We all either know and have experienced, or can imagine, the pain that comes along with growing a firm. From finding and keeping great people to building consistent processes for serving clients—responsibilities easily become overwhelming.

But growth doesn’t have to equal more pain.

The key is to start with ‘the end’ in mind.

‘The end’ is your dream. It’s your vision of success, your end-goal, the result that will make you feel like you’ve achieved all that you set out to do.

For some, ‘the end’ is a successful firm that runs without them, providing them with passive income.

Consider what ‘success’ really means to you, and ask yourself:

1. What passive income do I want to earn and at what age?

2. What does that translate to in terms of turnover and net profit?

3. What resources (staff and systems) do I need to support that turnover?

Two pillars for designing a firm for serious growth

1. Your growth blueprint and organizational chart

If growing your firm is your dream, then to realize it, you need to develop the right blueprint and organizational structure.

These include the key roles you need to fill to ensure you approach your firm’s growth with confidence instead of fear and angst. And the right organizational chart will help you develop people into the right roles.

A scalable organizational structure should be systems-depended, not people-dependent. This is more like a corporate structure where rather than depending on the talent of individual people, you’re relying on defined tasks, roles and accountability.

In this structure, you have job descriptions for each role and a documented process for each function. You can hold people accountable for their work and easily train a replacement if you lose someone.

When getting started, the reality is that you’re still going to be involved in many areas because: