Scale Your Business with These Sustainable Strategies for Growth

Jan 20

Are you seeking strategies for growth because you’re ready to generate more revenue in your business?

You’re in the right place. This post will walk you step-by-step through the strategies we use with our clients and inside our own business to sustainably scale operations and revenue.

Scaling a business and growing a business are not the same thing. We’ll show you why scaling is a much better goal, and share how you can implement the strategies we share here in your business in 2026 and beyond.

Key takeaways

Scaling a business = exponentially increasing revenue without exponentially increasing the complexity or size of your team
Business growth can be good. It can also hold you back, become unsustainable, or hurt your potential.
You can’t scale a business without streamlining and optimizing business operations.
The core skill a CEO or business owner needs to scale is the ability to clearly and effectively delegate.
You don’t have to scale alone. Elevate can partner with you in a number of different ways to help you reach (and exceed!) your 2026 goals.

Scaling a business v. growing a business

What do we mean when we say business growth isn’t the same as scaling a business?

Let’s look at an imaginary crayon factory as an example.

The crayon factory produces crayons. If they want to grow, they will buy more supplies and hire more workers so they can produce more crayons. More resources → more product → more sales.

There’s nothing wrong with growth! Every successful business will grow. But if that’s where you stop, you’re missing out on a lot of potential revenue.

Let’s say this crayon factory decides its goal is to scale instead. They don’t hire any more workers or buy more supplies. They focus on their process and realize there are two or three unnecessary steps in the assembly line.

They remove these steps and reduce the time it takes to produce a box of crayons by 2 hours. This means they can run their machinery for two hours less each day, reducing energy costs and wear and tear. They can also cut back on the number of employees required to produce the same amount of crayons.

The crayon factory is now making more profit per box of crayons without spending any extra on supplies or labor. That’s scaling.

Sustainable scaling means taking the first step before increasing the amount of supplies and workforce, so when the crayon factory does grow… they’re running as efficiently as possible and set up for continued success.

Problems with business growth

On the surface, business growth seems positive.

But if your business grows before your systems and operations are optimized to handle the growth, you can actually put yourself out of business, lose clients, or create chaos.

Business growth means more resources: more hours, more workers, more supplies, more expenses.

If you grow too fast, all the more can result in losing profit, even if you’re generating more revenue than before.

Instead of asking, “How can I grow my business?” the better question is, “How can I scale my business?”

How to know you’re ready to scale

You can’t scale your business by accident.

And simply wanting to make more money leads to the kind of problematic growth we just discussed.

So how do you know when you’re ready to scale?

Your revenue is predictable.
When your business is generating consistent income that you can accurately forecast for the next 3-6 months, that’s a good sign you’re in a position to scale.
There’s significant demand for your services or products.
It’s impossible to scale something that isn’t already selling well. If your offer suite is steady and there’s consistent demand for what you’re selling, you are probably ready to scale.
You (the CEO or leader) are the bottleneck.
If your team can’t do what they need to because you’re in the way and you’re aware that you’re the roadblock… it’s time to optimize your systems, delegate, and scale.
You’re emotionally ready to let go of more control.

Successfully scaling a business requires almost every CEO to relinquish tasks, responsibilities, and oversight. When you’re committed to stepping out of the weeds of your business and into a true visionary role, you’re ready to scale.

There are systems and SOPs in place.
You don’t need complex systems or SOPs; they just need to exist. These will probably need to be refined or tightened up in the scaling process, but if you have them, you’re ready for the next step.

Strategies for growth that scales

When you’re ready to grow in a sustainable way that is truly scalable (you want to exponentially increase revenue without exponentially increasing your resources), start with these 3 specific strategies.

#1: Choose a specific strategy

You read that right! The first strategy is to pick a strategy.

There are so many different ways to approach scaling a small business, and if you’re not specific about how you want to move forward, things can get messy quickly.

The strategy you choose depends on the type of business you run, how you want to scale, the size of your team, and your overall goals.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but these are some of the most common strategies we choose with our clients:

Do more of what works. This strategy works best if you already have consistent clients or leads and need more consistent systems.
Optimize your systems and processes. This strategy is for leaders or teams who are routinely the bottleneck.
Hire or delegate. You'll find success with this scaling strategy if you already have systems in place or you invest in creating systems before hiring or delegating.
Simplify. This isn't a shiny strategy, but it can work! Try this strategy when you're ready to remove everything that isn't necessary and zero in on 1-2 key offers.

You may end up simultaneously implementing more than one of these strategies, but it’s important to understand what you’re working toward and how you’re going to get there.

For example, if you want to optimize your systems and processes, you may choose to partner with a business like Elevate, which specializes in operations and can work on optimizing the foundations of your business while you focus on doing more of what works internally.

#2: Delegate

Every leader, CEO, and business owner we work with is doing too much. Every single one.

But if you're serious about scaling, you must develop a consistent, effective delegation strategy. It's the only way to sustain the kind of growth you're after!

The good news is that you really can make more money by doing less.

Our clients who master the art of delegating scale faster and more effectively.

Delegating is a skill, which means if it’s not something you’re naturally good at… you can learn. (We host a monthly delegation workshop that’s only $27 to join!)

As you think about handing off a task or responsibility, here are some key questions to consider:

Is this process repeatable?
How would I explain to someone how to complete this task or responsibility?
Is this something I need regular updates on, or can I hand it off completely?
How can we streamline or simplify this task to make it easier to delegate?
What steps or measures do I need to have in place to ensure this is completed accurately?

If you can’t delegate well, it will be difficult to scale your business. This is one of the most important skills a CEO can develop.

#3: Know your numbers

Scaling a business is a numbers game. If you don’t have accurate, up-to-date financial data… you can’t successfully scale.

If your books are currently months behind or something you put off until tax time, this strategy will make a huge difference in preparing your business to scale.

Sustainable, scalable growth requires a number of strategic decisions.

You need to clearly understand things like:

What is our current profit margin?
What is our current customer acquisition cost?
Where do our clients or customers come from? How do they find us?
Where are we losing money?
Where is the best place to invest our resources?
Can our team handle more demand?

All of this information is only available when you have organized, accurate books.

If you don’t already have a bookkeeper, investing in professional monthly bookkeeping should be one of your key scaling strategies.

Implementing strategies for growth that’s scalable

When you’ve read through this post, confirmed your business is ready to scale, and learned more about the scaling strategies that will help you get the results you want… it’s time to do.

Plans are great, but intentional action is what really moves the needle.

At Elevate, we offer a number of different offers and services to help you scale with confidence and ease.

Need help identifying a scaling strategy that you can implement on your own?

Start with a 1:1 Operations Strategy Call with our founder, Ashley. This 60-minute call gives you the opportunity to ask a Certified Director of Operations all your scaling questions and collaborate to create a scaling strategy and outline the steps you need to take to put it into action.

Want help turning your big ideas into operational excellence?

If you're leading a business that is currently generating between $250k and $2m annually and are ready to sustainably scale your team with consistent accountability… our Strategic Partnership is a 12-month, high-touch service focused on supporting you in the strategy planning and implementation phases of scaling your business. You can book a free call with our founder, Ashley, to learn more about this exclusive partnership.

Looking for a team of operations experts to complete custom projects for you?

If delegating looks like handing over the operations projects that have been holding your team back, we’re here for it. These one-time projects allow our team to step in and create a customized solution to the operations task or need that's holding you back.

We offer Get It Done projects for:

Creating an SOP Library (or auditing an existing SOP Library)
Building out a custom Hiring Process
Giving you a clean slate with an Inbox Clean Out
Getting you ready for tax season with a Bookkeeping Clean Up
Transforming your financial reporting with a Bookkeeping System Set Up

Need a full-service bookkeeper to help you get your numbers in order?

Elevate offers experienced bookkeepers who can clean up your books, set up the right software, and manage your financial data on a monthly basis. We share detailed reports and work with you to make sure you have all the info you need to make smart scaling decisions!