Set realistic goals. This is where I’m a little different than a lot of people. I don’t believe in lighting the fire under a lot of people’s butts to cause them to perform. I always set realistic goals because if you have the right people, they never perform to the goals, they perform to their ultimate capabilities and a combination of what you’ve created and your skills in the market create the condition of performance.
Those early years, we were very practical, very realistic. We said over a five-year period where we wanted to be, and we said, ‘We can’t get there on day one.’ The mistake a lot of companies make is they’re so worried about how they’re perceived each quarter and each year, they lose track of what it takes to become successful. I just was blunt with our original founders, our owners and the venture folks that came on board. I said, ‘Look, this is who we can be; this is the process we need to take. If you don’t like this process, you don’t want me.’ I would constantly reinforce — and not in a negative way, in a very constructive way — ‘You don’t have to listen to me. But, if I’m doing this, we have to do it in a way that will work for you guys.’
I don’t let the market and the investors dictate the process to become successful because that’s a danger. … Early on we just created a course and said we’re going to create stabilization of product and infrastructure. So maybe this is a more specific answer: The first thing you have to do is say what market are you in, what does that market need and demand, and what are the processes and infrastructure to deliver on a sustainable way in the future, regardless of the speed of the initial success.
Rebuild your infrastructure. I’ve run three growth companies, and there are characteristics they all have in common, and in all honesty, it ties it back to a sports analogy. I had a number of baseball teams that were all mediocre and became good, and I really believed they all fit into the same category. To me, growth is all about controlled, focused aggression. It’s understanding what current and future customers demand and their needs, and then figuring out a way to deliver those needs while maintaining control over the process and margin.
Where most people fail in growth is they can either get the business and create the product but they can’t create the process and the margins you need to excel or they understand process and margin but they don’t understand growth.
So my view of growth is sustainable and aggressive with focused results, and I tell that to every company that I’ve ever run. For an example, in our early years, 2003 to ’04, we basically didn’t sell anything. I recreated the infrastructure of the shell company, and it probably scared the investors to death, but I said, ‘When we’re at the point to sell, we’ll be able to sustain our success.’ So most of our growth happened between 2005 to ’08. We’ve grown at well over 100 percent every year; we’re doing extremely well financially in a very, very tough market.
I always look at four pieces: growth, profitability, product strength — because that’s what we’re selling our customers — and shareholder value. And how we get there is with the best core product in our market. … That means you don’t always sell every bell and whistle, but those things that 80 to 90 percent of the customers want, you do better than everybody else.
How to reach: SageQuest LLC, (888) 837-7243 or www.sage-quest.com
