50 Ways to Grow

Decide which strategies will grow you, your organization, people, relationships... and your community.

Grow Self

1. Build Self-Awareness - Utilize assessments to profile your relating, striving & thinking abilities to create personal growth strategies & modify self-defeating behaviors

2. Redefine Your Work - Create your job to focus solely on your strengths

3. Delegate Lesser Strengths - Allow others talents to provide what you don’t do best

4. Be A Mentor - Expand others by sharing what you know

5. Start An Advisory Group - Engage a panel of respected experts to provide feedback and sponsor offsite meetings 1 to 4 times per year

Grow What Already Exists

1. Sell More to Existing Customers - Educate customers about all your offerings

2. Sell to New Customers - Target new customers in existing markets

3. Expand Distribution Channels - Find other traditional distributors, brokers, retailers and reps to sell your products

4. Expand into New Markets - Research & market to new market segments that you are not serving

5. Go Global - Find international markets in need of your offerings

6. Adopt E-commerce - Package and sell over the Internet

7. Bundle Products - Package products that are commonly sold together for a special offer

8. Implement Creative Promotions - Public relations, incentives, personal selling, direct marketing, advertising, events, contests, multi-media tools, web campaigns to promote offerings

9. Offer Private Label/Licensing - Provide existing products/services for other firms under their brand or as a license agreement

Grow New Endeavors

1. Modify Existing Products/Services - Make improvements/updates to existing products for existing markets

2. Expand Line or Brand Extensions - Create new products/services to complement those in existing lines or brands

3. Renew Your Brand - Launch newly branded products in new categories/niches

4. Execute Diversification - Develop new product lines for new markets

5. Pursue New Acquisitions - Purchase new products/services from another organization or competitor

6. Build Strategic Alliances - Partner with organizations to license or directly sell their offerings to complement existing lines or create new ones

Grow Value and Profit

1. Upgrade Service Levels - Solve your biggest customer complaint by selling a value-added service for a premium price

2. Streamline Core Processes - Flowchart existing processes and cut cost and time inefficiencies

3. Automate Systems - Increase productivity and accuracy by purchasing or developing company-specific technologies for core processes

4. Develop A Powerful Brand - Differentiate & claim what competitors can’t deliver

5. Make Employees Experts - Charge higher rates for exceptional skills

6. Divest Commodity Products/Services - Liquidate/sell capabilities with no or low margins to invest in higher margin offerings

7. Outsource Non-Core Offerings - Let others do what they do best at less cost to you

8. Implement Price Increase - Raise prices annually to reflect higher services, expertise and costs

Grow People

1. Hire & Know the Right Employees - Interview and give assessments to understand the strengths, goals & aspirations of your employees

2. Set Individual Goals - Create personal & professional goals for each employee & track progress

3. Implement A Performance Planning System - Detail job expectations, job match, create wage scales & bonuses, track training, conduct self & manager reviews, log performances of employees

4. Execute New Training Programs - Customize or use off-the-shelf educational courses & tools to improve employee skills & team building

5. Promote From Within - Offer advancement opportunities for employees who want to grow

6. Design Performance Reward Programs - Develop creative programs to prove that you notice exceptional performance

7. Build Team Collaboration - Build collaboration systems for synergistic problem solving and open communication

Grow Experience

1. Conduct Customer Research - Utilize focus groups, in-depth interviews & surveys to intimately understand customer needs & develop programs to meet them

2. Map Customer Relationships - Chart the stages & activities within your best customer relationships & duplicate the system with others

3. Profile Customers & Prospects - Develop a database to track characteristics, communications & facts of those with whom you engage 

4. Develop Service Packages - Prove your focus on service by packaging relevant services with all your offerings & follow through on those promises

5. Develop A Communications Plan - Develop creative direct mail & advertising campaigns to show how you are unique to your target audience

6. Create Innovation Practices - Formalize brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas to service customers

7. Create Loyalty Programs - Reward customers & referrals for being committed to your organization

8. Develop Case Studies - Showcase your best successes as examples of your work to gain interest

9. Construct Facility & Technology Upgrades - Model the style of your environment & infrastructure around your brand. Make every touch point consistent with who you are

Grow Community

1. Complete A Community Needs Analysis - Understand what your community is screaming to be as a place where people want to live

2. Execute Placemaking  Strategies - Adopt and execute projects for new urbanism, walkability, recreation, modern housing and social connection.

3. Develop An Economic Development Coalition - Transition from old economic development practices that no longer work to creative strategies that attract and retain new industry, workforce and residents.

4. Create a Community Identity and Story - Discover the past, present and future story about your community. Use multi-media tools to spark and engage your community to grow.

5. Build Private Public Partnerships - All new growth in the most vibrant communities occurs through the collaboration of private/public partnerships. Discover common interests for investment.

6. Execute Transformational Projects - Think big and build diverse teams across your region who will be bold, support and execute the change needed to grow.