Sustaining Growth

 

Mastering Essentials: Here is an overview of the 7 basic Essentials, along with questions that TFA^Groupwill address for you:

 

Essential No. 1: Create breakthrough value propositions.

Focus on delivering higher-order benefits or "exceptional value" as perceived by customers. Particularly during changing economic cycles, consider having a management off site to creatively and candidly address these questions:

• With customers redefining their needs and desired benefits for the challenging times ahead, how can your service or product become the #1 most desired in your industry or market category?

• What advantages have you identified by listening to your best customers and those of your competitors?

• What actions could you take to create an improved or new "exceptional value" differentiator for your company?

 

Essential No. 2: Exploit a high-growth market segment.

While the overall economy may now be heading toward slow growth, you need to search for the high-growth market segments within your industry or economic sector. Start by answering the following questions:

• While many large markets can be stagnant, how innovatively are you redefining or identifying market segments that present growth opportunities?

• What insights can you learn from new customers that will enable you to identify which products or services are required to deliver exceptional value to address unmet needs?

• If you can redefine the value zone between your most important customers and your company, can you then create an explosive market opportunity? How will you specifically break down this huge aspiration?

 

Essential No. 3: Recruit marquee customers to fuel exponential revenue growth.

Such customers don't just buy—they are an extension of your sales force (and, really, your advertising and PR) as they pro-actively spread the word about their positive experience with your company. The remarkable value added by Marquee Customers can be realized by reflecting on the following questions:

• While all companies have customers, how well are you developing your best customers to become marquee customers? Do you fully understand what determines a customer becoming marquee to your company?

• To accelerate new products and services to fuel growth, how are you refining new innovations through the lens of your marquee customers?

• How are you leveraging your best customers to not only buy from your company but sell to other prospective customers, reduce your sales cycle in half, and significantly reduce your costs for sales and marketing? And what are you doing, in return, to repay their good gestures?

 

Essential No. 4. Leverage big brother alliances to break into new markets.

Big companies cannot invent every product or service they need to grow, and small companies need alliances with bigger companies in order to break into new markets. A unique alliance pairing—I call them Big Brother and Little Brother Alliances—pairs a large corporation with a smaller innovative firm. While leveraging alliances is a difficult essential to execute, answering these questions will get you thinking in the right direction:

• While alliances can be tricky to execute due to the asymmetric size between Big and Little Brother partners, how well are you leveraging supply and channel alliances to break into new markets?

• How well are you identifying, forming, and building truly trust-based alliances to ensure a long-term win-win relationship?

• If you are struggling to find the right partner, are there opportunities to leverage marquee customer relationships to serve as a matchmaker?

 

Essential No. 5. Become the master of exceptional returns.

The best-run high-growth companies are cash-flow positive early and generate more cash as they grow. They generate a high return on capital invested and often have no or little long-term debt as they fuel growth from profits.
Here are three questions on the crucially important issue of achieving profitability balancing the ability to reinvest in order to grow:

• If your business is saddled with disproportionate long-term debt and low profitability, are you urgently focusing on a turnaround?

• Which management approach best represents how you are achieving profitability from gross margin earned: over invest, cut costs, or balance profitability with reinvesting to grow?

• How well is your decision-making process working that balances profitability with reinvesting to grow?

 

Essential No. 6: Apply inside-outside leadership to the entire management team.

One of the pivotal essentials that enables the other essentials to be simultaneously executed is a dynamic leadership pairing in which one leader (or team) faces outward toward markets, customers, alliances, and the community, while the other leader (or team) focuses inward to optimize operations.
Here are three questions to reflect on, engage with your team or discuss with your (potential) other half:

• Whether you are running a company or in middle management, are you paired up with a counterpart who complements your talents? If you don't think so, have your considered clarifying your roles with a trusted partner? Alternatively, are you competing with peers for survival or the next promotion can you have a team meeting to discuss values and culture?

• If you are a "Jack of All Trades" working operational and customer facing initiatives, can you achieve higher performance by focusing much more on either inside or outside initiatives, and then forming a partnership with a trusted counterpart to do the other half of the equation?

• How well are your company's structure, management objectives, and incentives leveraging inside-outside management pairs? For example, do you think sharing the same objectives and incentives across inside and outside pairs is a productive approach?

 

Essential No. 7. Stack your board of directors with essentials experts.

Boards dominated with investors and management tend to be associated with companies that struggle in the long term. Balance your board with customers, alliance partners and, a CEO who has led a growth company through up and down economic cycles.
Ask yourself and your top management:

• How well are you finding, and then incorporating strategy advice, from customers, alliance partners, and "C" level executives (for example, a CEO) who have led growth businesses larger than yours?

• If your board of directors (either formally or virtually) is currently dominated with investors and management team members, what are you doing to better educate them on growth principles?

• Especially during downturns, is your board being renewed with new members who bring fresh experiences, perspectives and contacts?
  Are growth companies applying these 7 Essentials today? You bet. Address these 7 Essentials with TFA^Group to see how you measure up against the performance of the World Highest Growth Companies.

back