How to handle a 100k/month business?

There are a lot of one man show agencies or gurus in marketing that will never tell you the truth about this.

They will try to sell you the DREAM or set high expectations and the reality is…

Business owners need to hear the truth behind scaling a brand, any brand.

But to be more specific, let’s say you are somewhere in the 20-30k / month revenue, aiming to get to 100K / month.

Does this sound like you? Then KEEP reading…

A lot of problems will arise when scaling your brand and we are here to share the main ones so you can be ready:

Cashflow is KING

This is literally one of the hardest problems as you grow. Maintaining products available is not an easy job, especially since shipping & handling time got 2 x slower. That’s why it is so important to get your cash ready.

We had clients generating over 100k / month in revenue and getting accounts frozen is not fun to watch. It might take days, weeks or evens months to get it back.

So the best workaround here would be to pay your advertising bills with a 30-60 days delayed credit card payments.

Through this method, you can conserve your cash to order new inventory or new products, because honestly, not a lot of international manufacturers will accept deposits or credit cards, so the best way to do it is by keeping you cash for days like these.

Another option that you have is a loan – but make sure you arrange this BEFORE scaling, because this might be time consuming.

Manufacturing from different or local sources

Generally speaking, having suppliers in China is the norm. However, we encourage you to base your manufacturing operations closer to your business centre or maybe find more than one supplier.  We know that quality might differ, that’s why this method needs to be applied before scaling.

If you can, also look into local producers. The great majority of the rapidly expanding AU  brands that we are working with typically have their manufacture there.

Is it more expensive? Maybe, but in cases like SCALING ➝

Time is money, therefore scale up more quickly if you can receive your goods more quickly than the competition. (unless you product is SOOO unique or patented that nobody else has)

Even if the profit margin is lower on a per-unit basis, you may more than make up for it by accelerating the growth of sales a lot faster.

Don’t become overly dependent on one supplier or fulfillment provider if you start generating between $1 and $2 million in monthly revenue. Ideally, visit a different country.

Might sound crazy, but again, during “pandemics”, “recessions” or just bad times, it WILL PAY OFF.

Consider the performance of eCommerce companies during the COVID-19 epidemic. While many other businesses are currently going out of business, the diverse ones were able to adjust fast, because they did not rely on a single source.

Separating your orders among different companies is a great method to build diversification. In order to save yourself from those hassles, you can create code on your website that automatically chooses which fulfillment center and supplier to utilize.

Grow your team & build processes

When you’re growing quickly, you occasionally need more helpers because it would be impossible to keep up with the growing workload without them.

In one instance, our client’s business expanded so quickly that they needed to hire almost 30 new employees in less than a month. Kudos to them for rising to the occasion.

However, many businesses wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Either they lack the capacity for onboarding, or they are unable to quickly identify enough qualified candidates.

Even if you are an expert in your field, only roughly 50% of the employees you hire will be a good fit. So that you won’t feel overwhelmed, your Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) must take this possibility into account.

We recommend you using a task management tool that will help you out ➝ our favorite ones are➝ (Monday.com, Asana, Clickup, Trello)

Creative testing approach

‍So if you’re planning to scale fast – don’t underestimate the importance of a creative team and network. Alternatively, you can also build it in-house.