Simply put, most entrepreneurial start-ups fail. Those fortunate enough to succeed then face a second, major challenge: how to grow. This book focuses on the key questions an entrepreneur must answer in order to grow a business. Based on extensive research of more than fifty successful growth companies, Grow to Greatness discusses the top ten growth challenges and how to overcome them. Author Edward D. Hess dispels the myth that businesses must grow or die. Growth can create value. But, too much growth too fast outstrips effective processes, controls, or management capacity. Viewing growth as "recurring change," Grow to Greatness lays out a framework for how to approach business development—and how to manage its risks and pace. The book then takes readers through chapters that explore whether the time is right to grow, how to do it, and how to manage the vital reality that growth requires the right leadership, culture, and people. Uniquely, this book aims to prepare readers for the day-to-day reality of growth, offering up the lived experiences of eleven entrepreneurs. Six workshops to assess where readers stand now and a suite of templates that will prove to be useful over time help bring the book's teachings to life. After reading this book, entrepreneurs will have a real understanding of their readiness to grow and place in the growth cycle, as well as a concrete action plan for where to take their businesses next. Many books address how to start a business, but this is a unique, go-to resource for readers who want to learn how to thrive beyond the start-up phase.

Wall Street believes that all public companies should grow smoothly and continuously, as evidenced by ever-increasing quarterly earnings, and that all companies either "grow or die." Introducing a research-based growth model called "Smart Growth," Edward D. Hess challenges this ethos and its dangerous mentality, which often deters real growth and pressures businesses to create, manufacture, and purchase noncore earnings just to appease Wall Street. Smart Growth accounts for the complexity of growth from the perspective of organization, process, change, leadership, cognition, risk management, employee engagement, and human dynamics. Authentic growth is much more than a strategy or a desired result. It is a process characterized by complex change, entrepreneurial action, experimental learning, and the management of risk. Hess draws on extensive public and private company research, incorporating case studies of Best Buy, Sysco, UPS, Costco, Starbucks, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Room & Board, Home Depot, Tiffany & Company, P&G, and Jet Blue. With conceptual innovations such as an Authentic Earnings and Growth System framework, a seven-step growth funnel pipeline, a Growth Decision Template, and a Growth Risks Audit, Hess provides a blueprint for an enduring business that strives to be better, rather than simply bigger.

No company ever shrank to greatness, conclude Dwight Gertz and João Baptista. Drawing upon their new study of more than 1,000 large companies, the authors argue that managers must move beyond the current wave of downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering. Contrary to current management fads, they contend that companies must grow to be great. Managers now involved in downsizing must consider long-term goals for growth alongside short-term measures for slimming. Gertz and Baptista shatter popular corporate myths by revealing that growth opportunities are everywhere, across all business sectors -- even in stable industries and in companies "too big to grow." Using case studies, Gertz and Baptista analyze successful high-growth firms such as Starbucks, Staples, USAA. They examine not only the strategies followed by these companies -- customer franchise management, superior new product development, and channel management -- but also what they did to make these strategies successful. They discuss how, regardless of differences in strategic approach, the transformations achieved by these firms are based on the same three "foundations for growth": superior customer value, outstanding economics across the value chain, and excellence in process execution. They demonstrate how these three foundations work together, forming a powerful framework through which to attain corporate goals. Distilling these findings into useful tools for the evaluation of any strategy, Gertz and Baptista show how those facing the difficult task of turnaround can get back to growth. By examining improvements at four companies within the context of their growth framework, they analyze the combination of inspiration, leadership, and technique which has enabled these firms to prosper. Shifting the focus from cost-cutting to growth is a challenge that thousands of companies must now face. Gertz and Baptista have given CEO's, managers, and consultants in every industry a clear framework from which to build sustainable growth in revenues and profits. This book is a practical and colorful guide for those who want to grow to be great.

How to develop an all-star staff, even if you don’t know the first thing about managing “Your employees are, like you and me, flawed and hopeful human beings whose success is at least partly dependent on your skill as a manager, human beings who will thrive with skillful and consistent attention and wither without it.” Erika Andersen has helped some of the best-managed companies in the world develop their employees. Now she explains how to stay ahead of the competition by investing in your people. You’ll discover that: • Listening is your most powerful asset. Use it to motivate and build commitment. • Everything you know about interviewing is wrong. Discover what you really need in a potential employee. • Successful companies hire for keeps. Get people feeling like part of the team from day one. Whether you’re a first-time manager or a senior executive, Andersen will help you create a dynamic workplace, where the efforts you make today will blossom into success for years to come.

This motivational book is designed for anyone who wants to go to the highest level possible. Each chapter is filled with anecdotes as well as writing exercises tp help you process your life. The "G.R.O.W. Model" (Give, Release, Overcome, WIN) is a proven technique that will assist you in your personal as well as professional life. As you read this testimony, I encourage you to look at each of the 10 steps put forth in this book and be honest with yourself about how you will remove all negative barriers to your growth personally or professionally. So often in our lives, we attend trainings or conferences and leave thinking that we have learned nothing and have wasted our time. We often lament over the loss of funds and return home unfulfilled. I want you to approach such events differently and begin to take a new approach in life. Use this book to launch the space shuttle that is you for you are on a trajectory to fly beyond the stars. Begin today to prepare for the greatness that is inside of you waiting to burst out! Look at each step and know that with each accomplishment, you are taking another step on the stairs of success; a success defined by you and no one else. When Les Brown, one of the world's leading motivational speakers over the last 20 years, speaks of becoming a millionaire, he is speaking more of a mindset than the money. As he states, being a millionaire means doing things that make you feel like a millionaire. It could mean getting your first house or a house for your parents. It could mean going back to school when you are in your seventies or cleaning up a park in your neighborhood that you cannot stand seeing filthy. It can also be financial of course. There are a million ways to feel like a millionaire. Now turn the page and take the next step towards your greatness!

Growing an Entrepreneurial Business: Concepts and Cases is a textbook designed for courses that focus on managing small to medium sized enterprises. It focuses on the major management challenges that successful start-ups encounter when leaders decide to grow and scale their businesses. The book is divided into two parts—text and cases—to provide professors with maximum flexibility in organizing their courses. The thirty-five cases can be used in conjunction with the text, or independently. Twelve cases are written as narratives with multiple teaching points, but without a focus on a particular business decision; the remaining twenty-three cases were written around specific conundrums related to strategy, operations, finance, marketing, leadership, culture, human resources, organizational design, business model, and growth. Discussion questions are provided for each case. The text portion of the book discusses key issues derived from the author's research and consulting, and is meant to complement the case method of teaching, raising issues for conversation. In addition to the real-world knowledge that students will derive from the cases, readers will take away research-based templates and models that they can use in developing or consulting with small businesses.