Category: Growth Guy Articles

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 5, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET Five years ago Eric Zuziak made a few minor changes to his website to be more visible to potential clients in other countries. After landing an architectural job in Beijing, leading to another in Dubai, today 50% of JZMK Partners‘ $11 million in revenue comes from international projects. More importantly, it helped him source capabilities, like 3D CAD designers in China, which make him much more competitive in his domestic market. And given the dramatic cutbacks in construction projects in the U.S. he doubts he would have survived without his international …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 5, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET Dr. Hermann Simon, my favorite growth company researcher, is at it again – racing around the globe (in Japan as I write this), sharing what he sees are the trends shaping the new decade. He was kind enough to let me preview his latest research and share the results. Here’s my interpretation of four of his trends most likely to impact growth firms: ACCELERATING GLOBALIZATION We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exporting. In 1950, world exports per capita were just six dollars. By 1980, …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 5, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET Who are the 250 most important relationships to your business? As you prepare your next strategic plan, ponder these four key questions: ARE YOU PLAYING NOT TO LOSE OR ARE YOU PLAYING TO WIN? That’s the strategic question George Kohlrieser, one of the world’s top hostage negotiators and author of Hostage at the Table, posed to 500 CEOs and their executives in Malaysia a few months ago. It’s likely the most important question leaders must ask themselves as globalization opens up local markets to more fierce competition. It’s time to move …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 5, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET It’s time to turn on your world-class marketing machine NOW and grab valuable territory. It’s time to crank up marketing!! Not only marketing for customers but for talent. You have to go back almost a decade to find a time when marketing was as badly needed as it is today. During a recent world wind tour from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Bangalore to Brisbane, I met hundreds of wicked smart mid-market growth firms that see no boundaries and fear no competitors. And with an additional 2 billion people transitioning into the …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 5, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET Nothing improves cash flow (CFOs are fans) and revenue more than reducing your sales cycle time. Decisions equal success – and there are four decisions, in growing your business, that you must get right or risk leaving significant revenues, profits, and time on the table. These four decisions: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. Even though most growth firms face continual challenges in all four areas, at any one time the challenges in one of these areas overshadows the rest. Therefore, your first decision is to choose which one of the …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 1, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET Nothing improves cash flow (CFOs are fans) and revenue more than reducing your sales cycle time. In preparing for our Sales and Marketing Summit and visiting with some of the world’s top sales and marketing thought leaders, as well as CEOs whose firms are seeing dramatic increases in revenue during this downturn, several actionable ideas have emerged which you can act on immediately. DRAMATICALLY REDUCE SALES CYCLE TIME The first is from Dr. Victoria Medvec, negotiations expert from Northwestern University and author of the series High Stakes Negotiation: Ten Steps for …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 1, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET … create a Squidoo page (as the expert in your industry), launch a column, or start a wiki. “Without a doubt, the blog we started (www.communitysecurity. blogspot.com) has been met with the most incredible reaction from our clients,” exclaims Mike Jagger, President of Vancouver based Provident Security. I continue my campaign to get CEOs and their firms to control the INK in their industry. Last column I pushed books. This column I’m pushing leaders to start a blog, create a Squidoo page (as the expert in your industry), launch a column, …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 1, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET It’s the single greatest marketing tool you can create to attract customers, employees, and industry attention, besides making your children and extended family proud!!! “Writing a book has provided the single greatest return on investment than any other business decision I have ever made in the history of the company,” exclaims Todd Hopkins, CEO of Indianapolis-based Office Pride and author of Five Wisdoms for Entrepreneurial Survival. Whoever controls the INK in an industry controls the industry. For years I’ve been encouraging CEOs to write a book. It’s the single greatest marketing tool you …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 1, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET … companies which equally focus on three key stakeholders (customers, employees, and shareholders) dramatically outperform companies which emphasize one over the others. Four times the revenue growth, twelve times the stock performance, and over 700 times the profit growth over an eleven year period. What competitive advantage led to this huge margin in performance of one group of companies over another in similar industries? In a landmark study of over 200 firms by Harvard professors John Kotter and James Heskett, it was found that companies which equally focus on three …

By: Verne Harnish “Growth Guy” Oct 1, 2010 1:00:00 PM ET The challenge is balancing all the complexities of strategy while keeping it coherent and simple. It’s no secret that the recession has decimated the building industry the last few years. But Jeff Booth’s company, BuildDirect.com, isn’t hurting. It sells building materials at a steep discount through its website, thanks to arrangements to ship directly from manufacturers. “It’s almost like an online Costco of building materials,” says Booth, president and CEO. Expecting his sales to increase by more than 20% this year, Booth has increased his staff by about 10% to 53 …