The Smart Way to Begin Your Business: Is Small Wrong?

People ask, “How big is your company?” It is small talk, but they’re not looking for a small answer. The bigger the number, the more impressive, professional, and powerful you sound. “Wow, nice!” they’ll say if you have a hundred-plus employees. If you’re small, you’ll get an “Oh … that’s nice.” The former is meant as a compliment; the latter is said just to be polite.

Why is that? What is it about growth and business? Why is expansion always the goal? What’s the attraction of big besides ego? What’s wrong with finding the right size and staying there? Or at least being specialized and growing on that front with experience instead of size. So why is it the way we measure businesses?

Maybe the right size for your company is five people. Maybe it’s forty. Maybe it’s two hundred. Or maybe it’s just you and a laptop. Don’t make assumptions about how big you should be ahead of time. Grow slow and see what feels right as premature hiring is the death of many companies.

Avoid huge growth spurts they can cause you to skip right over your appropriate size.

Have you ever noticed that while small businesses wish they were bigger, big businesses dream about being more agile and flexible? And remember, once you get big, it’s really hard to shrink without firing people, damaging morale, and changing the entire way you do business.

Don’t let anyone make you feel insecure about being a small business. Anyone who runs a business that’s sustainable and profitable, whether it’s big or small, should be proud.

We Said This: Your Big May Not Be My Big But Hey Thats OK!.