Mastering the 7 Essentials of High-Growth Companies

Practical strategies to propel your company to the top

American business is entering unchartered territory. Recent trends suggest that we are moving out of a recession-fairly labeled The Great Recession-into a recovery phase characterized by high unemployment with growth. As such, the business road ahead will be challenging. Growth will be harder to achieve and business failure will be more prevalent.

But the best of America's growth businesses will pass through this cycle to experience renewed and hopeful growth in contrast to the high failure rate of those who fail to grow. The numbers are proving this to be the extreme case-a higher upside with a greater failure rate.

What are America's recession-proof, highest growth companies doing differently? What are the values, fundamentals, and actions that will make the difference between failure, or just surviving and thriving? The answer to these questions is, what Thomson calls, The 7 Essentials-value proposition, high growth market segment, marquee customers, big brother alliances, exponential returns, inside/outside leadership, and essential board experts. This book is the timely answer to the search for what it will take to propel a company's growth through these challenging times. It's for management teams of any business, independent of size or industry, which desires to identify a course of action to improve their opportunities to grow.

"Applying the 7 Essentials will improve your company's growth prospects," says author David Thomson. Growth companies are especially defined by their ability to grow through recession and recovery periods to become the new growth leaders. The case studies and the numbers in this book prove it. This reliable resource extends the insights from Thomson's bestselling book, Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth to apply the 7 Essentials to all companies.

Thomson is known as America's growth expert on what it takes to transform a small business into a billion dollar one. He has been recognized by Investors Business Daily as the "Guru for Uncovering the Blueprint for Sizzling Growth Companies."

• Offers busy professionals essential insights that will move their business or business unit beyond surviving and into thriving now and in the future
• Written by an expert on how companies achieve growth in challenging markets
• Contains key CEO interviews and quick case studies and is supported by on-line scoring tools to help teams apply the 7 Essentials

Economic weakness has not changed the need for companies to grow. This book provides you with a proven framework to overcome such challenges and thrive in today's challenging business environment.

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

PART ONE Achieving Growth during Challenging Times

Companies That Are Redefining Growth 3

Your Revenue Growth Blueprint 13

PART TWO The 7 Essentials of High-Growth Companies

The 7 Essentials 27

Applying the 7 Essentials as a Positive Feedback System 59

Three Big Boulders on the Path to Growth—And How to Clear Them Away 73

PART THREE The 7 Essentials in Action

The Emergence of the Global 7 Essentials 89

Blueprint . . . or Blue Print: Same Story, Same Values 93

Applying the 7 Essentials at HCL Technologies 103

HCL’s Blue Print for Continued Exponential Growth 119

PART FOUR A Blueprint to Achieve High Growth

Create Your 7 Essentials Action Plan 131

Build Your 7 Essentials Roadmap 147

Insights to Actions 151

The 7 Essentials for Start-Up Companies 163

PART FIVE A Growth Calling

Identify Your Growth Calling 169

Essential Leadership Pillars 173

Your Journey Begins with Three Steps 191

Notes 197

Index 199

DAVID G. THOMSON is a bestselling author, advisor, and speaker. He is the founder and Chairman of the Blueprint Growth Institute, a specialized management consulting firm focused on helping companies develop growth strategies and execute The 7 Essentials. His insights on the success pattern of America's highest growth companies—which he wrote about in his bestseller Blueprint to a Billion—have been embraced globally. Thomson has been studying and leading business growth for twenty years in general management and executive sales/marketing at Nortel Networks and Hewlett-Packard and as an associate principal during his five years at McKinsey & Company. He graduated with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario. Visit www.blueprintgrowth.com for more information.

MASTERING THE 7 ESSENTIALS of High-Growth Companies

American business is entering unchartered territory, and the road ahead will be challenging for companies of all types and sizes. Growth will be harder to achieve and business failure will be more prevalent. But the best of America's growth businesses will continue on their upward growth trajectory.

What separates the masses of management teams from the masters—those who manage to grow their companies through the most challenging market and economic cycles? What are the effective lessons utilized by America's recession-proof growth companies that you can apply to grow your business? What are the values, fundamentals, and actions that will make the difference between failure, surviving, and thriving?

According to author David G. Thomson, the answer to these questions lies in "The 7 Essentials." After years of extensive research on companies that had consistently achieved exponential revenue growth, Thomson determined the 7 principles that those companies were following: creating a breakthrough value proposition, exploiting a high-growth market segment, utilizing Marquee Customers to fuel growth, leveraging Big Brother Alliances, becoming the masters of exponential returns, practicing Inside-Outside Leadership, and balancing the board with essential experts. He learned, and explains in this book, that the difference between a struggling company and one that masters what it does and how it does it is the hallmark of a high-growth company.

Mastering the 7 Essentials of High-Growth Companies reveals the secrets of how recession-proof growth companies achieve exceptional results through all economic cycles. The case studies and numbers in this book prove it. Filled with in-depth insights and expert advice from growth-company CEOs, Mastering the 7 Essentials of High-Growth Companies is designed for results-oriented management teams looking for a set of principles and a course of action to improve their opportunities to grow.