The small business growth seesaw - people and marketing.

We believe the two main growth levers in a small business are people and marketing, what I call the ‘growth seesaw’.

This is especially true for service-based businesses, selling time, but it's just as relevant for product-based businesses - you still need people to create, compile and / or ship the products - let alone all the non-sales and production roles (eg. finance, marketing etc).

A fast-growing small business perpetually walks up and down the growth seesaw - market to land more sales, then after a while the team is maxed, and you need to walk to the other end and recruit more A-Players.

Then you need to invest time to onboard, train and settle them into their role until they are performing at full capacity.

Sometimes it makes sense to stand in the middle of the seesaw and work on other areas of the business, so it can handle the next chapter of growth.

Often, that area is systems, the 5th Growth Pillar we talk about.

Don’t always chase sales growth, make sure you keep your balance on the seesaw and in the right spot, for the stage of growth your business is at.

One of the business owners I have helped since April 2022 is the perfect example of how to walk the seesaw to grow the business with ease, so the owners can live the lifestyle they signed up for.

I had Scott, one of the co-founders, on the small business podcast in March 2024 and there are so many wonderful lessons to take in.

When we started working together, Scott and Taina had a part-timer helping them work through all the visa applications they help their clients with.

They have a 99.9% success rate and a huge devotion to delivering the best experience for their clients, who are going through the stressful process of trying to get a visa to live in Australia, the best country in the world (I’ve been to 30, still a few to go, but I am pretty confident on this statement).

This deviation and superb service is borne out from their Net Promoter Score (NPS), a perfect +100.

They have only ever received a 10 to the question “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague, between 0 and 10 - 0 extremely unlikely and 10 extremely likely?”.

In just under two years, the business has gone from 2.5 to 14 FTE and continues to grow very nicely.

And, the co-founders only work 40 hours a week, and now hardly do any of the visa applications themselves - they are focused on the fun at both ends of the seesaw - people and marketing.

As you will hear Scott say in the cast, one of the tools which has given them the confidence to grow and formulate their strategic plan each quarter and year, is the 10 year financial model we put together.

Here’s the part in the cast where he talks about this: