How to Grow Your Business with Little or No Investment in Infrastructure or Advertising

Posted on | April 3, 2009 |

Bob Bloom, author of The Inside Advantage

In my long career in the business trenches – as a successful entrepreneur, the CEO of large marketing services company and an advisor to a wide variety of famous companies and brands -I have discovered that the best way to expand the size, scope and profit of any business is to grow it from the inside. This is not theory – I have proven that every firm - regardless of type or size – can grow by capitalizing on an undiscovered or underutilized strategic asset that already exists in the enterprise. I call the firm’s “hidden” growth potential an Inside Advantage.

I have created and validated a practical, industry-neutral process to identify and exploit any firm’s Inside Advantage. I call this systematic methodology the Growth Discovery Process (GDP). Here’s how this easy-to-use four-step process works:

First, you define your Core Customer(WHO) as far more than a demographic, brand or company. You concentrate your resources on this vitally important individual’s wants, needs and aspirations to enhance current customer loyalty and secure valuable new customers.

The second step is to define an Uncommon Offering (WHAT) for your business that goes well beyond the buyer/seller transaction. You identify an undervalued, underutilized or undiscovered strategic asset that already exists within your firm and translate it into a tangible and emotional customer benefit.

The third step is to define a Persuasive Strategy (HOW) that will differentiate your products or services. You create a compelling selling rationale for your Core Customerto buy your Uncommon Offering vs. all competitive offers. This is HOW you sell WHAT to WHO.

The final step enables you to OWN IT! You generate increased sales and bypass the expense of traditional media by creating marketing that’s focused on numerous no or low cost Imaginative Acts that will make your Uncommon Offering well known to your Core Customer. Keep this in mind -advertising costs money but imagination is free. Imaginative Acts will bond/cement what you do best to your brand or firm name so that you can OWN IT!

At this pivotal moment in your business evolution, your firm will own, leverage and grow with the benefit of your newly discovered Inside Advantage.

My profoundly simple Growth Discovery Process capitalizes on what your firm does best and enables it to grow by doing this activity far better than its competition.

With only one day of hard work, my GDP will empower your company’s management team to construct an ambitious, but achievable strategic growth framework and gain enthusiastic internal consensus for the strategy’s immediate implementation.

Don’t procrastinate - today’s fiercely competitive marketplace and severely challenging economic conditions demand immediate action. Firms that are not growing will not thrive and may not even survive.

Bob Bloom is the author of THE INSIDE ADVANTAGE, The Strategy That Unlocks the Hidden Growth in Your Business (McGraw-Hill, November, 2007).

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