Strategy is important, but strategy with execution is better!

The world is full of clairvoyants, savants, mind readers, business experts, and your drunken uncle who know everything there is to know about growing your business.

If I never read another company mission statement that says "our management team is committed to our customer's and employee's growth," I will die a happy, Sicilian boy.

Of course you are committed to your customers and employees, otherwise you wouldn't be in business long. Yet, I have sat in meetings with CEO's who spent days theorizing on the right words to use to describe in their mission and vision statements while their customer support, business offerings and employees were unstable and not functioning well.

Businesses today need less talk . . . and more action.

In the real world:

Strategy is important,
but strategy with execution is better!

When it comes to business growth recommendations, everyone has their opinion, but who should you believe?

Here are some examples of growth strategies that have been implemented:

• Don Keough, former President and Chief Operating Officer of Coca-Cola, followed these strategies . . . for no business growth:
  1. Quit taking risks.
  2. Be content.
  3. Before you make a move , always ask yourself "What will the investors think?"
  4. Avoid change.
  5. Be totally inflexible -- stay on your current course no matter what.
  6. Rely totally on research and experts to make decisions for you.
  7. Be more concerned about status and brand than service.
  8. Concentrate on your competitor instead of your customers.
  9. Put yourself first in everything you do, ahead of your customers and suppliers.
  10. Memorize the formula: "TGE -- That's Good Enough" to set a ceiling of quality.
      
      Then add a bonus rule:
      
      
  11. Find ways to rationalize why your business is growing so slowly.
      
      
      
• Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, followed these rules for growth:
  1. Commit with passion to your business.
  2. Share profits with your employees.
  3. Motivate your partners. Money and ownership are not enough.  Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.
  4. Communicate everything to your employees. The more they know, the more they will understand. Information is power and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets any risk of informing your competitors.
  5. Show appreciation for a job well done.
  6. Celebrate success and in those inevitable failures, find some humor. Don't take it so seriously.
  7. Listen to everyone in your company, especially the ones who actually talk to customers. They really know what is going on out there.
  8. Exceed your customers' expectations and they will always come back.
  9. Control your expenses better than your competition.
  10. Swim upstream. If everyone else is going one way, there is a good chance you can find your business niche by going the opposite way.
      
      
      
• Value Forward BDM News recommends these growth strategies:
  1. Dominate vertical industries to become horizontal.
  2. Sell based on your value, not your competition's price.
  3. Manage your company by metrics and P&L's -- not by emotion and hope.
  4. Integrate sales, marketing and strategy into one revenue program.
  5. Put your business value in front of you by forcing  your customers to see you as a thought leader (or industry leader) so they take the initiative to buy, instead of you having to sell them.
  6. Give 5% of your value away for free -- so your prospects buy 95% from you at retail (remember, you control what retail is).
  7. Calculate return on investment for every department and manage your business by it.
  8. Maximize your business profitability by increasing your inventory turns and maximizing your client's lifetime value. If you sell services, your staff and you are the inventory and it must be turned (sold more).
  9. Listen to your customers, consultants, employees, competitors and your gut feelings when making management decisions . . . but don't let your gut feeling be controlled by your ego.
  10. Remember strategy is important, but strategy with execution is better.
  11. Never be a generalist; generalists live in a commodity world.
  12. Your total corporate revenue should include at least 35% business from new prospects each year. When you are tied only to your existing customers for revenue growth, your success is tied to their ability to buy or not to buy.
  13. If you are a family-run business, remember your family may not be the best employees.
  14. The intellectual property or the most valuable assets of your business are not the products or services you sell - it is the strength of your sales and marketing distribution channel.
  15. Channel or reseller programs always fail if your direct sales and marketing programs are weak.
  16. Mission and vision statements are wasted thought if execution is not implemented.
  17. Organic growth is always cheaper than buying companies. Without organic growth processes in place, acquired investments usually fail.
  18. Marketing without lead generation is a wasted investment.
  19. Value first, brand second.
  20. It is not what you sell -- it is what your customers buy.

Based on the 41 suggestions above (both positive and negative on techniques to grow your business), you need to draw conclusions based on those methodologies that fit your needs.

"The person who says it can't be done, should not interrupt the person doing it." Chinese  proverb

Writers Resource Box