A one-person company is the most scalable kind of company. The only way to be more scalable than that is to not have a company at all.

In a one-person company, if you can sell, source, deliver, and repeat a good or service and consistently make money, you’re perfectly scalable. But when I talk about all the people, roles, and titles that factor into the scalable model, a lot of owners are led to think they aren’t scalable because they don’t have 35+ employees.

You probably don’t need or want 35 employees. You probably only need five to 10.

There’s a reason I discuss larger companies so often. It’s much harder to get a large organization — particularly an older one — with many roles, titles, and people, some of whom have worked there for 20+ years, to move toward a scalable model. They’re carrying too much baggage.

But if I can get these companies to pivot to a scalable model, they can grow their revenue without growing overhead. They don’t have to shed a person as long as they can move everyone into roles more suited to a scalable business.

That intimidates some smaller companies I work with because they don’t have five different people filling a particular role. The owners are often the ones who fill these roles. They sometimes have to go out to job sites.

That’s okay. You can be scalable and wear many different hats. That’s what small business owners do. Their key employees also wear hats that transcend the scalable model’s spheres.

The key is knowing how to be scalable, and executing it.

Keys to Scalability in a Small Business

Here’s how to be scalable if you have five to 10 people on your payroll.

Embrace each individual’s highest level of contribution.

Sometimes, in a small company, you want the person who’s best at everything to do it all. Maybe you’re that person.

Let go of that idea.

Of the things this person (even if it’s you) is really good at, what are the things you can’t do without? What are the things somebody else can’t do? Those things are the person’s highest level of contribution.

If you narrow it down to, say, three things, they can’t be in conflict. Nobody can be in three places at once. Choose one. There may be other roles this person can fulfill, as long as they can still devote the necessary time to their key role.

For example, maybe you have a fantastic production manager who’s good at planning. They’re great at talking to clients, and they run an awesome show site. What the rest of your team does determines their highest level of contribution.

The production manager can still support sales, or the show site, without making it their primary job.

Perhaps the production manager is good at planning and making sure every job goes well. If they’re good at training other production managers to do what they do, that would be their highest level of contribution.

Now take a look at the rest of the team. How do you backfill the processes this production manager won’t spend as much time on?

Don’t overlook outsourcing for execution. You only need to get drawings done, organize staffing crews, or run job sites for a short period. A person’s highest level of contribution will always be for the long haul.

(Side note: If you’re assigning an individual to a show job to save money at the risk of planning or selling a future job, you’ve gone off the rails. You’ve made a short-term decision for money rather than a long-term decision that helps all present and future jobs.)

Develop systems and processes to handle peak loads.

Develop the systems and processes you need to handle peak loads, but let part-timers help. This means your core employees handle the quotes, orders, inventory, planning systems, sub-rentals, staffing, logistics, and prep.

Look at your annual calendar. Say you’ve got five to seven months of reliable business where you know your core team will be steadily engaged. Plan for those months. You don’t need anybody on your core team who isn’t busy for those five to seven months.

Develop systems and processes for slow months that allow you to be consistently successful when you’re busy. When you’re busy, the team in the office making sure everything goes well shouldn’t shrink.

If you’re pulling people off their highest and best use job because you need extra talent on a job site during the busy season, you haven’t developed your systems and processes well enough to put the right people in the field without stealing from your overhead team.

Having said that, I’ll give everybody a pass. There are always emergencies to be addressed. Sometimes people just need to get out of the office, and customers may want to see their favorite person on your team. But if you’ve got a solid core team, anybody on that team should be able to take a vacation, even if it’s out working on a show for a few days.

The key is knowing what the rule is and that the rule is the best practice. Don’t break it without justification. When you do, you know you’re breaking the rule and that you’ll pay a price for it later.

Build your bench.

Look at all the jobs you do in a given year. What does every job need? Your process will answer this question.

If you’re from a traditional project manager system, you’ll conclude that 90% of your jobs need a project manager. Can you change your processes and reduce the need for a project manager, or can you widen your bench of project managers?

Does it make sense to hire more project managers full-time? Of course not. This means you need to be able to outsource project managers during peak times. It also means your systems and processes must be refined in such a way as to support an outside project manager.

Getting your planning processes sorted out and building your bench go hand-in-hand. You can’t do one without the other. You can have a couple project managers on your team who do a lot of shows, but maybe they do less of the shows they’re in charge of and instead move from show to show.

These are the people who help you train and validate the bench of project managers to make sure you’re putting a consistent product into the field. You rely on them to build your bench by being out in the field and strengthening the supply chain. You leverage them into oversight and procurement.

The Formula

I talk a lot about how to scale down an overstaffed company. But for small, growing businesses, scaling is an additive process.

A team of one is in perfect balance. When you get busy, you add a second person. What will this other person do? More than likely, they’ll handle operations or delivery. They’re a project manager, production manager, or a crew chief.

As the company grows, you’ll split again. Maybe you add somebody to the warehouse. As the business grows more, maybe you add a full-time administrator or a second warehouse facilitator. As you keep splitting, where you add people reflects the business you’re in, the clientele you have, and the product markets you serve.

You may have more people dedicated to selling. You may have a production manager still on staff. You may have more admin. At this point, you might build a planning and ops team, which would expand your capacity.

Every time you add a new position, you expand your capacity while maintaining quality. Very often, that doesn’t mean adding salespeople. If you support the sales process well enough through effective planning and resources, salespeople don’t need to be involved in delivery. This means they have more time to sell.

Here’s an example:

And so on.

Every time there’s a bottleneck in one role, a new role is added. The connection between selling and execution widens. Density lowers, so the center of gravity moves up.

Or, you focus on excellent processes and great outsourcing.

The Balance Model:

An example of the formula in action.

Colby Collier of CNS Productions has five full-time employees.

He focuses on planning and staffing so he doesn’t need to go out and make sure every job goes well. Poor planning is why owners have to micromanage.

Here’s how I helped Colby master scalability.

Conclusion

A one-person company is the most scalable, but a 35-person company can be, too. Whether your business is small or large, scalability will make it more successful at every level.

It’s not about size. It’s about savvy.