The Trick to Achieving Rapid Growth

It’s great to build a steady, profitable business. But how can you break through and achieve rapid growth? That’s the question serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz tackles in his forthcoming new bookSurge: Time the Marketplace, Ride the Wave of Consumer Demand, and Become Your Industry’s Big Kahuna.

The secret, he says, is to identify impending “surges,” or shifts in customer behavior and adapt quickly. That might sound like a mysterious or complicated form of trend-spotting but Michalowicz says the signs are actually easy to spot if you know what to look for. Unlike predicting what will happen five to 10 years in the future, “A surge is an imminent wave. What that means is that there's an already measurable movement in the market from the early adopters,” he tells me.

To spot it accurately, all you need to do is listen and search for it online. “Early adopters are vocal and will speak out in forums or interviews or videos, and others -- journalists, bloggers, etc. -- will write about what early adopters are doing," Michalowicz says. If you can't find much information about the trend or a consistent uptake with early adopters, it may be a future trend, but it’s not a surge (an imminent wave).”

It’s important to discern the difference because being too early with a trend may mean wasted time and energy -- and ultimate failure (compare the early social network Friendster to Facebook). For instance, Michalowicz notes that electric cars are currently in surge mode, while self-driving vehicles (a possible future trend) are not imminently upon us, and therefore don’t qualify as surging.

How else can you tell when a surge is coming? One clue, says Michalowicz, is the use of the word "traditional" appending a phrase, like "traditional PR" or "traditional publishing." He notes, “When we see the word traditional, it means that the market has achieved an expected standard. When something is expected and consistent, that market is perfectly positioned to see a disruption.”

Another useful trick is doing an online search for the phrase “the history of [your industry].” The reason, says Michalowicz, is that history repeats. By understanding past variations on a theme, you’re poised to recognize when new variations are emerging, such as the vogue for early 1960s fashion inspired a few years ago by the success of the television show Mad Men.

Of course, there are tradeoffs that come with riding a wave. One is that some of your earliest advocates and true believers may be turned off when your company hits the mainstream. “When you start to serve the majority of the niche,” says Michalowicz, “that initial minority who took the risk on you will consider you a sell out. You will no longer be cool to them.” That was notably the case with the footwear UGG, which broke through in the U.S. with surfers who valued the boots’ ability to keep their feet warm and dry after a dip in chilly waters. “Surfers loved UGG until UGG sold to teenage girls,” he notes. Your early adopters won’t always revolt, but it may be a necessary trade-off as you expand and grow.

What remains most vital as you seek to capture the wave, however, is difference. “’Better’ is invisible to customers,” says Michalowicz. “Do you really care if your accountant answers the phone on two rings and that the competitor answers on one ring? One ring is better, but better doesn't get noticed. What does get noticed is different.” If your company can identify a distinct, unique advantage that you can provide, such as an accountant helping clients not just with taxes but also with developing growth strategies for their business, then you’ll thrive under any conditions.

By following these steps, Michalowicz lays out a clear process to help your business take advantage of changing market conditions in order to grow dramatically. 

Dorie Clark

Want to Be Successful? Quit Wasting Your Brain.

The most productive time of the day is not early morning. Work productivity has absolutely nothing to do with your daily rituals or habits. And the truth is, your success probably has little to do with productivity in the first place.

Productivity is about efficiency and output. That may count for something if you make cars or semiconductor chips, but for the overwhelming majority of you, productivity doesn’t mean a damn thing.

If being creative matters to you, and it should, it might surprise you to know that you’re probably most innovative when you’re tired. I often have epiphanies when I’m half asleep, during an exhausting workout, or in the shower … not a weird shower, mind you, just a normal one. But that’s neither here nor there.

The thing is, we’re all different. And if you listen to your own body and instincts you’ll do fine. The great irony is that’s mostly instinctive and you’re all much too busy binging on all sorts of online nonsense and distraction to pay any attention to what your body and your gut are telling you.

The great irony is, cavemen had all that figured out. They awoke with the sun, ate when there was food, and slept when they got tired. They somehow managed to accomplish all that with a brain about a third of the size of yours. And everything worked out fine ... as long as they avoided those saber-toothed tigers.  

Related: The Truth About 'Fake It 'Til You Make It'

You know, the only thing that distinguishes modern man from caveman is our highly evolved neocortex. Honestly folks, do you really think humans developed the capacity for complex reasoning so we can sit on our butts and ponder stuff that a caveman or even a frog does without even thinking? Of course not.

A great mind is a terrible thing to waste. So quit wasting yours. And quit wasting the precious time you have to build your career and business worrying about stupid nonsense like what time you get up, how you eat breakfast, your sleep habits, and what kind of showers you take.

Look, you’re supposed to be an entrepreneur, right? And that’s all about business, right? So what do you say we take a step back and look at this logically. When it comes to business, the only important time of day is the time you spend actually working. And the only habits that matter are your work habits.

That’s right, nothing else matters … unless, of course, you’re slacking off when you should be working. So get to work. And for the record, here are five questions that enormous brain of yours needs to answer if you want to make something of yourself and have a successful business someday.

Related: Can We Quit With the Stereotypes Already?

What customer problem do you solve?

I don’t care how much you love doing something or how passionate you are about doing it, if you don’t come up with a big problem that customers will pay to have solved, your entrepreneurial career will be very short-lived.

What’s your solution and what’s its value proposition?

If your products and services don’t offer a far superior value proposition with respect to the competition, then you’ve got what’s called a commodity product. That means you’re going to be slugging it out on price. That’s not a good place to be.

How are you going to win and keep customers?

Even the best solution doesn’t always win. You still need a plan to reach potential customers, win the business, keep customers happy, and put up competitive barriers because competition always goes where the business is.

How are you going to gain market share and scale?

You’re always creating a new market, expanding the overall market, or taking market share from others. Whichever it is, you need strategies and capital to do it. Market share isn’t just costly to lose. It’s costly to gain, as well.

How are you going to fund your growth?

This is where most entrepreneurs and small business owners fall short. You have to have a clear plan with reasonable assumptions to fund your business as it grows. Otherwise, you’ll run out of cash – easily the most common reason businesses fail.

If you come up with those five strategies and successfully execute, I guarantee you’ll do quite well for yourself. If you don’t, you’d better keep working on it until you do, because none of them are optional if you want to get anywhere on your own.  

So quit screwing around on stuff a caveman or even a slimy amphibian can do and put those frontal lobes to work building an actual business.

Related: 10 Reasons Why Your Personal Brand Sucks

Steve Tobak

How hiring would lead to growth

Hiring process is one of the most important tasks in the business world. It has the same importance for any business like the strong roots have for a tree.

 Hiring process is one of the most important tasks in the business world. It has the same importance for any business like the strong roots have for a tree. Mostly, I hear from people that if your business is growing then you need more people to handle it. However, in marketing word, your business will grow IF you have more people. Just like a tree will grow more if its roots are strong and long enough to hold a tree as it grows. Similarly, hiring would lead to growth in a long run.

As I said above, hiring is important, but even more important is hiring a right person for a right position because it’s not a good idea to let the high school kid give a speech to a person who is running a billion dollar company successfully. If a person has no knowledge and experience about his/her job, that could be one of the biggest barriers in business growth.

Hiring process can be done in three simple steps if you do it right. These three simple steps are recruiting, interviewing, and selecting the best employee for your business.  Also, the right tools help you to select a right person for a position, such as appropriate interview questions, clear job description, and positive attitude. Hiring process has to be well organized, straight forward and must be following the law and regulations of the company.

In other words, hiring process is the first step of a business growth and development. It’s always a good idea to spend more time and affords to pick a right employee because that person might have the ability to transform your business from a failure to a winner.