What it takes to scale a business

By Mark & Nicole Tobiassen / Founders, Action Coach New Mexico

As supporters of New Mexico Angels and the start-up economy, the keys to grow a start-up are the same skills any business needs to do to scale to new levels of success. The key actions that have a business succeed are the same actions necessary to grow. The most important thing to focus on is the foundation — making sure your business has these key tactics in place:

• A vision that is clearly articulated to all staff
• A mission that everyone follows
• A list of values that guide the team’s actions and decisions
• Alignment between vision and mission and values What we’ve seen time and time again is when groups of people get together and share the same vision, there is power.

When people are disillusioned, burned out or departing the company, almost always it’s because those employees don’t share the vision of the company. Once the vision, mission, and values are clearly articulated, and everyone is aligned with them, the next step is creating actionable goals. To scale a business, the CEO and management team should set goals that will get them to that next pinnacle. Then work backward to chunk it down to what needs to happen this year, this month, this week, today. If you’re going to go from being a start-up with $0 income to $20 million in the next five years, as an example, the actions must be manageable and attainable.

Otherwise, it will leave people paralyzed. Documenting those strategic action plans will have people empowered and moving in the right direction.

The other key principle to remember is no one can grow it alone. In addition to building the internal team, CEOs should consider who’s on the external team. Rather than asking yourself, “How do I do this?”

Instead ask, “Who’s out there that can help me succeed?”

New Mexico Angels is one of those important who’s.

There are others, including business coaches, CPAs, attorneys, referral sources, etc. Few will make it on their own. And that’s an important principal. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. The adage about It Takes a Village couldn’t be truer for businesses looking to scale.

The beauty of organizations like New Mexico Angels is that the angels is a community of like-minded individuals. The organization’s mission is to act on behalf of one another and to help each other succeed.

Together, we will grow the business community in New Mexico. We’ve all read the lists – where New Mexico ranks last. The only way we change that is to embrace each other, work toward a vision to have New Mexico thrive and have us become an amazing place to grow and conduct business.

Editor’s Note: New Mexico Angels’ members, investors and start-up owners submit occasional columns on economic development and start-up opportunities in the state. The Angels unite individual investors to pool their resources, providing seed and early stage capital to startup companies.