Do you know what sustainability means? Many people mix up the true definition of this word as it applies to business. Sustainability is the ability to maintain your business at a certain rate or level.

You know me as the founder of Structure in a Box, I am a big advocate of systems and sustainability. I don’t just focus on building sustainable businesses but sustainable lifestyles as well. We’ve become so accustomed to building our lives around the business with the business coming first but my passion is to help entrepreneurs change that and part of my mission is to get others like you to build your business around your lifestyle

I want you to stop sacrificing your freedom by creating sustainable systems.

And…. you can’t speak about Sustainability without thinking about Scale. Here’s where I would also like to demystify what it means to scale. You may be thinking scale is  growth right? (more revenue, more clients, more leads, more employees…..), no that’s the definition of GROWTH.

Scale, however, is a business whose size or performance or number of clients can be increased on demand without a penalty on cost or functionality. Please read this sentence again

If you focus on growth and scale together you can build a sustainable business. While you are building that global business of yours don’t forget to structure your home too. We have home management templates that will help you balance the two.

Knowing where you are, will determine your next steps. So I want you to really ask yourself, do you have a sustainable business?

Keep it Structured,

Joycee Awosika

My business ORÍKÌ has changed drastically almost every year and operations have become totally different based on the different scale.

In 2017, I had to find the courage to hit the pause button for a moment. One of the toughest decisions I had to make but when I made it the company ended up for the better. 

We had rented a large building to carry out our spa services and sell our products, but after a few years of occupying it, we realized that the space design and layout restricted our ability to turnover revenue fast enough. With increasing operating expenditure and rent, I was faced with a dilemma. Should we continue in this type of building or build out according to revenue maximization? 

Though we had more customers year to year, it wasn’t translating to the outcome I wanted to see.

It was a tough decision to overhaul a place that we put so much into but Failing to pause and evaluate would have cost me the business.

So what do you do when things don’t seem to be going right?

Hit the pause button. Look at some components of your business that aren’t working and ask yourself: Am I in the way? Is it really so bad if we try something else?

You don’t have to be afraid to pause and analyze. The key is to focus on the core of what makes you great and be open to changing the rest.

One of the most powerful reasons to have a business plan is that you can always refer to it as a guide and make amendments to it as time goes on. Don’t have one? Grab our ultimate business plan template sample today and get started on a world class easy to use template.

Keep it Structured,

Joycee Awosika

Now what happens if your star employee decides to leave? Imagine this scenario…

Your Super Star has worked with you for years – he started as a junior, showed up diligently everyday, worked hard and smashed every task given to him.  After a year he started getting more responsibility, and he stepped up, and up and just kept on winning. Fast-forward a few years and the company has grown and Super Star is still the poster child. Every performance review has been glowing, with regular salary increases and promotions. And then one day, in your peak season…Super Star says they have gotten an offer at a new place…..

We have worked with entrepreneurs who never expected and never imagined that it would destroy your business. That’s not your portion so lets get in front of it!

Here’s how:

1. Every position is replaceable, you first need to accept that. Never rely on one person solely.

2. Build your company with redundancies. This is the concept of ensuring that there is no one staff who knows it all alone or is so critical to the business that you can expect failure of some sort of they left.

3. Cross – Train. Institute a policy where your team has to pick up extra skills in another department every quarter. This will save you during a period where you have a gap.

4. Create Standard Operating Procedures. These documents will enable someone to pick up and continue where a vacant position is.

The nature of entrepreneurship is growth and adaptation, so you must always be prepared for a change. Put some fail safe conditions in place now.

Extra Tip: If you are ever on the flip side and have to Manage Poor Performance, check out this guide.

Hi There,

I’m sure you’ve dreamt of scaling your business, expanding, growing (insert big picture goal) here.

Kudos, high five, awesome! I’m glad that you have an audacious goal in mind because a journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step and YOU CAN DO IT.

But hold your horses, don’t move too fast without a proper assessment. Have you ever heard the saying “don’t put the cart before the horse” in other words don’t do things in the wrong order.

Scaling is one thing, but sustaining the growth is another. Don’t be a statistic and fail because you grew without a solid foundation.

I’d like to share 7 ingredients to scale successfully.

1. Document all your processes, procedures and policies
2. Build a strong management and governance team, upgrade your team members and their skillsets. Give them new experiences.
3. Focus on key objectives to achieve in your company. The fewer more impactful things, the better and you must ensure that there is accountability
4. Identify your company culture. There may not be a system for everything in your company but your culture will help your team make decisions when no system exists
5. Systemize – anything that is a routine activity should be systemized so that they are simpler, easier and faster
6. Finance – can your business model handle scale? If you are in a brick and mortar business it will take capital to open multiple locations, what is your cash flowing saying? Can it support the vision? Do you need to raise funding?
7. Distance – as the owner you need to give your team space to stand on their two feet and grow. Often times when the owner is always present the team reverts to you for decision making. Spending intentional time away will help validate that your company is ready and will help with growth and maturation

So now ask yourself,  are you ready to scale your business? If you need help with documenting processes and want to empower your team, grab the SOP workbook here.

If you want to chat about this further and confirm if you the right track, contact us here for a 60 minute one-on-one virtual session.

Related Tag: Business Plan Template Sample

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Have you fired yourself yet?

You are probably thinking, what are you talking about Joycee?? Well if you haven’t already fired yourself from being an employee that works on the mundane aspects in your business that can be delegated, then I encourage you to do so TODAY. Give yourself a Quit notice with immediate action.

And I mean it…..Its high time that you move from working IN your business to ON your business. Now what happens if your star employee decides to leave?

A lot of entrepreneurs get burned out because they do everything themselves and are afraid to delegate because they don’t trust people. But if you haven’t heard before, let me tell you…You can’t grow that way!

You want to know why I am encouraging you to Fire yourself?

Because as you delegate, you will be forced to write down the tasks and the procedures of all the company aspects you have handled previously. And guess what?? That’s the foundation of creating Standard Operating Procedures.

One of my mantras is to never do anything that you can afford to pay someone else to do.

We are always here if you need an SOP template, a customized document or even just a listening ear, don’t be a stranger!

Kava contains 30 demos as for now, and we’re planning to release more! Except astonishing demos, Kava theme has more and more beneficial features for users, business, companies, developers, bloggers and other categories of users. Even if you are an absolute beginner in website building, you’ll appreciate Elementor page builder’s simplicity and comfortable visual mode. Jet plugins were specially developed to provide users with additional functionality in this page editor. Jet plugins main advantage is containing modules which are not included in standard Elementor bundle.

There Are No Limits to Define Your Style.

Add multiple WooCommerce widgets presented as pre-designed modules and equip your store with breathtaking widgets and elements, necessary for successful online trading. Your customers will appreciate your site look and definitely recommend it via their social media accounts. There are limitless options, which can be implemented. Kava theme fully meets the requirements of responsiveness to display your web site perfectly on all devices. Kava will adapt your site automatically, so your visitors will be able to enter the site from either mobile phone or stationery PC.

You get professionally prepared high resolution images with Kava. Your visitor’s screen size is detected and re-scaled version of your web page automatically delivered accordingly. You also get many other useful features.

Kava is a unified mulipurpose theme with tons of options, features, innovative tools, high-quality images, top-notch plugins and many other elemets. Add multiple WooCommerce widgets presented as pre-designed modules and equip your store with breathtaking widgets and elements.

Lifetime Subscription gives you much wider opportunities of using the theme and its benefits. There is such an amazing service as lifetime updates of all plugins. Kava is equipped with such stunning plugins as JetElements, JetMenu, JetBlogs and other Jets. Besides, you will get all your plugins updated as well. This feature is great, because all of our plugins are beeing upgraded constantly.

You Get More with Lifetime Subscribtion

We enhance them with additional features, options and add brand-new tools, so your theme would work much better. Another benefit of lifetime subscribtion is access to all demos. In future we’re planning to update our demos collection with new items. Our today’s collection includes 30 demos. Their main characteristic is that they fit almost every topic. There are either variants for online shops, blogs, business companies and sport clubs. If you’re planning to expand your business spheres, this may be an attractive bonus for you!

Kava is a unified mulipurpose theme with tons of options, features, innovative tools, high-quality images, top-notch plugins and many other elemets. With its affordable price it is more than beneficial for every user!

Kava is one of the most easy to use themes for WordPress, being at the same time incredibly functional! It fits either beginners, developers and bloggers. Stunning demos were designed by the best experts!

Kava contains 30 demos as for now, and we’re planning to release more! Except astonishing demos, Kava theme has more and more beneficial features for users, business, companies, developers, bloggers and other categories of users. Even if you are an absolute beginner in website building, you’ll appreciate Elementor page builder’s simplicity and comfortable visual mode. Jet plugins were specially developed to provide users with additional functionality in this page editor. Jet plugins main advantage is containing modules which are not included in standard Elementor bundle.

There Are No Limits to Define Your Style.

Add multiple WooCommerce widgets presented as pre-designed modules and equip your store with breathtaking widgets and elements, necessary for successful online trading. Your customers will appreciate your site look and definitely recommend it via their social media accounts. There are limitless options, which can be implemented. Kava theme fully meets the requirements of responsiveness to display your web site perfectly on all devices. Kava will adapt your site automatically, so your visitors will be able to enter the site from either mobile phone or stationery PC.

You get professionally prepared high resolution images with Kava. Your visitor’s screen size is detected and re-scaled version of your web page automatically delivered accordingly. You also get many other useful features.

Kava is a unified mulipurpose theme with tons of options, features, innovative tools, high-quality images, top-notch plugins and many other elemets. Add multiple WooCommerce widgets presented as pre-designed modules and equip your store with breathtaking widgets and elements.

Lifetime Subscription gives you much wider opportunities of using the theme and its benefits. There is such an amazing service as lifetime updates of all plugins. Kava is equipped with such stunning plugins as JetElements, JetMenu, JetBlogs and other Jets. Besides, you will get all your plugins updated as well. This feature is great, because all of our plugins are beeing upgraded constantly.

You Get More with Lifetime Subscribtion

We enhance them with additional features, options and add brand-new tools, so your theme would work much better. Another benefit of lifetime subscribtion is access to all demos. In future we’re planning to update our demos collection with new items. Our today’s collection includes 30 demos. Their main characteristic is that they fit almost every topic. There are either variants for online shops, blogs, business companies and sport clubs. If you’re planning to expand your business spheres, this may be an attractive bonus for you!

Kava is a unified mulipurpose theme with tons of options, features, innovative tools, high-quality images, top-notch plugins and many other elemets. With its affordable price it is more than beneficial for every user!

Kava is one of the most easy to use themes for WordPress, being at the same time incredibly functional! It fits either beginners, developers and bloggers. Stunning demos were designed by the best experts!

Kava contains 30 demos as for now, and we’re planning to release more! Except astonishing demos, Kava theme has more and more beneficial features for users, business, companies, developers, bloggers and other categories of users. Even if you are an absolute beginner in website building, you’ll appreciate Elementor page builder’s simplicity and comfortable visual mode. Jet plugins were specially developed to provide users with additional functionality in this page editor. Jet plugins main advantage is containing modules which are not included in standard Elementor bundle.

There Are No Limits to Define Your Style.

Add multiple WooCommerce widgets presented as pre-designed modules and equip your store with breathtaking widgets and elements, necessary for successful online trading. Your customers will appreciate your site look and definitely recommend it via their social media accounts. There are limitless options, which can be implemented. Kava theme fully meets the requirements of responsiveness to display your web site perfectly on all devices. Kava will adapt your site automatically, so your visitors will be able to enter the site from either mobile phone or stationery PC.

You get professionally prepared high resolution images with Kava. Your visitor’s screen size is detected and re-scaled version of your web page automatically delivered accordingly. You also get many other useful features.

Kava is a unified mulipurpose theme with tons of options, features, innovative tools, high-quality images, top-notch plugins and many other elemets. Add multiple WooCommerce widgets presented as pre-designed modules and equip your store with breathtaking widgets and elements.

Lifetime Subscription gives you much wider opportunities of using the theme and its benefits. There is such an amazing service as lifetime updates of all plugins. Kava is equipped with such stunning plugins as JetElements, JetMenu, JetBlogs and other Jets. Besides, you will get all your plugins updated as well. This feature is great, because all of our plugins are beeing upgraded constantly.

You Get More with Lifetime Subscribtion

We enhance them with additional features, options and add brand-new tools, so your theme would work much better. Another benefit of lifetime subscribtion is access to all demos. In future we’re planning to update our demos collection with new items. Our today’s collection includes 30 demos. Their main characteristic is that they fit almost every topic. There are either variants for online shops, blogs, business companies and sport clubs. If you’re planning to expand your business spheres, this may be an attractive bonus for you!

Kava is a unified mulipurpose theme with tons of options, features, innovative tools, high-quality images, top-notch plugins and many other elemets. With its affordable price it is more than beneficial for every user!

Kava is one of the most easy to use themes for WordPress, being at the same time incredibly functional! It fits either beginners, developers and bloggers. Stunning demos were designed by the best experts!

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