If you want to get rich online, you’re going to need to scale your business at some stage. Scaling a business is the process of stepping up operations to take on more customers, more business, more assets and more staff. It is generally a slow, organically fueled process, with online businesses reinvesting profit earned in buying more websites or developing new, more expensive products, although this isn’t always the case, and with some businesses scale is required to even get things off the ground, such as social networking sites and business services like affiliate platforms.Before you can think about scaling your business, though, there are certain fundamental aspects of groundwork that must be fulfilled, to ensure you can handle expansion and can meet your obligations as they become more intense. The first thing to prepare when considering expansion is the operations side of your business. Fairly obviously, before increasing the number of customers you see or the amount of traffic to your online publishing network, you need to make sure you’re confident in your ability to execute on your promises, and you have enough man hours available to fulfill demand. For some this may mean taking on staff, while for others hiring extra freelance help may suffice. Either way, it’s crucial to make sure you’re in a position to handle demand, to avoid disappointing customers and damaging your reputation.Next, and equally as important, you need to scale your back-end support services. That includes marketing, payroll, accounting, legal, admin – all the things that take up much of your time as an online business owner that you don’t directly get paid for. Your back-end needs to be running as smoothly as can be before you consider expanding, and you might like to think about outsourcing certain aspects of these processes to other businesses to provide greater specialisation and to take the burden off your hands. Getting rid of this work load during a period of expansion is a great tip, and it’s money well spent if it allows you to concentrate on the growth of the business and the development of further expansion plans.Scaling any business, online or otherwise, requires some degree of preparation to ensure the groundwork is solid, and to avoid running into more serious problems when sales begin to increase. Building a business on weak foundations is a recipe for disaster, and it’s far easier to resolve business problems when you’re small than later down the line. By ensuring that both the delivery side and the administrative side are well organised and ready for expansion, you can give your business a better chance of survival and success through the difficult growth period.
Preparing to Scale Your Online Business
What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime
What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.
As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.
That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.
Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.
Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.
Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.
Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.
That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.
Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.
Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.
My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.
Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.
And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.
All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:
• Farm eggs
• Fresh vegetables
• Cow’s milk
• Freshly baked bread
• Coal for our open fires
Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.
Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.
Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.
Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.
My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.
The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.
Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.
Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.
People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.
In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.
Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.
• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.
• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.
• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.
On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.
Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.
We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.
Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.
My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.