Scaling A Small Business: Craig Goodliffe’s Advice On How To Do It Right

Scaling A Small Business: Craig Goodliffe's Advice On How To Do It Right

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Craig Goodliffe, CEO and Founder of Cyberbacker, who discussed his inspiration for starting the company, the best ways to scale a small business, the precautions that small businesses should take to ensure that their KPIs and ROIs are aligned, tools that help small business owners develop emotional intelligence, and the most efficient methods of customer acquisition.

Craig Goodliffe is an entrepreneur, job creator, and CEO/Founder of Cyberbacker, the leading provider of virtual assistance and administrative support services from anywhere in the world to anyone in the world. Goodliffe is a member of the Forbes Business Council and shares his insight as a MAPS coach who helps clients earn seven-figure incomes. Cyberbacker is changing the lives of small business owners and remote workers through world-class business solutions.


What motivated you to create Cyberbacker, the industry’s top supplier of virtual assistant services? And what do you hope to accomplish through your work?

Simply helping out a friend working from the moment she woke up until she went to bed, seven days a week. She asked how I was doing more than her, and I had my nights and weekends off too. I told her I had a great assistant, and I helped her find a great assistant. 

Then someone asked me for help in one of the communities I was in. I learned that many other people were also working from when they woke up in the morning to when they went to bed seven days a week. And truthfully, they needed help. So that’s what I set out to help with first!


Considering that so many companies use a remote work model or are experimenting with hybrid models, what do you think are the most effective strategies to scale a small business?

I think the most effective strategy to scale a small business is to look to prioritize key performance indicators over hours spent working. If you meet each week to review the KPIs, you are able to identify what is and what is not working. When you micromanage time and you start getting into how people use one hour of their time, we notice a lot of micromanagement, and people end up dreading that work model, whether it’s remote or in-office. 


What steps should small businesses take to make sure their KPIs and ROIs are in aligned? And what are the potential means of doing so?

To make sure  KPIs and ROIs are aligned, KPI has to go ahead and translate into revenue at some point. Each hire should bring in a very calculated ROI to your business. If they don’t, your KPIs and ROIs are not aligned correctly. To calculate this, I recommend creating a flowchart or a step-by-step process. This process should build the recipe for the job and what you’re expecting it to do. This helps leaders visualize the end-to-end process. 


What elements do you think help small business owners develop emotional intelligence? How would these help them?

When you’re going to develop your emotional intelligence, you also have to start developing your emotional awareness. Your emotional awareness is how aware you are of what you’re feeling and how aware you are of what other people are feeling, and the average person can only identify a small handful of emotions. It’s important to understand the emotions, know how they’re labeled, and know what you’re experiencing before you can understand what other people are experiencing, and that increases your level of empathy


What are the strategic steps to build a human-centric company from the ground up? And why do you think small businesses need to offer mentorship opportunities?

The first and most important thing is setting clear expectations, and number two, hiring to those expectations. This is not very human-centric, but setting clear expectations for your workforce and finding the right person is where it starts. If you can get that right. It’s easier to go ahead and make everything else more human centric from there. 

Another important element is transparency. You can’t fake it; you care about people at the end of the day or you don’t. Just because you choose not to be in business with someone, or they’re not right for the position, doesn’t mean they matter any less as a human being or they have any less rights than a human being should. 


Scaling A Small Business: Craig Goodliffe's Advice On How To Do It Right

What do you think small business offer mentorship?

 I think every single week, the leader of the company needs to be in front of their people talking about their personal development, their personal growth, and sharing with others what that has done for them. In companies where they can see that the leader is a learner, the people in the company are more likely to seek opportunities to learn as well. When they don’t know if the leader is growing and learning, when they don’t see them as someone who is like them, then it’s harder for them to want to go ahead and operate at the same level.


What, in your opinion, will be the most effective customer acquisition tactics for small businesses in 2023?

Number one, I would get clear on what problem my business solves. It’s important to remember that when there are fewer choices, people are more likely to choose. So don’t try to solve every problem. Just just take one, two, or maybe three problems that you’re going to solve and then look for the people who have those problems. Another important element is that if it’s too big or broad of a market, it’s gonna be harder to break through. The more focus you put into identifying who your target customer is and what problem you solve for them, that is going to lead to better customer acquisition. 

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