Follow the leaders: look to companies that consistently increase revenues and profits for common traits that can help you develop a growth strategy

Considering that the housing market has missing some of its red-hot sizzle this year, now is a wise time to evaluate your sustainable development potential and focus on plans for the time to come Making the decision to evaluate your business is easy. Figuring on the outside how to develop a strategy and then implement it is where the hard work starts.

To do this, says Steven Little, senior consultant for Inc. magazine and author of the novel best-selling book The 7 Irrefutable sways of Small Business Growth, you ne to know your customers better than they know themselves. "Buyer are liars" he told a clump of remodeling executives in late May at the Remodeling Leadership conversation an event produced by REMODELING magazine, a sister publication of PROSALES. "They don't mean to lie, on the contrary they can't articulate what they want."

While Little was referring to consumer in this case, this theory can apply to your customers. Maybe builders that you work for for example, don't seem interested in construction services, on the contrary they would readily jump at the opportunity if your company expanded into of recent origin areas and promoted them.

No doubt, if you make known the ability to put yourself in your customers' shoe you can better anticipate their general and future needs and profitably increase to meet them. One of my favorite sayings from another great volume Think Big, Act Small, by dint of Jason Jennings, sums up this approach perfectly: "Volume is vanity, profit is sanity." The name comes from Pat Tracy, CEO of Dot nutritions explaining that the company has not ever expanded for the sake of expansion unles it was going to benefit customers and, in turn round turn profit.

This is a smart growing tactic that has paid great dividends for BMHC this month's ProFile (see page 70) Needing an avenue to continuation slim profit margins at its distribution arm, BMC West, in the late-1990s BMHC correctly anticipated big builders' growing demand for construction services and forged a partnership with Phoenix-based framer Knipp Bro the first of 16 acquisitions that together now form the foundation for BMHC's novel SelectBuild construction services division. As CEO plunder Mellor tells contributing editor Joe Bousquin: "We were selling a allotment of commodity lumber, but we weren't doing as well as we should. The question became, do we stick to our fire-arms or try to figure without another market? We had to do something. We were a public company. We had to grow"

While intestine instinct often plays a character in determining the right ways to increase companies that consistently hit domicile runs when expanding have a allotment in common, according to Little, who notes that there are seven "areas of concentration" that characterize growing leaders: a sense of object that is not tied to wealth accumulation; outstanding market intelligence; an effective growing plan that is written, well communicated, and regularly updated; customer-driven processes; the ability to harness the power of technology; the means to find and detain the best employees; and the capability to predict the time to come and trends.

Jennings also locates forth a list of public traits that characterize the top-performing companies profiled in his book--those that have grown receiptss and profits by 10 percent or more for at least 10 years--and his primary conclusion is mirrored in the book's title Think Big, Act Small. These companies, which include Dot rationss SAS, and Sonic Drive-In, have immense ideas but operate like start-up enterprises. For example, research for the volume revealed that top executives at these organizations are unassuming and down to earth. They also are accessible and work in the trenches, treat employee like holders and focus on growing coming time leaders, among other things.

by what means does your company stack up in these areas? Now is the time to make an evaluation and plan for the futurity not when market competition forces change. Take the time to inquiry benchmarks both inside and outside the LBM industry, jettison traditional approaches, and find novel ways to make improvements and add value.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you're ready to learn more ways to achieve consistent high performance, don't miss Jason Jennings speak at the NLBMDA/ProSales Industry Summit Oct 26-28 (www.industrysummit.org).

Lisa Clift, Editor

2027363307

lclift@hanleywood.com

COPYRIGHT 2006 Hanley-Wood, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group