Is Your Company Growing?

If you don't plan your growth, you will grow weeds. Good, profitable growth comes from great customers.

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), a seven-year start-up, will be $124 million by 2028, currently about $500,000. This is what a first-generation business looks like!

A mature company that keeps re-energizing itself has a BHAG to be $1 billion by 2026. I started working with them in 2012 at $135 million. This is a second-generation company; two brothers, a CEO, and a CFO purchased the company from their father in 2010. Both brothers agreed, ‘No family will be in the business; we will grow it and sell it to a larger company,’ take our cash, and go home. Last week they reached $1 billion! It took ten years to grow the plan to $1 billion. Their next plan is $4 billion by 2030. They have no long-term debt!

How do you know if your strategic plan is good? You arrive ahead of schedule and with money left over!

The point of this story is not only to have goals but a strategic plan to execute those goals, lofty goals, stick to the plan, and be willing to do what it takes to make the plan work - you can’t do it alone.

How did they do it?

We did a talent assessment to see what we had for resources in the talent pool.

You can offer a license to establish a new market until you can own the market yourself.

Study your competition, where they are, and what resources they have. Determine where the wholes are in their business.

Develop three business models, and grow them separately (business units).

Hire the right leadership team, and reward them with the growth they will develop under their watch.

Develop your vital, devoted, dedicated employees (leadership structure development)

Develop a sales team rewarded for selling the ‘enterprise,’ not the individual division.

Develop an operating system that links all business models into a single process (salesforce.com)

Provide incentives to your customers to purchase all your services/products - across all divisions.

This company has done so well in its execution of the strategic plan we are now, including the third generation, a son, a daughter, and a nephew! Driving the future with talent, operations, and acquisitions. Will they make it?

Where are you with your BHAG and your execution strategy? Do you think your plan is good enough to gain traction and momentum?

Download our Free Growth Forumal template to start your long-term plan.

Mighty Underdogs is a private 501c3 delivering training, tools, and tutoring to small businesses under one million dollars.