When Growth Stalls E-Book

Steve McKee

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 354

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

One of the toughest lessons every business leader learns is how hard it is to generate sustained growth. Stalled growth is the rule, not the exception--even for the best-managed companies. That's especially true in unpredictable economic environments such as the one we're experiencing today. McKee has a unique understanding of what happens when growth stalls. His firm commissioned a study of 700 companies that had at one time been among the nation's fastest-growing businesses. Developed in concert with Decision Analyst, a leading national research and consulting firm, the study probed areas as diverse as corporate structure, competition, branding, finance, and strategy. The target respondent profile were CEOs, owners, principals, presidents, managing directors or chairmen of the board. In-depth follow-up interviews yielded fascinating stories and personal comments from executives who had been living on the front lines of real-life growth crises. McKee presents compelling knowledge about how and why companies lose their way, and offers practical advice about how they can rekindle growth. When Growth Stalls demonstrates that sluggish growth is generally produced not by mismanagement or strategic blundering but by natural market forces and management dynamics that are often unrecognized--and widespread. The book presents seven characteristics that commonly correlate with stalled growth and what to do about them. Some are external forces to which countless companies have fallen victim: economic upheavals, changing industry dynamics, and increased competition. What McKee points out, however, is how often they catch companies off-guard. More surprising are four subtle and highly destructive internal factors that conspire to keep companies down: lack of consensus among the management team, loss of nerve, loss of focus, and marketing inconsistency. McKee makes the case that, regardless of what's going on outside of an enterprise, it's what's inside that counts.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 - It’s Not Just Business, It’s Personal

Chapter 2 - Growth Stalls

No Company Is Safe

Chapter 3 - Market Tectonics

Economic Factors

Aggressive Competition

Changing Industry Dynamics

Riding the Tectonic Waves

Chapter 4 - Lack of Consensus

What Is Consensus?

No Consensus? No Surprise

Consensus Is Vital

Chapter 5 - Loss of Focus

When the Market Moves

When the Company Moves

The Michael Jordan Principle

The “A” Word

Chapter 6 - Loss of Nerve

Fear of Risk

Resistance to Change

Reluctance to Invest

Loss of Nerve Is a Wake-Up Call

Chapter 7 - Marketing Inconsistency

Consistency Requires Discipline

“Fragflation”

I Want It Now

Consistency Is Vital

Chapter 8 - The Vicious Cycle

Chapter 9 - Take a Deep Breath

Mindset Matters

No Heroes, Please

Chapter 10 - Set Your Sights

Simple, Singular, and Directional

The Marketing Equation

Chapter 11 - Find Your Target

Start with the “I”

Real-World Examples

How to Find Your “I”

You May Not Know Them, But They Know You

Yeah, But . . .

Halfway There

Chapter 12 - Sharpen Your Arrow

The “B” Word

Distinctiveness Is “Job #1”

Positioning and Trust

The “I” Has It

Generating Options

Making It Stick

Chapter 13 - Let It Fly

Execution Is Everything

Three-Dimensional Consistency

O-E-O-E-O ...

Show Me the Money

What About the Fourth P?

Chapter 14 - It Works

Notes

About the Author

Index

More Praise forWhen Growth Stalls

“This is a must-read for all business leaders. Steve McKee offers real-world examples and insight into why growth stalls, and tells how to overcome the pitfalls that cause it. I couldn’t put this book down.”

—Todd Parent, founder and CEO, Extreme Pizza

“Steve McKee brings focused insights and keen observations to bear against a business leader’s greatest fear. When Growth Stalls is the field manual for those facing the challenge of getting things back on track.”

—Tom McLoughlin, vice president of marketing, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company

“Any business leader planning on sustaining growth for the long term should read this book. It’s inevitable that you will experience stalled growth at some point, and this book, based on the author’s own experience, provides a realistic approach to overcoming it.”

—Jamie Chilcoff, president and CEO, FiberTech Polymers

“Business stalled? Steve McKee feels your pain because he’s been there. McKee lays out well-researched reasons why companies stall—and how you can get yours out of its funk. Written from his heart, it’ll lift your soul and your bottom line.”

—Tory Johnson, CEO, Women For Hire

“If your company growth has stalled or if you want to grow faster, this book is the fastest way to find enlightenment.”

—Mike Faith, CEO and president, Headsets.com, Inc.

“For any executive or business leader, the timing of When Growth Stalls couldn’t be more perfect. McKee provides specific strategies, examples, and ideas for improving and maintaining growth, especially in turbulent times.”

—Tina Sampson, vice president of sales and marketing, Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center

“Steve McKee has effectively woven years of research into his personal experience, making When Growth Stalls a compelling read, particularly in challenging economic times. We’re all worried about stalling out and I finished the book re-charged and fueled with solid information to drive my business’s growth.”

—Mark Vengroff, CEO, Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc.

“By using real-world examples of businesses facing the challenge of stalled growth, McKee makes his principles easy to understand and entertaining for the reader. A particularly timely guide for executives, managers, and entrepreneurs.”

—Ethan Ewing, president, Bills.com

“When Growth Stalls is a practical presentation of how marketing-based management principles can contribute to enduring growth. A quick and entertaining read, it cuts through the complexity to focus on solutions and help accelerate the time to renewed growth.”

—Ian Davison, marketing director, Detour Bars

Copyright © 2009 by Steve McKee. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKee, Steve, 1963- When growth stalls : how it happens, why you’re stuck, and what to do about it / Steve McKee. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-45197-7

1. Small business—Growth. 2. Success in business. 3. Business planning. I. Title. HD62.7.M395 2009 658.4’06—dc22 2008051601

HB Printing

To Denise. Forever.

Acknowledgments

Although only one author’s name is on the spine, this book is the result of many people’s efforts. I must, of course, begin with Denise, the love of my life, who encourages me to no end. Next come my four wonderful kids—Garvey, Cassidy, Riley, and Delaney—who gave unselfishly of their time when I was hunched over my Mac, thought it was pretty cool that Dad was writing a book, and said that maybe someday they’d even be interested in reading it. (I won’t hold my breath.)

I am deeply grateful to my clients, whose continued partnership is the source of stability at McKee Wallwork Cleveland. Without their wisdom and willingness to explore new ground, we would not have accomplished anything. Nor would any of it have been possible without the staff at MWC, whose outstanding talents and capabilities never cease to amaze me and have enabled me to take on this project. That goes especially for Bart Cleveland and Pat Wallwork, the best partners I could ever hope to have.

I am grateful to my good friend, Mark Mathis, who took the authorship plunge first and patiently encouraged me to do the same. Judith Ehrlich has been everything I had hoped for in an agent and gave me wise guidance, including referring me to my gifted editor, Karl Weber, who was of great help in shaping and molding this project (and was so encouraging, even when the pages were full of “tracked changes”). I also want to thank Rebecca Browning, Erin Moy, and the team at Jossey-Bass for believing in the enthusiasm of an unproven author.

Donna Delhagen and Jerry Thomas at Decision Analyst worked very hard on the research and have exhibited a true spirit of partnership through the past five years. They are truly first-rate. Donna Adler took a chance on me when I was a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old, and without her doing so, who knows where I’d be today. Betsy Hunter and Joseph Olin both provided immeasurable mentorship to me in the early stages of my career, opening my eyes to principles and possibilities that have evolved into my marketing philosophy. And Peter Strascina taught me so much about business—and life—that I can’t thank him enough.

I thank my late father, Richard McKee, who was a great example to me, and my mother, Ginni, who still is—and who opened her home to me while she was away, giving me the perfect office-away-from-the-office. Zach Franchini spent the first month of his summer internship saving me from the footnote monster (sorry, Zach, but at least now all those term papers will be easy). And Jon Patten and the crew at Dion’s kept me full of brain food and were gracious when my laptop and I repeatedly overstayed our welcome.

Last, I am grateful to everyone at Kinship and the institute for their love and encouragement and to Jesus, who is the source of all good things.

Introduction

I’m always looking for profitable growth on a sustained basis. That’s I think the hardest challenge in business—to not do it just once, but year after year.1

—Bruce Carbonari, CEO, Fortune Brands

One of the toughest lessons every business leader learns is how difficult it is to generate consistent growth. There is always something—or someone—that threatens even the healthiest business model. As a result, stalled growth is the rule, not the exception, even for the best-managed companies.

That’s especially true in unpredictable economic environments, when circumstances beyond their control catch business leaders off guard. How they respond to those circumstances makes a big difference to their companies’ future prospects.

This book is about generating growth for your company at a time when growth may be nothing but a glimmer of hope in your mind. It offers, first of all, perspective on the external market forces that hinder growth in every organization. It goes on to expose the destructive dynamics that are likely playing out within your company (and of which you may be unaware). Then it offers a set of core principles that can help set you back on the growth path—not a secret formula but a proven pattern that you can apply to your own unique circumstances.

Stalled growth is a phenomenon I’ve witnessed time and time again over the course of a career spanning more than two decades in the advertising industry. My company, McKee Wallwork Cleveland, is less an advertising agency than it is a consulting firm, and we’ve built our reputation not by simply making and placing ads but by diagnosing and addressing our clients’ most difficult marketing challenges. Sometimes the solutions involve advertising, and sometimes they don’t.

Working with clients of all shapes and sizes—and in a variety of industries—has given us a unique perspective on the challenges facing companies that are struggling, stalled, and simply stuck. But it wasn’t until we went through a growth crisis of our own and subsequently embarked on a five-year journey of research and discovery that the patterns that are the subject of this book came alive.

When Growth Stalls is the culmination of a journey that for me began in 2003, when after five years of breathtaking growth my firm suddenly and shockingly stalled. The reasons weren’t clear, and at first we assumed it was just a blip on our stellar run of continuous revenue increases. But through two painful years of trial and error, we discovered that all of the skills, enthusiasm, and expertise we had were not enough to restart our growth engine.

A funny thing happened, however, on our way downhill. Through our conversations with other companies in similar straits, we discovered that we were not alone. In fact, we had a great deal in common with them. That gave us a hunch that perhaps we could study the problem of stalled growth from a position of objectivity and uncover principles that would get us back on track.

We commissioned two nationwide quantitative studies—the first in 2003, and a second, deeper dive as the mortgage meltdown led to the credit crunch and global economic crisis in 2008—to explore the dynamics that fuel growth, understand the characteristics that cause it to stall, and shed light on the reasons why some companies stay down longer than others. We interviewed CEOs of major corporations and entrepreneurs of every stripe to gain further insight and breathe life into our findings.

We tested the patterns we identified by sharing them with thousands of business leaders facing widely divergent business circumstances in industries as diverse as retail, manufacturing, health care, education, technology, travel, and professional services. And we began applying the principles to our own growth challenges and those of our clients. That gave us a first-person understanding of the impact their applications can have.

Our research has turned our understanding of stalled growth—and our approach to turning it around—literally inside out. We have found that regardless of what’s happening outside an enterprise, it’s what’s inside that counts.

I first began sharing what we learned in an eight-part series for BusinessWeek.com. That led to invitations to speak before civic groups, industry trade associations, and corporate retreats. As I shared these principles with group after group, I saw heads nodding in agreement when I described what was happening within their companies without ever having set foot in them. Before I knew it, the message began taking on a life of its own, and I realized we had hit a nerve. There was a bigger story here, and it needed to be told.

Sluggish growth is generally produced not by mismanagement or strategic blundering but by natural market forces and management dynamics that are widespread, often unrecognized, and highly destructive. And there are seven characteristics that are most commonly to blame.

Three may not be surprising. They are external forces to which countless companies have fallen victim: economic upheavals, aggressive competition, and changing industry dynamics. What was so fascinating to learn, however, is how often they catch company leaders off guard. These factors do a lot of damage simply by going unrecognized for too long.

More surprising are four subtle and highly destructive internal factors that conspire to keep companies down: lack of consensus among the management team, loss of focus, loss of nerve, and marketing inconsistency. All four are psychological, all are capable of ruining companies from the inside out, and all are preventable—if you know what to look for. We found that most struggling companies suffer from some combination of these seven factors.

If your company is currently struggling, When Growth Stalls may be just what you need to shake things up. It will cut through some of the confusion and doubt that may be cluttering your mind and will help you recognize that the challenges you’re facing are neither unique nor insurmountable. For those whose growth picture looks rosy—for the time being—gaining a better understanding of the dangerous dynamics every company eventually faces may be just what you need to avoid the growth meltdown waiting around the corner.

My company had to learn these lessons the hard way. It is my hope that the insights shared on the following pages will be as valuable to you as they have been to me.

1

It’s Not Just Business, It’s Personal

A lush green jewel of the southern California desert, Rancho Mirage is a beautiful place, but it’s not easy to reach. After a smooth and uneventful flight via jumbo jet to Phoenix, my wife and I caught a connection on an old propeller plane that would take us across the Mojave desert into the Palm Springs airport, where a shuttle would take us to the resort where we were staying. Unfortunately, it was a warm springtime afternoon, and the thermals caused our slow, small aircraft to shake and shudder all the way there. The plane landed long before our stomachs did.

The bumpy ride was an apt metaphor. As president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising, I was heading to the annual Inc. 500 Conference to take a bow on behalf of the company, which had been recognized as one of the fastest-growing private businesses in America. It was quite an honor. The award is based on growth achieved over the course of not just one year but five years. A company can’t make the list based on a single big win or one hot season; it has to demonstrate growth sustainability. And we had, at least for now.