The Expansion Phase

If you’re in the Expansion Phase…

Only the top 30,000 businesses that exist in America make it to the Expansion Phase, so you have reached rare air! Now it’s time to pour fuel on the fire and grow this business really big!

Key areas you should focus on as you grow into the expansion phase

The business owner’s primary role in the expansion phase is to attract the capital needed to continue to fund growth. 

Maintaining a track record of consistent, positive results and shaping and communicating a vision of how those results will keep growing so that you can create positive returns for your investors becomes your primary focus. 

Leadership
Budgeting & KPIs
Strategic Planning
Team Performance

Articles created to help you in the expansion phase

In the expansion phase, your focus shifts outside of the company so that you can spot new opportunities and sources of capital.

How to “graduate” from the expansion phase

The expansion stage business needs to learn to manage rapid growth.

This phase requires a new network, a new set of advisors, and a different focus for the CEO.

You need to spend as much time outside your business, learning from other CEOs and advisors and looking for potential expansion partners as you do inside your business.

Key characteristics of businesses in the expansion phase

  • Businesses in the expansion phase are primarily focused on increasing their reach. This could mean geographic expansion or expanding into adjacent use cases, target markets, or categories. Because you have a strong beachhead with a service that works for a specific target, it’s time to find more and more customers like that.  Your management team can handle the day-to-day, but your focus needs to turn to growth. 
  • This increased focus on growth can take several forms:
    1. Geographic growth: If you’ve been regionally focused, it’s time to identify new territories to start to sell into. If you’ve been competing nationwide, maybe it’s time to look internationally.
    2. Growth by acquisition: If you’re comfortable taking on some investor capital and there are other, similar businesses that you can combine into a bigger entity, there are many private equity (and other) investors who will provide the capital to help you to acquire and integrate those businesses.
    3. Vertical growth: You may choose to stick close to your core customer and look for additional services you can offer them, either by developing new capacity or acquiring companies already doing business with your core customers. Building a bigger “share of wallet” can make you harder to displace within your customer’s business.

Learn more about
The Expansion Phase

Get a full PDF with a detailed description of the Expansion Phase, including the most important things to focus on in this phase.

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