Fast growth strategy for Startup Company

Posted by Leili

August 19, 2008

Two months ago, I had a client sign on who challenged Soaring Phoenix to create a strategy to grow their start-up company fast. They want to achieve 5 million in revenue in two years. The client is a soon to be published author who wants to sell a million books. (Publishers print the book-they don’t market it unless you negotiated for a budget upfront or you are already famous.)

Where do you start? Finding a strategy that catapults your venture from 0 to 100 miles per hour has always been the first place most entrepreneurs get stuck. When you start to look at possible tactics to launch your fast growth, begin by honestly and comprehensively assessing your resources.

How much capital do you have?
What kind of manpower can you employ? (or wrangle from family and friends?)
What are your strengths and weaknesses? Who do you need to hire or what do you need to learn to help your infrastructure handle the growth?
Who else has done what you want to, and what can you learn from them?
What is my competition doing? What are they failing to see that I can?

Next, ask yourself what your goals are…and what objectives do you need to reach in order to achieve them. The more clearly defined you are the easier it will be to get what you want.

The answer to these questions will give you your action plan. Look for areas where you can capitalize on your strengths or leverage your assets. If you have it, throw money at your weaknesses or resolve them through your own initiative. Most of all, design your strategy around a pre-existing business model that is scalable for growth. Most initiatives fail because of the mistaken assumption that the business has to be new to be innovative. The older I get the more I realize it’s all been done before, but it’s just not being done by me right now.

What to do when you get stuck? The term “paralysis analysis” often applies, because you get caught in the details, instead of being able to evaluate the whole picture. Don’t lose sight of the 30,000 foot view. Worry about whether you have evaluated your target market correctly and if you can really push your sales. Clients often concentrate too much on the operations in the beginning. At least 80% of your time should be spent selling even before you are ready to open your doors. You will learn more than you wanted to know about your assumptions being right or wrong from your sales efforts. If no one’s buying (or even interested), change your strategy immediately.

How can you look at the problem to find a solution? Talking to people about one more book about to be published will make a lot of eyes glaze over, even if the subject matter is of interest. I think it’s because reading a book is such a personal experience. So, we had to take a look at what else could be done with the company’s largest asset (not the book…the Author!)

We realized the author’s knowledge and credentialed experience are a perfect platform for teaching his material and certifying people as trainers of it. Therefore, we positioned the startup company for a joint venture to catapult growth. We sought companies that had great experience in creating, managing, and selling training programs. We are currently negotiating with a letter of intent from our first choice of Partner Company for the client.

This will enable the client to reach maximum revenue levels in the first few years, reaching their goals of a million books sold and 5 million in revenue.