10 Signs Your Growth Plan Is Secret

September 3, 2009 by Andy Birol
Filed under: Business Growth, Profitable Growth

While you know how your company creates profitable growth, do others?

In spite of all your meetings, strategic planning efforts and company mission statements, are you sure your constituents get how your firm makes money?

Are all your internal departments making, spending and saving money towards the same goal? If not, many inside and outside your company may be squandering your resources or working at cross purposes.

Here are the 10 ways to tell if your company’s plan profitable growth is a secret.

Is your growth plan a secret? Asks small business growth expert Andy Birol

Few of your management team and none of your employees understand your company’s business model or know how your business makes money.
When asked, they revert to talking about how long you’ve been in business as proof that legacy means current success.
Your customers do not know why you cost more than the competition.
After you explain all the disadvantages of buying competitors don’t provide, your customers still don’t acknowledge your added value.
Even you’re not sure what it costs you to find, keep or grow customers.
In response to such questions, you find yourself dieseling, much like a jalopy that continues to sputter after the key is out of the ignition.
When asked by a reporter which market segments offer your firm the best opportunities for future growth, you don’t answer them, not because it’s a secret but because you aren’t sure.
Your sales force blames your high prices for not hitting their sales quotas while they brag about the excellent service they provide.
Your compensation plan doesn’t reward your executives for achieving your company’s profitable growth.
Instead of planning to spend their bonus on a trip to Hawaii, you find out they’re booking a weekend in Topeka and not taking their kids.
One of your vendors suggests that if you dropped your prices you could sell a lot more of your products and thus buy more from her.
Clearly they don’t see the value your firm is adding to what they are supplying you.
Your closest friends give you bad or unprofitable referrals.
At a recent get-together, your friend tells you about meeting three of your most desirable prospects. But he didn’t think you would want to pursue selling them.
Your spouse cannot explain why your company is the premium provider.
When asked by her or his friends to describe why your firm is so expensive, she or he turns to you to explain it correctly. And when you encourage her to do it alone, you constantly interrupt her to correct his or her mistakes.
The reasons your customers say they buy from you do not match the reasons your sales force says sells your customers.
As the old saying goes, people don’t buy shovels, they buy holes. Sadly, you worry your customers are asking for premium swimming pools and your sales reps are selling low-cost excavations.

While stories of disconnected companies can be hilarious, they are not funny when they are about yours. When your plan for profitable growth is clear to your team, their actions are more likely to contribute to your objectives.

Convey how your company will achieve profitable growth and make sure everyone around you understands.