Getting to the Next Level
September 19, 2007

I am staying in a beautiful, 28-bedroom chateau in Normandy, France, leading a yearly meeting for my largest client, an international publishing company. There are about 40 attendees gathered here from the United States, England, France, South Africa, Australia, Spain, Ireland and India. The purpose of the meeting is talk about how each publishing group can "get to the next level."

This theme is based on an idea I worked up for the book I've just finished writing - one that will be published in January by John Wiley. It will be called Ready...Fire...Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat.

The book is about how to start and grow an entrepreneurial business. It contains most of the most important lessons I've learned in my 30+ year career. The theme of the conference - getting to the next level - refers to of an idea I presented in the book: that there are basically four stages of growth for entrepreneurial companies: infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

For convenience, I distinguished these stages according to revenues. Thus:

Stage One Infancy Zero to $1 million
Stage Two Childhood $1 million to $10 million
Stage Three Adolescence $10 million to $50 million
Stage Four Adulthood $50 million plus

Each of these stages has its own unique problems, challenges and opportunities. The big problem when you are starting a business, for example, is that you have a limited amount of time and money. The challenge is finding a cost-efficient way to bring in new customers before that time and money run out. And the opportunity is the chance of developing a company that will give you a good income and increasing wealth for as long as you own it.

Each stage of grow also presents the entrepreneur with the chance to develop an important set of skills that will be invaluable to him for the rest of his business-building career. The skills that you must learn to get a business from infancy to childhood, for example, are all related to sales and marketing. It takes most entrepreneurs several thousand hours of experimentation and failure to learn those skills, but once they are acquired they are always immensely useful.

At the beginning of this conference I explained this concept to the 40 publishers assembled. I outlined each of the four stages and described the typical problems, challenges, opportunities and skills that are associated with each. I also explained that each of them ran businesses that were, in themselves, conglomerations of smaller businesses. "To fully understand how to get your business to the next level," I told them, "you have to understand how exactly your business fits into the chart."

I'd made this presentation once before - at the entrepreneur's retreat that I conducted last spring in Manalapan. The business owners that attended that retreat found it to be a very helpful tool. I wondered whether these publishers would too.

They did. The seminar started out tentatively because the structure was new but ended up very strongly with most people providing specific reasons why they found it useful and what specific actions they were going to take to improve sales and profitability over the coming year. I felt very good hearing how much these 40 sophisticated people had absorbed. Based on the several hundred specific action items I heard recited this afternoon, it's hard to believe that this company won't have a considerable increase in value in the coming year.

This is a very useful practice for every business owner. Figure out what stage of growth the business is, what its major problem, challenge and opportunity is and what skills the business owner must acquire to solve the problem and meet the challenge.

There were lots of other great ideas that came out of this seminar - and I’ll talk about them in future blogs - but this exercise is so helpful that it merits its own discussion. So, once again:

  1. What is the major problem or obstacle that is keeping your business from getting to the next level of sales?
    a. Is your marketing ineffective?
    b. Do you have trouble creating new products?
    c. Is there too much chaos in the organization?
    d. What other bottlenecks are there?
  2. What is the most important growth challenge you currently face?
  3. If you met that challenge, what benefit would your company enjoy?
  4. To accomplish that objective, what skills do you need?

posted by M. Masterson @ 8:47 AM,

3 Comments:

At 6:57 PM, Blogger wear-christian-clothing said...

Hey Mike,
I am looking forward to your new book Ready Fire Aim. I have already read Automatic Wealth and Seven Years to Seven Figures.

I am in the infancy stage with limited funds but a great idea (in my opinion).

I own a Christian clothing company with a strong USP.

Everyone I talk to (in the Christian community) loves the idea and I have sold some clothes. Selling clothes is not my real motivation but sales drive everything else.

I am in the process of developing a presentation tied to a 2-tier affiliate program mainly because churches are not set up to "sell clothes".

I have very limited computer skills (I am learning as I go) but I am excited about the whole process. I did start a blog (because it was free) to get the word out.

I just wanted to say thank you for all you do with ETR. You and your staff have had a major impact on my decision to start this business.

 
At 5:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Michael I agree with what you say. In my business, I personally feel that time is my worst enemy. We have a great product but it is just taking time to to get the "word out". The selling and marketing skills needed in the infancy stage are probably the most crucial because if you don't acquire then---you won't survive to make adolescence! Any suggestions on pushing your business past this stage?
Great blog topic. I am looking forward to reading your book.

 
At 6:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Michael, I am in network marketing and beginning in real estate. Funds are extremely limited and I couldn't swing the hotel and plane to get to your seminar. I read everything you send out. Alice

 

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