If you’ve been busy running your business, there is a definite demand for your products and services. And if your firm is making a consistent profit, and that profit is growing each year, it also means you’re doing something right!
Over the years, you’ll have no doubt hired more employees to cope with the growing demand for the things you sell. Have you ever considered that your business has “leveled-up” and is now a large enterprise?
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You’ve probably been so busy running the day-to-day operations of your business that you’ve not likely seen how much your brand has grown! If these tell-tale signs apply to your company, your business is now a large enterprise:
1. You’re a leading employer in your town or city
Each town and city will have companies that have employed a significant amount of people from the local area. If those firms were to close down or move elsewhere, unemployment rates would skyrocket for those areas.
One way to determine if you now have an enterprise-level business is by the volume of people that you employ. You might have hundreds of local people working for you. But, you should also consider all the local firms that supply your business with goods and services.
2. Your premises take up an entire street
When you first started your business, you likely began your operations from a small, modest base. You might even have started your firm from a room in your home! As your business grew, you had to keep expanding your premises to meet continued demand.
Today, a cursory glance at your offices and logistics facilities reveals that your premises take up an entire street! There aren’t any small or even medium-sized firms that can admit that, so that’s another tell-tale sign your business is now at an enterprise level.
3. Your digital marketing budget is a five or six-figure sum
As a small startup firm, you’ll have balked at the thought of spending more than $100 on an Internet marketing campaign for your business. These days, with such consistent growth, you’re finding that you spend five or six-figure sums on targeted digital marketing each year.
The digital marketing agency you use will doubtless do a lot more than just set up some Google Ads for your business. It takes care of your branding, web design, and even helps you reach new markets in many countries around the world with localized content.
4. Your brand is often seen in the media
During the initial stages of your business, you will have thought that getting your name in the press was impossible. And with that thought in mind, you probably didn’t bother issuing press releases to the media.
Nowadays, your company is often featured in news articles by regional and national media outlets. You might even find your firm has been mentioned on television and radio on several occasions. When you issue a press release these days, the world’s media takes notice of it.
5. Your brand takes top place in search engine results
When you decided to set up your business, one of the challenges you’ll have faced was being the little guy. You’ll have spent your time trying to compete on an even footing with bigger and more established competitors.
During those early stages, your brand probably came up in the 157th page of search engine results in Google, Bing, and other search engines. But now the tides have turned in your favor, and your brand is number one on the first page of all relevant search results.
6. You can take time off work
As the owner of a startup business, you’ll usually find that you need to spend most of your waking hours doing work. Especially if you’re the sole employee of the firm, and you don’t have scores of customers.
You may have thought that you’d have to spend most of your life sacrificing your free time for your business. But, now that you’ve got an enterprise-level company, you can afford to take time off work without your business going to ruin!
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You’ve now reached the stage where you can hand over the day-to-day running of your business to other senior members or partners. You could now even come into work just once a week, and spend the rest of your time enjoying life.
7. You have realistic contingency plans for a major crisis
There’s no denying that the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus has caused widespread devastation for much of the world. At the time of writing this article, it’s thought around 14 million people were confirmed as having COVID-19.
The impact on many of the world’s economies was also extreme. In the United States, for example, many service industry workers ended up getting laid off because their employers couldn’t afford to pay them during state and federal-imposed lockdowns.
But, what’s interesting about the COVID-19 economic situation is that most enterprise-level companies didn’t need to lay off their staff. If your company has realistic contingency plans for such crises, it’s clear that you’ve also got an enterprise-level business.
8. Your staff want their friends and family to work for you
One of the great things about a well-run business is the happiness levels of employees within it. It’s no secret that some companies don’t care about their staff and merely consider them as disposable assets.
If you’ve noticed that your business is truly a family-run affair, it’s a sure sign that you’ve leveled-up to an enterprise – and a good one at that! Employees are the real assets of any business, and if you treat them well, they’ll want to go beyond the call of duty for your firm.
9. Someone wants to write a book about you
Book publishers have approached many of the world’s business leaders to pen their journeys to entrepreneurial success. Step into any bookstore, and you’ll find biographies on well-known people like Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg.
The thing that ties those four names together is the fact they’ve built successful and highly-profitable enterprise-level businesses. When you reach the enterprise stage of business, you’ll have publishers knocking on your door asking to write a book about you!
10. Your brand has a global physical presence
When you build a business from scratch, and it keeps going from strength to strength, it’ll soon become a well-known brand. But once you’ve become a leading figure in your country’s industry, the logical step is to expand overseas.
Brands that have a global physical presence, specifically ones that are in multiple countries, are typically large enterprises. So, if that describes your business, congratulations are in order – because you’re the owner of a large enterprise!
11. You get invited to events as an inspirational speaker
Being asked to speak to an audience of people at an industry or business event doesn’t automatically mean you have an enterprise-grade company.
It’s only if you get invited to talk about how you built a large, successful firm from nothing that means you’ve got an enterprise-level firm. Many CEOs and enterprise leaders get asked to give keynote speeches on how they got to where they are today.
Such individuals serve as an inspiration to startup firms in the industry, other business leaders, and those that aspire to be an entrepreneur.
12. Your company has a full-time R&D department
Believe it or not, one of the ways to recognize that your company has gone from small startup to large enterprise is when your brand is synonymous with innovation. Of course, to achieve and retain that status, you’ll need to come up with new products constantly.
Does your company have a full-time research and development team? If so, it’s a strong tell-tale sign that your brand has reached enterprise status, especially if that team take on inspired young people to help create the best new industry innovations.
13. Demand is always high for your products and services
You already know that making a consistent profit, having large premises, and being a top employer in many areas (and nations) are tell-tale signs that you run a large enterprise. But what is it that has given your brand that status in the first place?
The answer lies in the demand for your products and services. The fact that you constantly need to expand your market supply to cope with the growing demand is a sure sign that your company now has large enterprise status.
14. Other large companies want to buy your brand
Last but not least, do you keep having the CEOs and other stakeholders contact you and asking how much it would take for them to buy your business? Yes, you guessed it: another tell-tale sign that you’re running a large enterprise!
When you reach such a size in the business world, companies of a similar size might see you as a threat. Instead of competing with you, they’d rather buy your brand and its operations.
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