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.

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Why Performance Dialogues Instead of Reviews?