3 Common Business Growth Fears

There are multiple benefits to running a business from your own home: the freedom from a commute, the lower costs, and much more besides. However, if your home business becomes successful, you will inevitably need to think about branching out and expanding – moving into dedicated premises, and taking your business to the next level in every conceivable way.

While the need to grow and expand is undoubtedly exciting, it is nevertheless rather daunting. If you are in this situation, you will likely find yourself experiencing a mix of delight at your success, but also no small amount of fear over what the future may hold. To ensure your business can reach its full potential, you will need to overcome these fears – and to help you do just that, below, we have listed the three most common business growth fears, and how you can manage them.

The fear of new property responsibilities

Running a business from home is relatively simple compared to moving into dedicated premises, as much of the management of the property – electricity bills, heating maintenance and management, taxes – is taken care of as part of your overall home management. If you move into dedicated premises, you will assume the burden of these responsibilities for two properties, which can be very concerning indeed.

However, it’s important to remember that you’re essentially utilizing a skill set you already have. You know how to run a domestic property, so you’ll be able to take to running a business property with ease. Provided you set time in your schedule for property management, you should find the process far easier than you initially expect.

The fear of more complex IT and technology

Many home based businesses can be run with a laptop and an internet connection; there’s no need to worry about maintaining a network that is used by multiple employees, and most tech issues you experience can usually be troubleshot with a few Google searches. However, as your business grows, your technology usage will have to grow also, which can feel like you are entering a complex world.

Thankfully, there are ways and means of ensuring that the tech burden you experience remains manageable; you can see more about IT managed services, and hire dedicated IT staff to manage your growing tech needs. As your business grows, you do not need to master every aspect of the company – in fact, one of the greatest advantages of expansion is being able to delegate to experts, leaving you free to focus on the areas that matter most to you.

The fear of change

Thus far, we have focused on specific fears entrepreneurs encounter when considering expanding their business – but we also wanted to acknowledge that, sometimes, the fear isn’t specific. It’s more of a general fear; a fear of doing something different, branching out into new ways of working, and changing a business that you have come to rely on and enjoy.

The solution to a general fear of change can vary between people, but one thing that will benefit almost everyone is life coaching. Life coaching offers a natural outlet for your concerns, supporting you through the expansion process and as you adapt to your business’ new way of being. While expanding may be the right decision on paper, it also has to feel like the right decision, so you can find out more about finding the right life coach for you, trying a few sessions, and then you can look forward to being ready to embrace whatever the future may hold.

In conclusion

I hope that the above should help you to navigate the common fears home business owners experience when considering expanding, and instead allow you to simply enjoy the next phase of your business’ development.