerie MacIver Public R.
Charlie and the team at Empire Virtual Support are like an extension of our team.We’ve worked together for more than four years – they are great with time management and full of ideas.Empire Virtual Support have helped to save time and money. It’s like having a weight lifted off your shoulders!
Kim B.
It is a relief to have found Empire Virtual Support’s services. They were recommended to me 3 years ago, and I haven’t looked back.I find the team responsive, skilled and thorough. I have been very happy with my website updates as they grasp what I have in mind. I can highly recommend their skills and warm, professional and personalised support.
Response from the owner: Delighted to support you Kim :)
Stella S.
For me, the value of working with Empire Virtual Support is that I am a lot less stressed. I can tell them what I want, and they make it happen. It’s wonderful because it’s a fraction of the price I would be paying if I had a full time employee. We’ve got a great relationship and I love that they’ve been able to do everything I have ever asked them to do. Working with Empire Virtual Support has helped me bring my business to another level!
Response from the owner: Thanks Stella, look forward to continuing to work together :)
Juliet D.
Charlie and the team from Empire Virtual Support are fantastic to work with, I highly recommended them.
Response from the owner: Thanks Juliet, we are glad to be able to support your wonderful business!
Rosie G.
Charlie has provided administrative support to my solo private practice for most of the past year – it has been such a pleasure to work with someone so switched on, intuitive and respectful. She has taken the time to get to know my business and set up effective communication systems. She works independently yet checks in with me and asks questions when needed. Highly recommend Empire Virtual Support .
Response from the owner: Thanks Rosie, a pleasure to be part of your team :)
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An incredible addition to my business. Super efficient, reliable and always thinking ahead. Thanks to Empire Virtual Support, we’ve implemented systems and platforms that we’ve put off for years because it was too onerous. They sorted it out in a matter of days! Fantastic attention to detail and a joy to have on the team
Fiona T.
We’ve been working with the team from Empire Virtual support for over a year now. We initially bought them on to support us in a marketing function, and since then, they have taken on a large number of responsibilities across the business. There’s actually very little in the business now that they are not across, and we get a really great consistency of experience and service, which has been amazing. Our experience is that every time someone is brought in, they’re in the right person for the task. The most valuable part of their support is the fact you’ve got all these skills in one place, it’s like having a dream team working alongside our inhouse team.Having Empire Virtual Support on our team just gives us so much more confidence to scale, we know that we going to be able to fulfil both our growth ambitions and the requirements of our clients. And that a really great place to be in, to not have to stress about delivering and also to do it in a financially sustainable way.From a personal perspective, as CEO and Founder, having Empire on the team has meant I can focus on the things I should be doing in this role; working on our vision, our positioning, continuing to innovate. I can be 100% focused on the future that is ahead of us and the growth ambitions I have for my business.
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