How to Scale B2B Services With a Remote Team
As an entrepreneur in the B2B space, it can be challenging to identify how to start scaling your business—especially when you have a remote team. In my last blog, I discussed how to build and sell a vision bigger than just yourself. Here, I dive even deeper into how to go about building a brand that can easily scale B2B services.
Create repeatable processes
In order to scale your brand, it can’t be owner dependent. It is crucial to clearly outline the operational aspects of your business so you can train others to come on board as you grow. This is true of every aspect of your business, including sales, operations, and recruiting. By implementing repeatable systems and processes, you will build a foundation for your current and future team to succeed.
Documentation is key, and it doesn’t need to be overly complex. But what needs to be documented, exactly?
Any activity within your business that you have engaged in more than once can be considered repeatable and should be recorded. Documenting your systems and processes can be as simple as creating a Google Document where you compile the how-tos for all of these activities. If someone else on your team oversees a particular process, assign them to document the associated tasks and responsibilities.
Be clear about your culture
In addition to documenting processes that are repeatable, to scale B2B services you also need a clear and articulated culture to filter candidates through during the hiring process.
Being transparent about your brand’s culture is key in the hiring and onboarding process. Your organizational culture is your company’s foundation, and it is crucial to ensure that your candidates align with your brand’s culture for smooth integration and low turnover. Is promptness a key value within your company? If you are transparent about this in your hiring process, chronically-late candidates may end up filtering themselves out. Likewise, if socialization is a huge component of your brand’s culture, being open about this will allow candidates to evaluate whether they are the right fit, and will likely attract people who align with this type of environment. Clarity throughout your hiring process is essential to ending up with the right team. By focusing attention here, you are more likely to find employees who are truly aligned with the vision you are working to scale, and who will ultimately stay loyal to it.
The goal is to present candidates with a vision that is tangible, measurable, and excites them! At Reconciled, our vision is to serve 10,000 entrepreneurs and impact 100,000 jobs in their communities. Imagine if our mission was simply to be great at bookkeeping? How intangible—not to mention boring! By painting a clear and vibrant picture of where employees can see themselves in the long-term, you are more likely to build a team that is dedicated to your vision.
Sell your big vision
If you want to scale your B2B brand, sell your vision. It’s critical to have a sales strategy that is not only externally facing, but also internally facing. You must sell your brand to your customers and to your prospective employees as well.
According to Pew Research, millennials make up the largest segment of the workforce at 35%. Does your vision effectively reach these prospective employees, who by now have experience built upon their enthusiasm—and also have many more years to devote to a company that fires them up?
A central value for millennials is their desire to contribute to something that is bigger than themselves—and most certainly bigger than the business owner. Here are some key questions to ask yourself if you want to reach millennials:
Is my vision bigger than just me as a company owner?
Does my vision elevate others, including my team and clients?
Does my vision incorporate social good?
Highlight tangible evidence and measurable metrics to back up these aspects of your company culture. In doing so, you will draw candidates in and deepen their understanding of who your brand is—not just who you are.
Find the right ratio of customization and scalability
At the intersection of repeatability and brand culture is this central question: how customized will your services be?
Scaling means expanding—but not at the expense of your company’s culture and customers’ expectations. It all comes down to finding a ratio of customization and scalability that aligns with how you aim to position your brand in the market.
If you want a scalable B2B service, you may have to consider reducing your current level of customization. You may need to utilize technology to automate some of your processes and services in order to increase your bandwidth. While there are certain high-touch aspects of your business that only you can offer, you may be surprised just how many aspects of your service-based business can be automated as you scale.
Take blog writing services as an example. At one end of the market, there is Verblio (formerly BlogMutt)—a service that pays writers to churn out highly generic, short blog posts on general topics that add value by populating a company’s blog and improving their SEO. At the other end of the spectrum are unique, individualized blog posts crafted by quality writers who showcase and add depth to a business’s thought leadership.
For a service such as writing, some customers are willing to pay more for high quality writers who increase customization. However, depending on your business’s brand and vision, a cheaper, more automated (but generic) service—a “blog mutt”—may be sufficient. It all depends on what your customer is looking for, and whether your service offering is aligned to meet that need.
If your vision is truly to scale your brand and appeal to a larger market, you may choose to lower your price point and increase your bandwidth.
Regardless of your scaling strategy, stay aligned with your brand’s vision—whatever that may be. Only by staying focused on who you are as a brand will you lay a foundation for sustainable growth and attract a team that truly resonates with the vision of where you’re heading.