Archive for 'Scaling'

Our Boston workshop on Scaling is only 2 weeks away so let’s remind ourselves of the key issues! Well let’s define scaling in terms of sales growth. Let’s say you are on a path of scaling from $5m to $75m. Let’s assume you are not growing at say 25% per annum, or if you are, your ...

Scaling a business is not the same as growing a business because there’s more to it than that. Otherwise everyone would scale! Scaling implies alignment, control, predictability, fast growth but with safety.

Reasons why owners/management fail to scale

1. Black Elk Energy grew revenue from $13m in 2008 to $340m in 2011 but in their ...
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The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.

As you build your business you should consider sales and marketing strategies that capitalise on the NAICS codes.

We are currently scaling several ...

Source youreconomy.com

In 2012 the venture capital industry invested $26Bn in the US market, in 3698 firms at an average investment of $7m (NVCA). These were directed at start up companies. Approximately 40% of these firms will fail so it’s not an investment arena for the faint-hearted. Given only around 6000 companies ...

To scale your business whatever size it’s important to know your landscape. These two graphs and table will give you a head start in understanding the US business market and you can decide what’s small. I’ve ignored the 21.4 million non payroll solo entrepreneurs from this analysis and instead concentrated on the 5.9m firms that employ 120m employees.

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So what are the secrets of scaling a business? Well let’s define scaling in terms of sales growth. Let’s say you are on a path of scaling from $5m to $75m. Let’s assume you are not growing at say 25% per annum, or if you are, your have concerns that the situation is stable, controlled and ...

As you scale your businesses it’s important to prioritize your actions but first you need to audit for leakage. It can occur anywhere in the connected body you call your business. Think of scaling in it’s very basic form as a sequential set of events. If you had the chance to stop the engine and restart the business it would feel like this.

Defining who you want to be drives what ...

It seems the world is fascinated by demographics. Certainly the Japanese have more reason than most: The Japanese Health Ministry estimates the nation’s total population will decrease by 25% from 127.8 million in 2005 to 95.2 million by 2050. Japan’s elderly population, aged 65 or older, comprised 20% of the nation’s population in June 2006, a percentage that is forecast to increase to 38% by 2055. (source Wikipedia)

However here is the reality of ...

This Question was asked this week in the FT influenced by the embarrassing debate over the future of Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of Groupon. The answers by an investor, a current CEO and an academic were helpful and can be summarized as:

1. When someone else can do the job better.
2. When the best interests of the company are not being met.
3. When the founder has moved way beyond his level of competence?

However being ...

How do you sustain the momentum of your business once it starts to move? How do the moving parts connect to drive the vehicle forward? How do you create continuous momentum?

I’m not sure leaders are explaining to their teams how this works. Let me help by taking the analogy with cars a little further.

The key at first is Positioning. Where are you driving the vehicle? What’s the story of the ...