Want to quickly scale up your operations? Ask yourself these 3 questions first.

Rapid growth isn't all it's made out to be. But try telling that to ambitious small business owners. According to a 2022 Guidant study, small business leaders have scaling in mind. This year, 51% of small business owners want to recruit more employees and 41% plan to expand or redesign. The problem is that bigger isn't always better for business. Sometimes it's best to take the more stable scenic route to the top.

What are the risks of expanding rapidly before you have a solid foundation in place? A major issue is the burden this places on your staff members. Employees often feel the stress when their company goes into overdrive mode. This leaves them facing burnout and perhaps more eager to join the Great Resignation.

Another problem with growing too fast can be a decrease in customer service. Let's say you go from 100 to 200 customers in three months. On paper, that sounds exciting. But what does doubling your customer base look like in real life? Do you have the tools, processes, and people to maintain world-class support for every customer? Or will your reputation deteriorate as your service crumbles?

A final (and financial) conundrum that many leaders fail to anticipate is the cost of expanding operations. It may take a lot of upfront money to accelerate growth. Often, leaders end up having to make sudden budget decisions that drain their funds. For example, rapid expansion might require completely new spending. These expenses could cause profit margins to evaporate.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't consider getting fat. Just ask yourself the following questions to make sure this is your best shot:

1. Will you and your team feel comfortable taking on more work?

There's a lot to be said for being pragmatic in terms of feeling secure in order to evolve. Staying small for a while might be a smarter strategy, especially if everyone on your team is overloaded. Until you get help from new employees or contractors, you might want to stay the course instead of stepping on the accelerator.

Of course, as a leader, you might be nagged by the idea that you have to constantly strive to do more and be better. Alison Gutterman, CEO of Jelmar, the family-owned cleaners maker of CLR and Tarn-X products, talks about staying realistic when determining the limits of your reach.

At the same time, she advises not to underestimate what's possible, even if you don't hire more staff. “Whenever I speak in public, whether in discussion groups, at leadership conferences or in front of students, I explain where I sell our products and who our competitors are,” she says. "I then ask the audience to guess how many people work in the company. I always get a wide variety of answers, ranging from a million people (a fourth-grader) to hundreds or thousands of people. People are shocked to know that we are a staff of 20, which we have just reached this year, whether it is customers we sell to retail, industrial customer or real user of our products, people are impressed that we can do so much with a small team."

Imagine what "enough" looks like for your business. What is reasonable? How much leeway do your team members have to push the boundaries of opportunity? You may find that eating the pie one bite at a time allows you to scale steadily without unnecessary growing pains.

2. What does your budget look like?

As mentioned before, you can't grow fast if you don't have a good handle on your budget. Triple your workforce will not necessarily triple your income, for example. This will get you more people on the payroll, but won't necessarily do anything good for your bottom line.

Consider your budget carefully. Rationalization before...