7 Business Lessons You Need To Learn To Scale Your Business
By: Yousuf Rafi
Tags: Business, Startup Lessons, Business Lessons, Successful Entrepreneurs

Whether you’ve graduated from a business school or read a thousand books like me, if you haven’t run a business, failed at it, you haven’t learned anything at all.

Of course, there will be lots of money involved, but running a business is like raising a kid. You need to love it, nurture it, and pamper it to make it successful.

And to do that, you need to learn some business lessons that can scale your business fast.

1. Don’t Even Think of Replacing The Right People

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African Proverb.

It’s impossible to venture alone on the path of success. Although you will be alone most of the time, you need the right people in your team to scale your business.

Not just the ones with the skills, the ones with the right mindset. The optimists, the passionate, and the ones willing to open-up without being scared. These are the people that will bring the business. They’ll keep things together.

The visionaries with long-term goals. Keep them happy, and they’ll keep your customers happy. Don’t ever make them leave your company.

“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough, so they don’t have to.” ~Richard Branson

2. You Will Fail — And That’s Okay

I’ve learned this the hard way. Losing $2500 in an ad campaign in a few hours was my way to learn that you need to place a limit while creating an ad. A $5000 customer taught me to be transparent with the customer.

Everyone shares their own set of failures. You cannot run away from it. What you can do is to learn how to cope-up with failure and move-on without losing your senses.

When you are down on the ground, it’s hard to think straight. That’s why you need to get up and improve your game every time you fall.

Photo by Josh Marshall on Unsplash

3. Time is the Most Sacred Resource in Business

In business, time is not just money; it’s everything. The sooner you start something, the more benefits you’ll get in the process. You’ll fail, learn, re-learn and save a lot of time in advance.

As I’ve mentioned, the earlier business is just like raising a kid. If you give enough time to your kid, they’ll become better humans. Similarly, giving time to your business growth will make it successful.

4. Communicate a Lot To Misunderstand a Little

There is magic in communication. You can win a deal, calm a customer and even motivate an employee by communicating more. If you allow clarity in your communication, more than half of your problems will vanish.

If you see that things are getting out of hand, communicate more. Be it an apology, a compliment or confessing a mistake, go for it, and things will be better.

5. Perfection Will Delay Your Progress

Business is moving at an electrifying-rate. If you wait for perfection, you’ll be obsolete. It’s time to be flexible, agile, and adaptive. You can use tools to learn from failure and proceed with caution.

The goal is to make your system better than yesterday. Aiming for perfection is a myth that won’t get you anywhere. It would help if you balanced speed with agility.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

6. Idealism Is Fine, But Practicality Is Smart

It’s ideal for making a $25,000 sale next month, but it’s not practical. When doing business for the first time, you’ll have to assume a lot of things. You might dream of creating a fantastic video, but a lack of resources might limit you from doing so. Just drop the idea for now.

The same will apply to any business idea. You might consider it revolutionary at first, but if it’s not feasible or profitable, quit and move on to something practical.

7. You Stop Growing When You Stop Learning

One common habit of successful business owners is that they never stop learning. No matter how much they know, they’ll never stop attending the lectures, watching the videos or reading the books that educate them.

As a leader, you need to acquire skills and abilities that help you use your full potential. A constant improvement is the only way towards success.

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

The earlier you learn these lessons, the more time you’ll get to apply them in your business. I have the honor to fail successfully at two businesses before one got successful. So, yes, I am sharing this with experience. If you are willing to scale your business, you must watch out for these things.

There is a difference between reading an article on business lessons and practically implementing them. If you want to succeed in business, you need to work on every aspect of the business.