Four Questions to Ask Before Scaling Your Business

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“Things are either growing or dying” is a famous quip. While it’s unclear who said it first, it’s been used regularly at business conferences to fire up audiences over the last few decades. The speaker often follows it up with a list of suggestions like “five tips to start scaling your sales”. However, it turns out one of the most dangerous things you can do is to prematurely start to focus on scaling.

This may seem like an odd statement coming from a entrepreneur turned venture capitalist and professor who has spent the last few years in my role at Carnegie Mellon studying scaling startups and teaching a popular graduate course titled The Science of Growth that was recently turned in as a book.

I’m a big fan of scaling up innovative ideas and making sure they have as much impact as possible. In our research, to try and understand the critical success factors of scaling a startup, we followed the journeys of 10 well-known companies, ranging from modern marvels like Tesla, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn all the way back to the retail juggernaut McDonalds – and then contrasts each story with that of a lesser-known startup that was created at about the same time, with a similar product, targeting the same market.

From these cases, we came to appreciate that there were a set of four what we call ‘prerequisites’ that startups needed to focus on BEFORE growth. Just as you can’t take calculus before basic arithmetic, these are the essential foundational elements of any startup before the entrepreneurs turn their attention to growth.

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About the Author

Sean AmmiratiSean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Pittsburgh, PA, and Palo Alto, CA, and is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. Before that, he was the COO of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, a big data SaaS company that was the first acquisition of LinkedIn.

What Is the Best Mindful Business Strategy?

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Mindfulness garners a lot of recent attention. Wisdom 2.0, a conference that blends mindfulness with technology, leadership, and culture, hosted over 2,400 participants earlier this year. Attendees come from all over the world to learn and engage in developing meaningful mindfulness practices.

A new area for mindfulness is how business strategies are developed. Strategy development and mindfulness are a great combination, and the best mindful business strategy starts with a simple concept – Be present.

Being present is a simple idea. However, many businesses are not present, especially when it comes to making a decision and moving forward with a strategy. The next generation of leaders are using mindful practices to gain meaningful results.

Strategically Stuck

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About the Author

Jon MertzJon Mertz is one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business and highlighted as one of the Leaders to Watch in 2015 by the American Management Association. He also is the author of Activate Leadership: Aspen Truths to Empower Millennial Leaders. Jon serves as vice president of marketing at Corepoint Health. Outside of his professional life, Jon brings together a community to inspire Millennial leaders and close the gap between two generations of leaders. Follow him on Twitter @ThinDifference or Facebook /ThinDifference

The End Of Long-Term Planning

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At the end of a particularly long and grueling strategy meeting with the executive team of a major consumer services business, Alan, the chief executive officer, turned to me and said, “Living quarter by quarter is madness, but in a few years’ time people will laugh at us for developing three-year plans.” He was right. With the pace of business change today, driven by technology and globalization, long-term plans last about as long as an ice storm in the desert. As military experts put it, plans rarely survive contact with the enemy.

Despite these new realities, many executive teams remain stuck with 20th-century approaches to strategy development. It is still common for companies to take six months or more to develop their new growth strategies. This prolonged, inefficient and largely ineffective approach — involving colossal data analysis projects, the creation of a series of 100-slide decks, and periodic executive meetings where directors are presented with findings and recommendations to comment on – may suit consultants looking to maximize fees, and even some executives who want to look as if they’re in control, but it does little to help businesses succeed in fast-changing markets.

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About the Author

Stuart CrossStuart Cross helps market-leading businesses such as Walgreens Boots Alliance, Masco Inc. and Aimia Inc. to accelerate growth. His new book, First & Fast: Outpace Your Competitors, Lead Your Markets and Accelerate Growth, is out now. Find out more at www.morgancross.co.uk.

Strategic Plan(ning) for Organizations: Reviewing, Refining, Repeating

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Proper alignment between your values, your vision, and your company is important in steering your company. Making strategy a process rather than a statement is a key to success.

Focus on the process, not the plan

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About the Author

Theo EtzelW. Theodore “Theo” Etzel III is the author of Invest Your Heartbeats Wisely: Practical, Philosophical, and Principled Leadership Concepts for Business and Life. He’s a native Floridian and president and CEO of Conditioned Air which he grew from a $2.7 million operation to a $46 million, 330-person organization.

What You Need to Take Your Company into the Global Marketplace

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What You Need to Take Your Company into the Global Marketplace
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

A lot of people like to develop their companies into national brands. But, then they are unsure of how to grow or expand any further. Becoming an international brand is really a sign that you have ‘made it’. So many business owners are unsure how to take their companies to this coveted next level. These are just a few of the things necessary to take your company into the global marketplace.

Vision

Expanding a brand and taking it international is an exact science. It needs to be done properly at the first time of asking. It’s essential that you get it right so you have a successful transition. The ways to do this is to have a strong and clear vision of what you want to achieve. All business owners need to have a vision, and that should be applied here as well. Whether you’re trying to launch a product like a rock star or come up with a business plan, you need vision. With the right vision, a person can accomplish anything. And by working towards your business vision, you will find success in the foreign marketplace.

Money

One thing you will need when it comes to international expansion is money, and lots of it. The cost of running a business is high, but that’s the price entrepreneurs pay for working for themselves. But, the costs of taking a company into the global marketplace are even higher. Sometimes it will be necessary to take out a business loan to help with the transition. Visiting the Business Lender Match website and other sites provide information on business loans. You shouldn’t attempt to globalize your company without having the necessary capital behind you.

Diverse Staff

When attempting to crack the foreign market it’s important to equip your business accordingly. One of the best courses of action to take would be to ensure a diverse staff base. Think about how beneficial it’s going to be to grow the business in a country where you have people who understand the language and culture. This is so essential in helping you succeed and tackle any issues you may face from the global marketplace. So try to start integrating these staff into the business as soon as you can.

Versatility

It pays in the business world to be as versatile as possible. The best businesses are those who grow through evolution and adaptation. It’s pretty clear that the world is changing at a rapid rate. And, for your business to succeed it will need to change with the industry, and the economy. So, always attempt to ensure you have the most versatile business you possibly can. This is the key to how you develop and grow. In the foreign marketplace, it’s even more pivotal to be adaptable and versatile. You may need to change elements of your brand in order to succeed so you must be prepared to do that.

There comes a time in business when it is necessary for growth and expansion. Many companies reach this juncture but are unaware of how to proceed because they haven’t planned. If you harbor ambitions of cracking that elusive foreign market anytime soon so you should plan your strategy as soon as possible.