- Leading marketing practices of fast-growth firms
- Deliver products and services that are perceived as high quality for expanding segments.
- Cultivate pacesetting new products and services that stand out in the market as the best breed.
iii. Deliver product and service benefits that demand average or higher market pricing.
- Generate revenue flows from existing products and services that typically sustain approximately 90% of the present revenue base while achieving flows from new products and services that typically expand revenue approximately 20% annually.
- Generate revenue flows from existing customers that typically sustain approximately 80% of the ongoing revenue base while achieving flows from new customers that typically expand revenue flows by about 30% annually.
- Create high impact, new product and service improvements with development expenditure that typically account for no more than approximately 6%of revenues.
vii. Utilize a high yield sales force that typically accounts for approximately 60% of marketing expenditures.
viii. Rapidly develop broad product and service platforms with complementary channels to help expand a firm’s geographic marketing area.
- Leading financial practices of fast-growth firms
- Anticipate multiple rounds of financing (on average every 2.5 years)
- Secure funding sources capable of significantly expanding their participation amounts.
iii. Utilize financing vehicles that retain the entrepreneur’s voting control.
- Maintain control of the firm by selectively granting employee stock ownership.
- Link the entrepreneur’s long-term objectives to a defined exit strategy in the business plan.
- Leading management practice of fast-growth firms
- Use a collaborative decision-making style with the top management team.
- Accelerate organizational development by assembling a balanced top management team with or without prior experience of working together.
iii. Develop a top management team of three to six individuals with the capacity to become the entrepreneur’s entrepreneurs. Align the number of management levels with the number of individuals in top management.
- Establish entrepreneurial capacity competency first in the functional areas of finance, marketing, and operations. Assemble a balanced board of directors comprised of both internal and external directors.
- Repeatedly calibrate strategies with the regular board of directors meetings.
- Involve the board of directors heavily at strategic inflexion points.
- Leading planning practices of fast-growth firms
- Prepare detailed written monthly plans for each of the next 12 to 24 months and annual plans for three or more years.
- Establish functional planning and control systems that tie planned achievements to actual performance and adjust management compensation accordingly.
iii. Periodically share with employees the planned versus actual performance data directly linked to the business plan.
- Link job performance standards that have been jointly set by management and employees to the business plan.
- Prospectively model the firm based on benchmarks that exceed industry norms, competitors, and the industry leader.