3 Steps to Growth in 2014

At the beginning of the New Year, it feels appropriate to discuss growth. Unfortunately, the growth conversation often lacks the levity it once did with the world economies still struggling to fully recover. Rather than focus on that, we want to offer that growth can still be fun and less perplexing than it seems; however, it may require changing strategy, direction, or even primary market focus.

Most people start off the year with resolutions, and we recommend that growth finds itself at the top of the list. We understand the desire to simply sustain when the markets are tough, but we advise taking the successful stock market approach - invest when the market is down. While it can be tough to swing, it can result in nice payoffs, especially if your competition takes the sustainment route.

With that said, we suggest three steps to promote growth into 2014.

1. Have Fun with the Idea Phase - As we stated, growth does not have to be a dreaded conversation. Have fun thinking about ways to grow. Get into it, create competitions, foster creativity in this phase, and most importantly do not discourage ideas by allowing negative feedback. Your organization's best path to growth may be hiding in the idea someone was afraid or discouraged to voice.

With that said, create a flexible box for the ideas. We know, that notion might be considered blasphemous in certain circles, but we suggest this approach because certain, flexible boundaries keep the ideas focused to those that account for key company strengths - not necessarily the obvious ones though - and it prevents devolving into an Anything For Money (AFM) strategy. It is important to have fun, but not to lose all semblance of focus. For example, here at Res Rei Development, we love creative growth ideas, but would exclude things like self manufacturing our thoughts on the next greatest widget simply because it falls way out of bounds of our core strengths. Have fun, but be mindful when outside of the box causes you to chase unrealistic opportunities.

2. Set Manageable Goals - How original of us right? We know, goal setting advice by a consulting company seems about as original as a celebrity rehab stint or the lack of innuendo in music these days, but its importance and neglect never seems to fade. We find it not all that uncommon to find relatively small companies with goals like "$1 million increase in year over year sales" when their three year average annual revenues are under $5 million. Think about that logically. That is a 20% increase in a single year. Yes, for some companies and some industries, they can manage that, but that does not make it manageable for everyone.

Additionally, unattainable goals for companies, just like for people, can leave a feeling of discouragement and hamper further growth efforts. Set those manageable goals, post them for everyone to see, encourage your personnel, create incentives, and reward them when you hit them. Now, manageable goals does not equate to underachieving goals. Make sure they will require dedication and effort.

3. Don't be Afraid to Ask for Help - Whether you ask your own group of friend-advisors or bring in outside specialists, it is okay to ask for help. Okay, we'll admit, that is a little self-serving, but, we didn't say you had to ask us - although, we'd be happy if you did - and the advice still holds validity. Getting additional perspective or help in creating a growth strategy can help cut through the noise and get your company moving towards those growth goals. Sometimes solutions can elude those that are too close to the problem. Regardless of the size of your organization, it is acceptable to ask for help. The bigger mistake is hitting a wall and not considering asking for help. It is the continued growth of the organization that is the goal. As the saying goes, "if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got."

Denis Leary’s Hidden Business Lesson No One Heard?

Sixteen years ago, Denis Leary went on one of his famous, comedic rants about “coffee flavored coffee.” Rather than butcher it, watch the video below to hear him discuss the frustrations of finding a cup of coffee flavored coffee and beer flavored beer. Warning, it contains adult language, but it makes the point.

Fast forward to today. A couple of weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about whether or not peanut butter Pop Tarts® classify as an innovation. This article harbors zero intent on plunging into that overly opinionated area; however, when one looks at both Denis Leary’s comments and the Pop Tart® article, it raises an interesting question. Did Denis Leary provide a business lesson clearly no one has heard?

For those that did not watch the video, excerpts of the important pieces are provided. "What happened with coffee? Did I miss a f!@#$%^ meeting with the coffee, huh? You can get every other flavor except coffee-flavored coffee! They got Mochachino, Chocachino, Frappachino, Rappachino, Al Pacino, what the f@#$?" He continues about beer. Specifically, he talks about Pete's Wicked Brew, Pete's Wicked Summer Brew, and then asks "Who the f@#$ is Pete, f#$% Pete?"

Profanity aside, he raises a couple of interesting points, especially when you consider peanut butter Pop Tarts®, the 10,000 different toothpastes, and the most recent iterations of the iPhone. Are we as marketers and product developers trying too hard to keep up with consumer trends – real or perceived - that we miss the most obvious, age-old tenet - why mess with a good thing? Let us look at Google's recent YouTube comment system change as one example. Again, this article is not wading into that beaten to death argument. Instead, let us examine it in Denis Leary's context. We have thousands of social media options. We have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, Myspace, LinkedIn and the list goes on. Would anyone be surprised if there was a social network solely for people's goldfish? Most people use one or a couple of these.

So, YouTube comments worked just fine before, right? Why then did Google decide it necessary to cram Google+ down our throats, much the way Leary alludes non-coffee flavored coffee was crammed down his? How about Gmail? What happened to the email, email systems? With Gmail you can send emails, update your Google Circles, and wire people money now, just to name a few. Before we know it, Gmail will take food orders and control your television. In spite of numerous complaints about these changes, companies still forge ahead making it impossible for people to get the simple product and/or service that they prefer, instead being force-fed a bunch of junk they could care less about.

As seen both in Leary's rants sixteen years ago and in the Pop Tart® and Google examples, this is neither a new trend nor a past problem that has since been resolved. When are the marketers and product/service developers going to take a serious, perhaps quantitative, look at the choice to fundamentally change staples into the newest and flashiest thing around? Do the novelty sales really mitigate the lifetime customer expenditures that are lost from the unnecessary modification? One final thought, how many customers do companies actually lose when they decide to change something solely for the sake of changing it in their attempts to be edgy and innovative? Innovation provides little value when you cannibalize solid products and services and alienate those customers that preferred the simplicity.

Sorry, Mr. Leary, it appears that after sixteen years, nobody's listening.

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This article is part of a new series of basic business lessons hidden in pop-culture

Exelis Mission Systems Retains Res Rei Development

This week Exelis Mission Systems, a division of Exelis, Inc. engaged Res Rei Development to support an international growth and development opportunity.

Exelis, Inc. is a $5B+ global aerospace, defense, information and services company created in October 2011 as a result of the spinoff of ITT Corporation's defense business into an independent, publicly traded company.

RRD personnel will be providing specialized expertise in exporting and tailoring necessary business processes to different countries as well as conducting general business and managing logistics in these locations to support the needs of Exelis' client.

Lacking Execution from your Fresh MBA Graduate Heavy Consulting Firm?

Yesterday, in his article "Strategy Without Execution is Hallucination," Forbes writer Karl Moore states that 95% of MBA strategy classes focus on the process of developing strategy and largely ignore execution. To add to this tale of academic woe, he tells us that in a survey of more than 200 CEO's, it was discovered that reality demands 90% to 95% being spent on execution not on development.

What does this say for the quality of the strategy solutions flooding the markets from the consulting firms that hire large numbers of fresh MBA grads? Are companies being given the best value for their money from the firms that base a large part of their business model on fresh MBA grads that have little to no exposure to execution?

Add this recent discovery to the fact that the most common grade given at Harvard is an 'A,', and it suggests that the top of their class Harvard consultant, with only two months of experience, may not be as good as it sounds.