Day-to-Day vs long Term Operation

While we always suggest having long-term goals, sometimes you need to think about the day-to-day aspect of business.

While this strategy is important in the start up world, it can sometimes be deadly in a corporation or for a scale-up organization.

In the startup world you have to live day-by-day because of cash flow, clients lost or gained, or other circumstances. While you are planning to scale-up you may need to rethink the long term vision versus the short term rewards.

Many people confuse the two.

Sometimes, as an entrepreneur, or leader of your organization, you may thing you are making great long-term decisions by thinking about short term gains. Those short term gains are vital in the survival mode of the startup or small business in the beginning. But as you continue to grow or plan to grow they become deadly because you are making decisions on things that are happening for the day while forgetting the long-term cause of the organization.

A good example would be taking on a client just to keep cash flow coming. While in survival mode or startup mode, that is important because you need cash to continue the business. In a scale-up operation, meaning that you are planning to or actively growing the business, it can become deadly because it can cause burnout for your internal resources.

When you scaling up, it’s important to focus on your strengths, do more of what you are good at, and find people who appreciate what you do and reward you for it. You might even have to let go of a customer you took on just to get your cash flow going. That decision or transition is not easy.

As you scale up, it becomes vital that the decision is clear.

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. What resources do you have that you want to scale up?

2. What resources do you have that you want to keep in place while you scale-up?

3. What other tools or resources have you used to move from startup to scale-up stage?