Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Businesses

multiple hires—as many as four or five—were sometimes necessary to find the right person for the positions of chief financial officer, HR officer, chief sales officer, and chief technology officer.

successful growth boosters include: 1. new products; 2. product upgrades; 3. adding services; 4. operating more efficiently; 5. new channels of distribution; 6. changing the customer experience; 7. pricing innovations; 8. branding innovations; 9. bundling products and services; 10. payment innovations; 11. different guarantees; 12. geographical exp

behavioral interviewing techniques, asking applicants to describe challenges faced and their responses or providing hypothetical situations for applicants to deal with.

Think about growth; focus strategically; put in place critical processes and controls involving quality, costs, cash flow, and customers; prioritize where you spend your time each day; and understand that growing a business is a learning, iterative, constant improvement way of living.

scale reactively or they can proactively plan for scaling.

entrepreneurs I interviewed unanimously reported a constant tension between closely monitoring the business’s bottom line in the short run and longer-term investing for the possibility of growth.

“Hire slowly and fire quickly.

Where should you start with putting processes in place? Focus on what behaviors and results are mission-critical or absolutely necessary for your success. That usually means quality, reputation, customers, and cash flow.

All senior staff at Leaders was required to read the management book First, Break All the Rules,17 which recommends that companies take advantage of people’s strengths by placing them in areas where they could succeed, instead of merely identifying their weaknesses and working to overcome them.