If you had the opportunity to take on 10 times as many customers, could you? Many businesses aren’t built to scale to that extent without weathering some major growing pains. It takes time and solid procedures to add a significant number of clients — a daunting task for most—and the infrastructure improvements needed to grow to that level plus the increased staffing requirements that come with it add significant complexity to the equation, especially when the timetable is short.
That degree of development doesn’t happen overnight. It requires companies to invest a substantial amount of its time and money and other resources to make it all come together. Just hiring and training a staff to handle it can be a heady proposition — and its impact on the organization’s cash flow must be studied and addressed proactively. That’s why they need realistic timetables and step-by-step plans. Without the proper direction, meeting the organization’s growth objectives can be a challenging if not an impossible task. Every employee must understand her or his role and commit to the plan and timetable to make it all work.
That mission is much more difficult for owners planning to undertake a hypergrowth scenario. Though few IT services business owners may envision a tenfold or larger customer expansion, one executive suggests that’s the perfect place to start. Justin Moore, founder and chief executive officer of Axcient, detailed his reasoning for that exact strategy in a recent CompTIA webinar, “The 5 Secrets of Hyper-Growth.” Some may be skeptical of his approach since it goes against some traditional business policies, but for open-minded MSPs, his recommendations make perfect sense.
Channeling Growth
In the webinar session, Moore shared his own initial attempts at scaling his cloud platform and recovery-as-a-service business. First he stumbled, then he altered his approach to make changes that brought amazing results. Axcient has been ranked as one of the fastest growth companies by Inc., Deloitte and the Silicon Valley Business Journal — as well as several others — and its rapid rise shows no signs of abating. Moore attributes that success to a shift in his team’s thinking and their overall execution. “We needed to pause and review all of our systems internally, he said. “We looked at the product, platform and our architecture, and then reimagined our success based on what we experienced. Then we multiplied it by 10!”
Moore’s plan doesn’t seem as focused on the target size of the organization, but on the mindset that has to be implanted to make growth happen. Whether an MSP is looking to scale his or her business ten- or twentyfold, or have a smaller revenue or customer expansion in mind, his method includes several best practices designed to help attain that specific goal. Some of Moore’s recommendations include taking a hard look at how customer support will be affected by an aggressive growth strategy. For example, which infrastructure improvements would be needed to hit your expansion objectives? How many employees will you need at what specific point in time? And exactly what skills are you lacking? These are just a few of the questions providers need to ask themselves before taking on such an ambitious, or even a lesser, expansion strategy.
Just because you develop a solid plan to grow an organization doesn’t mean it will come to fruition. It takes focus and perseverance and perhaps even some good fortune to make it happen. Moore advises solution providers to rethink and simplify every process within their organization, and start paying closer attention to fewer key metrics. But they have to be tracking the right ones. “In 2012, we measured our case backlog volume to determine satisfaction, but we were using the wrong metric,” he said. “We found out our customers were actually OK with a backlog as long as we were working on their issues and giving them consistent feedback, so we realigned the goals and metrics to focus more on update frequency. Our customer satisfaction level went from a dismal 7 out of 10 back then to a solid 9.5 or higher now.”
Another potential pitfall of massive business expansions can be the loss of culture. Those who remain true to their deep-seated ideals over time are more likely to succeed. For example, between 2012 and 2013, Axcient replaced a significant amount of infrastructure and made substantial revisions to many of its organizational processes. Moore attributes their growth success to that transformation, which may never have happened without his employees’ unwavering dedication to their long-established corporate mission. Every option that could help them grow was considered during the process — as long as it abided by the core principles that guide Axcient’s employees in their decisions and actions.
Whether you’re looking to expand your MSP operations tenfold or simply make your business profitable, a review of Moore’s suggestions will surely give you a major advantage. Even if you missed the live webinar, his five secrets and other recommendations are available on demand. Check it out today and get your MSP business prepared for growth.
Brian Sherman is founder of Tech Success Communications, specializing in editorial content and consulting for the IT channel. His previous roles include chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
