Yesterday I met a Managing Director whose company grew at 1% last year. Like most companies today, she thinks that that is all she can expect “in this economy.” Yet she asked “Some companies are growing far faster than that- how do they do it?”
I call them the “one percent”. There are businesses out there growing between 15% and 800% pa! We have studied them for the last 20 years. There are good reasons why they are so successful. They behave VERY differently from most companies
Which businesses are growing that fast?
Bybox, distributors of stock to sales staff and engineers, is one of the fastest growing companies in the UK and Europe.
PhotonStar, suppliers of little LED lights to supermarkets and hotels, is winning business off the major lighting suppliers.
Slingshot is in the incredibly competitive SEO market, yet grew by over 3000% in the past 3 years!
I could give you many more examples….. in addition to the big names you already know, such as Apple, Google and Facebook.
So what transforms failure into superb success?
These incredible businesses are ALL doing certain things in the same way.
A dream that unites
I have worked for some of the largest companies in the world. At leadership level, if one Director is pulling in the direction the company says it wants to be going, you are doing well. The others usually pull in different directions. No one seems to think it is a problem. It is ridiculous. Would you try to paddle down a river with people pulling in different directions? Of course not.
One thing one percent companies do differently is that, from the leadership team downwards, their people are all headed in the same direction
Slingshot started out with very little money, and a dream. The power of that dream was so strong that they always talked about “when” not “if”. What is more, it drove them to focus, to unite, moving from being a “jack of all trades” to a company that literally makes its clients successful. Like a lighthouse amongst the fog of SEO suppliers.
Think of fast growth companies you know. Under Steve Jobs Apple’s dream was “to make a dent in the universe”. They united to become an unstoppable army.
Are your people pulling in the same direction? When will your business become unstoppable?