Stability is an underrated virtue for businesses in an age of massive startup-style scaling, disruption and unbounded growth with minimal revenue, but for many businesses, long term stability is something that’s more worth building for than the sort of massive funding injections startups pitch for, in the same that it’s more worth while building your personal finances around budgeting and saving than one day winning the lottery. With that in mind, today we’re taking a look at three things you can do to minimise chaos and ensure stability for your business.

Make a Plan for Growth

Growth is not the opposite of stability – you need to grow at a certain rate merely to stand still in a mutable market, with competitors jostling for a bite of your market share – but badly planned growth can invite chaos and upend your business.

Make a plan for how you want your business to grow – and how that growth can continue to express the core character of your brand so it remains consistent and attractive to customers. Growing your inventory simply because you can get a good deal on some new products, not because they’re a natural extension of your existing offering could be a costly mistake you never recover from.

It may be worth looking into growth consulting if you have the resources, as these specialists can help make sure you’re ready for growth without putting your stable and successful business at risk.

Know Your Capacity

Seesawing from burning your staff out to laying them off is no way to run a business, and it’s a sign of a manager who doesn’t know their capacity. If you don’t have an idea of quite simply how much work your business can do, both overall and department by department, you’re setting yourself for failure.

In an online retail business, you need to know how much stock you can make or buy, store, process and ship or you’re going to overwork your employees and disappoint your customers. Make sure you know what your capacity is, and that you’re able to work the majority of the time without pushing your business to burnout. Similarly, make sure the capacity of different departments is broadly aligned – if your sales team can sell far more than your warehouse can ship, something has gone wrong.

Know Your Market

You need to understand the conditions you’re selling into. Your market is made up of your customers, your competitors and the financial factors influencing them and you. Market research can help you understand all three, so it’s well worth investing in. If you do, then you’ll have some idea of what to do about major changes before they happen. It’s also worth your while to brainstorm what you’d do in the event of big market changes. For example, we’re currently looking at a huge cost of living increase that will raise your own costs while limiting your customer’s. If you haven’t already, it’s time to think about how you’d respond to that – developing new advertising that emphasises the value you provide, finding costs to cut, and possibly even new products that you can offer with a better margin or at a lower price point.