Ramsey Solutions doubled in size 6 times while I was there. Here are 2 things I learned when it comes to scaling your business:



1) Design a six lane interstate system operationally, even if we are only completing one lane at a time: When you scale, processes and systems break continually. When whiteboarding what scale looks like for your business, plan for systems and processes that can handle a much heavier load than you plan to put on them initially. 

2) Design the ROLES needed to scale your business and resist the temptation to force names into the roles. This is a great leadership team exercise. Whiteboard the critical roles, what each role should be responsible for and what skills are needed for each of those roles in the future. Maybe our CFO does an okay job today; but is clearly not ready for what tomorrow requires. This exercise allows the whole leadership team to objectively weigh in on the needs of tomorrow. Once we have the list of roles and needs, we can easily see the gaps in our leadership mojo today vs what's needed. This actually gives current leaders the best chance at rising to the role of the future. 

Bonus: My friend Michael Finney taught me to test ideas manually at first, even if it's not a scalable way instead of trying to automate and scale an unproven idea out of the gate. Maybe it means talking to customers in person before you roll out an automated survey system. Testing manually lets us make quick changes to the idea, understand why it works or doesn't and THEN figure out how to automate and scale the idea once it actually works.