Business Growth Services is the name of a new department inside Today’s Growth Consultant.  This division assigns weight to different departments inside a company.

I thought I’d share with you how we strategize a new client for growth.

If you have found yourself waking up lately saying,  “how can we increase business” and going to bed lately thinking, “how can we cut expenses”, then this post is for you.

As of January, 2010, our Business Growth Services division tracks the following indices.

1.    Proven “Working” Model
2.    Written Business Plan
3.    Web Presence Plan to support Written Business Plan
4.    S.E.O. and S.E.M. of and for the plan
5.    Growth Nuggets in place
6.    Face
7.    Front
8.    Facility
9.    S-Curves
10.  Divisional Leadership and Potential Flags

I’m going to touch on a Proven “Working” Model a bit here, but I’m going to roll out 10 posts over the next few weeks that will break each Index into detail that can be implemented into any company for growth.

The first Index, a Proven “Working” Model, is the most important of all.  It is our belief that a high percentage of companies have yet to recognize that the model they were operation under a few years ago is no longer the same model.

Here is a list of a few changes that have happened over the last 10 years that we feel drastically affect a working model.

Transportation Costs
Outsourcing Services
Internal Training of Emerging Technology
Economy
Merging Markets
Client Access to Information
Global Economy
Global Employment Options
Marketing and Advertising Mediums

In some capacity, your company has been forced to adapt to a few of these volatile shifts.  These changes take place slowly and slowly erode a working model.  The erosion is like osmosis, it happens so slowly that it is almost invisible.  It is like management wakes up one day and says, “What just happened”?

Let’s break this down.     Proven     Working     Model.

Proven  –  It’s been done before.  There is evidence that can be researched and studied.  It can be duplicated.
Working  –  It’s currently working.  The model is yielding the desired result.
Model  –  “X” + “Y” = “Z”  You know before hand, what “X” and “Y” will yield.

A working model is nothing more than a business model that can be documented, studied and duplicated.  The components of a working model are:

Ingredients  (products and / or services)
Recipe          (Business Plan and Management)
Heat             (Economic conditions that allow the plan to yield desired result)

When we study a company to see if we can help, we first check to see if the company is operating in a “working” model, or is the model broken.

If you’ve ever heard of a “turnaround” expert, they are most known for taking over companies and quickly breaking and rebuilding the model.
After I completed my first job for a publicly traded company I asked them why they originally chose me.  They said it was because I mentioned that I had an innate ability to re-invent a company or an office.  They were correct in hiring me, I went in and threw away their model and implemented and trained them on a proven model.

I use the term “Genetic Code” quite often.  I strongly believe in measuring the “Genetic Code” of a company, a division or an office.

It is easiest to define the “Genetic Code” of a company with an example.

Have you ever walked into an office and everything is in disarray?  Papers are everywhere, it’s unorganized, and nobody greets you right away?  You look around and the magazines on the table are a year old.  You can get a figurative smell of a company by their first impression.  Now imagine, later that day you happened to walk into another company, everything is immaculate, your are greeted right away and you sense a true concern for the client or customer by what you see and feel in the office.  That is the “Genetic Code” of a company.  The “Genetic Code”of a company or an office shows us a lot.  It tells us if the company is O.K. where they are or if they are in the hunt of growth.  It tells us if they are loosely ran or very tightly ran.  It shows us the core beliefs and principles of management and ownership.  It displays the pride of the company.

Have you ever walked into a dentist or doctor’s office and immediately got the feeling that you weren’t sure this was the right place for you.  That feeling is the “Genetic Code” of the office talking to you.

I bring up the “Genetic Code” in this piece about “working” models because “Genetic Code” is sometimes the very thing that causes companies to rise quickly and also, crash hard and fast.  The “Genetic Code” of a company starts from the top and works its way down.  It is usually very Tight, or very Loose.  It is always a direct extension of ownership and / or management.  It is a process or a philosophy of how things are ran.  Companies that are very loosely ran are usually the first victims of a shift or a change in their “working” model.

They fall prey to broken models because of the following:

First, the loosely ran company may not even understand that their initial success was because they created or tapped into a working model.
Second, the loosely ran company usually feels they don’t have the time to track and inspect numbers inside their working model.
Finally, I’ve ran into companies so loosely ran and so focused on next quarters growth that they spend very little time on the actual raw numbers of their company or industry.  They lived by the motto….  “We are growing, don’t confuse us with the facts”.

Remember “X” + “Y” = “Z”?

Working inside a “working” model is near stress free.  You plug in “x” and “y” and you get “z”.  It actually IS that simply.  Ask the management of McDonalds.  Their working model has allowed them to have over a dozen c.e.o.s in over 40 years and they’ve grown and profited in all years but one.  They contribute their success to their “working” model and their ability to track their important indices, NOT the leaders at the head of their company.

A wealthy billionaire was recently asked why he bought a train company for 24 billion dollars.  He said something along the lines that he was looking for a company that could run itself that was in a model that wasn’t going to change any time soon.  He said that the companies model was so well  built that a cardboard cut-out could run the train company.

The train company knows exactly what they have to put in to yield a predetermined result.

Everyone reading this can put their company through the following exercise…

1.  What is your “X”, “Y” and “Z”?
2.  What are the factors, components and ingredients that affect them?

Ie.

Here’s a very simplified version of a working model that breaks down.

A town of 7000 people has had an independent gift shop called Sally’s Gifts for over 30 years.  All is well until Walmart moves in 2 miles away.  Sally’s closes. What did Sally do wrong?

Nothing, but Sally’s business model changed.

“X” was Sally’s product offering
“Y” was Sally’s zone of influence (population base within driving distance)
“Z” was Sally’s desired result

Sally’s product offering went from being 100% of the options her zone of influence had available to them, down to probably 20% of the options her zone of influence had available.  Going from 100% of options to 20% of options broke the model.  She went from a “working” model to a broken model.

Companies that are loosely ran with a “Genetic Code” solely focused on growth are usually the first to fall prey to a shift in the model because they are focused on growth and not on the model.  I can tell you from experience, it’s better to profit than grow.

Let’s go back to the exercise.
What is your working model?

Everyone reading this can put their company through the following exercise…

1.  What is your “X”, “Y” and “Z”?
2.  What are the factors, components and ingredients that affect them?

Such as…

What do you sell?
How do you market your product or service?
What is your zone of influence?
How many actual competitors are in the zone of influence?
Who do you sell to?
What is your competitive advantage and how can it be measured?
What is your competition? (Not just who, but what, the internet, lack of education, lack of sales force, etc.)
What economic conditions need to be in place to yield desired result of “Y”?

Can you find a way to numerically track each of the above?
Can you find someone to help you evaluate the above from the outside?
Can you find an accountability partner to hold you accountable to tracking the above?
Can you track dollars spent marketing and advertising to an exact return?

Why don’t you make it a goal to map out and create the model you are now operating under and see if you can figure out if it is a “working” model or a “broken” model.

If it is “working”, you’ll be able to create it quite quickly and be able to analyze it and work with it.
If it is “broken”, you’ll have a hard time creating it because there are no constants to benchmark.

Although this post is a bit vague, I hope it plants a seed to tighten things up.  I hope if you are running a tight ship you consider asking someone new to take a look at your model and see what they see, you may be surprised.

Final mention.  If you’d like to give your company a boost, try this accountability maneuver.

Try reaching out to someone who has retired from your industry and ask them if they would be willing to meet yourself, or members of your company for coffee or dinner.  Tell them that you know they retired from the industry you are operating in and that your company is at a crossroads and you’d love their opinion on a few things.

Create for them what you believe is the “working” model for your industry and show them how your company fits in.  Show them the strengths and weaknesses your company currently carries.

Ask them what they would do if they were you.

If you, or members of your company, have never done this, you may be very surprised what comes out of that cup of coffee.

Growth Consulting for Today
-Ken