5 Disciplines Of Sustained Growth

Every business demands growth, and double-digit growth is the dream of every dedicated business owner, even when lackluster results show up at quarter’s end.

Most entrepreneurial business owners need a guide to navigate their way toward substantial, sustainable growth. 

It can be done even in a slow economy as demonstrated by such companies as Hp, Coca Cola, Harley Davidson, Starbucks, and WalMart.  
Even smaller companies have been able to make gains in revenue, gross profits and net profits.

Below are 5 disciplines of sustained growth:

1. Retain Your Customer Base:  Keep the growth that you have already earned by coaxing customers into complex relationships that make it a hassle for them to switch to your competitor. 

 Tailor your products/services using data gleaned from your customers giving you an advantage.

 Proactively managing customer defections will help you anticipate and pre-empt them.

 Bonding with customers wherever emotion is tied to an interaction is another great way to retain them.

2. Gain Market Share at the Expense of Your Rivals: Give customers a reason to abandon a competitor’s product/service for yours.   

Do what it takes to lower the switching costs.  Pulling customers away from a competitor can be difficult, so you must devote many resources to raiding their customer base. 

 Offering higher value and quality are crucial to this end.  Buying a competitor is another way to do this.

3. Exploit Market Position:  Show up where growth is going to happen by spotting it early.       This can be done by watching the industry for shifts in buying criteria, product or service innovations, and population trends. 

 You must be able to spot positioning opportunities to make the most of them by continually using a systematic approach to the process.

4. Invade Adjacent Markets: Before moving into a nearby market, decide whether it offers significant long-term growth and profitability.  Determine whether you have an advantage over a competitor, and ensure you can match its standards of quality and value.

5. Invest In New Lines of Business:  If you take this approach, never overpay for a new line.  You must find simple strategies instead of complex ones, and partner with the new business by assessing its leadership team and balance sheet.

Although a successful growth portfolio might not include all five of these disciplines, it must contain more than one. 
Only a balanced growth portfolio can keep an organization growing when the market shifts dramatically.

Wishing a happy and safe Day to all my entrepreneurial buddies, Partners and readers. 

Be careful and stay safe!

How To Create Email Lists For Internet Marketing Campaigns

If you plan to do some Internet marketing to promote your business endeavor, you should seriously consider email marketing as at least one tier of your Internet marketing campaign.

Many business owners shy away from email marketing because they believe all email marketing campaigns are purely spam.

However, this is not true and not partaking in this type of marketing can cause your business to lose out on a great deal of business.

By not appealing to potential customers via email, your business may lose a great deal of business to competitors who are using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world.


 However, the first step of an email marketing campaign should be creating an email distribution list.

 This article will discuss some popular options for doing this and should help to the reader to learn more about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to email marketing.


Once you have made the decision to start using email marketing to promote your business you are likely facing the dilemma of compiling an email distribution list.

 This is essentially a list of email addresses to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials.

One common way to gain a list of email addresses is to purchase a list from distributors. However, this method is not very effective at all and we do not recommend it.

The problem with purchasing an email list if you have no way of knowing whether or not the members of the list would have any interest at all in your products or services.

This is very important because while you want to reach a large audience with your email marketing you also want this audience to be members of your overall target audience.

When you purchase an email list you may be sending your email messages to some users who might be interested but this is largely coincidental and is not likely to be well received because the message was not solicited.

Internet users are very quick to delete materials they believe to be spam without even opening or reading the emails.

In fact some Internet service providers include spam filters which may automatically delete your emails if your messages are deemed to be spam.

These filters run complex algorithms on the subject heading and content of the message to determine whether or not it is spam and are quite adept at weeding out spam.

Therefore you run the risk of having your email marketing effort turn out to be a complete waste if the majority of recipients never even read or receive the message.

A far better way to create an email distribution list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested potential customers to register with your website to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services as well as other information which might be of interest to them.

 This provides you with a database of email addresses from current customers as well as potential customers who have a genuine interest in your products and services and who are interested in learning more about these products and services.

Once you have a list of interested customers or potential customers you can send emails or create e-newsletter for distribution to the members of your email list.

These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services.

 This information will be valued by the readers and may help to persuade them to try your products and services.

You might also want to include useful links to either your website as well as other websites which may be of interest to your readers.

Your content should also contain a portion which urges the reader to take a specific action such as making a purchase or at least investigating a product further.

All the Best.