My prospect asked an interesting question: “What is your capacity to handle new clients without reducing what you deliver?”

This was not a question I had considered. My focus had been the focus of small business owners everywhere: making money, paying bills—not building systems and people, or addressing capacity issues.

As entrepreneurs, we believe we can handle an increase in sales volume. It’s what we seek; it’s the Holy Grail of growth—right? Unplanned rapid growth can send any business to an early and unpleasant grave. Often, it’s only after the fact of rapid growth that we find out we didn’t have systems and people required to meet our growing needs. Customers have little patience for trial and error. Waiting until necessity drives development of systems and people, we miss the opportunity to proactively increase capacity. Ultimately, we damage profitability, and our reputation.  

We need to plan growth in our people and systems, proactively: Hire, promote and retain the right people in the right jobs.  Remember, systems are developed by people—not the other way around!

Hire the right people

Hiring the best can be a slow process, requiring well-crafted goals, careful planning, good tools and clear procedures.We must discover the answers to three questions: Can they do the job?” (capacity); How will they do the job? (behavior); and Will they do the job? (occupational interest—is this what they want to do?).  

All three questions must also be context-specific: Can they do this job here? If the questions are asked properly and answered clearly, the probability of hiring someone who fits the job increases. Research confirms that people who fit their jobs produce more, stay longer and create happier workplaces.

Clarify strengths and weaknesses

When your capacity doesn’t change much, employees stagnate. Those who might have handled new challenges have already left for new opportunities, usually with your competition. Current employees may have effectively departed while still on your payroll.

Handling an increase in your customer count means handling concerns that your old customers may have just learned to accommodate. Your new customers may be more demanding and less understanding. Get the right people into the right jobs—you cannot afford less!  

A client recently shared a story of a star employee who was adept at handling one or two projects. However, with increased demand, she became flustered and lost communication with her clients. As a result, her company is in jeopardy of losing a large account; they simply don’t have the right person, in the right job.

A clear view of each employee’s true interests is critical. For example, many of us hold onto the myth that everyone loves working with people, 24/7. The reality is that only about 16 percent of the working population actually wants to work with people nonstop! If increasing your capacity requires strong people skills, you must measure those specific skills before making a hiring or promotion decision.

Remember, it’s an ongoing process

A wise entrepreneur once said, “When you think you have it all handled, you’ve set yourself up for failure.”

We have people problems and systems problems. Systems are often created by employees for their own convenience, not necessarily for your customers. Worse, we rarely know what our systems really are, and employees modify them continuously.

Customers have their own, private opinions about your business. Ask them questions, directly and indirectly:  What do we do that works for you, our customer? What do we do that does not work?  Allow them to clarify how you can be customer friendly. What do they need from you? What else would they like from you?  

Develop accountability and responsibility in your employees, managers and yourself.   Simply having feedback is one thing, acting productively on it is another—and acting is harder! Ensure that everyone realizes it’s an ongoing process: Perfection is a direction, not a place.

There’s an elephant in the room

If you have an issue, confront it.  Acknowledge the “elephant” then remove it, or reduce its impact.
Problems rarely go away of their own accord.  Rather, they tend to intensify and accumulate, until they can’t be ignored. Good customers don’t have patience for drawn-out resolution procedures.

The process of improving your systems and people can be overwhelming without help from outside. Utilizing a strong facilitator from outside the company can quickly bring a smoother implementation for the necessary changes.

Handle problem employees

Many managers alternate between overreacting and underreacting! Inconsistent in  management styles, they leave their people disgruntled and confused. Unfortunately, that increases the likelihood their clients will also be disgruntled and confused. If you have an employee unable to do the job, be fair and let him or her go. Hire slowly; fire quickly. One manager put it very well: “The most expensive employee time I have is the interval between when I realize they have to go, and when I actually make it happen.”

An effective manager must concentrate on, and measure, results. Working hard is a valuable part of the systems that produce your total results, but is rarely sufficient. Many other factors contribute to the real goal: measurable positive results.

Focus on these fundamentals of business, and you will soon see new opportunities.  Producing and properly handling an increase in volume will require a solid focus on these basics: systems and people. If you focus on effectively hiring, training and retaining your employees, they will thrive on increasing capacity while increasing your profits and customer satisfaction. When the inevitable glitch occurs, your people will have what it takes to resolve it, and capitalize on the new opportunity it presents!

		Jeannette Seibly is principal of SeibCo, LLC, a Michigan corporation. John W. Howard, PhD, is the owner of Performance Resources, Inc. and helps businesses of all sizes increase their profits by reducing their people costs.