Energize Growth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company

Here’s a familiar scenario for successful entrepreneurs: You start a company and fuel its growth with your own passion and hard work. But after you expand, the company takes on a life of its own. Systems, procedures, politics, and financial pressures compete for your attention. Those demands begin to undermine your passion and your purpose. Your company culture changes, your profits are strained, and your own health and happiness suffer. You either give up, sell out, or drop out.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. With thoughtful planning and guidance―and with the contrarian wisdom you’ll find in this book―you can combine strategic planning with smart marketing to spur intelligent, long-term growth without working 100-hour weeks. Energize Growth NOW is the perfect resource to help you transition your company from a growing start-up to a successful, wealthy business.

Growing a business is difficult, demanding work. Keeping your business on the right track over time can be tedious, difficult, and boring. In a business world filled with headlines touting the latest business planning models and cool new marketing ideas, it takes real commitment to focus on the fundamentals that help you build a sustainable business. Energize Growth NOW is the resource you need to help you achieve just that. It shows you how to build deep relationships with clients and customers, stop obsessing over the numbers so you can think about the big picture, and build systems that free you to focus on more strategic activities.

It takes clear vision and enduring principles to succeed over the long term. Energize Growth NOW shows you how to:

• Avoid the pitfalls of running a growth company
• Tackle the common misconceptions that distract from your goals and sabotage good ideas
• Create a vision of your business’s future that keeps everyone focused and energized
• Develop a strategic growth plan thatactually works
• Adapt quickly to changes in your market andyour business
• Link your brand to your growth plan to maximize market traction
• Launch online communities and social networks that foster long-term relationships and develop true customer evangelists

Most importantly, Energize Growth NOW helps you stay connected to your customers, partners, and yourself. After overcoming the start-up hurdles, it’s easy to stray from the vision and values on which you founded your business. This book shows you how to continually grow-without losing sight of the principles that got you here.

Praise for Energize Growth Now

“Effective, timely, balanced-this book captures the critical steps for growing a business the ‘right way’ and avoiding the usual pitfalls of a poor growth strategy.”
―Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Leader in Me

“Much like my experience at Apple, you will need to know when it’s time to stop acting like a bootstrapper and start operating like a growth company. This book is a great resource to ease the transition. By applying these core principles and time-tested planning guides, you will have changed the world for the better.”
―Guy Kawasaki, author, Reality Check and The Art of the Start, and cofounder, Alltop

“I wish I’d had access to this book’s wisdom in the past. It’s a wellspring of invaluable marketing ideas and wealth-building strategies business owners and management teams can-and should-use to take their companies where they need to go. There’s no abstruse theory or hard-to-understand doublespeak here. Just actionable plans anyone can literally start using tomorrow. That makes Lisa Nirell the growth strategy guru for sustainable businesses.”
―Jeffrey Hollender, President and Chief Inspired Protagonist, Seventh Generation

“Energize Growth NOW appears at an ideal time to provide small business owners with their rightful wealth, life balance, and peace of mind through great advice, easily applied. Lisa Nirell’s advice is more important than any business plan you now have in place.”
―Alan Weiss, PhD, author, Million Dollar Consulting

“Energize Growth NOW is simply a fantastic how-to guide for building a great company. Try the ideas in this book and not only will your business grow, but so will you!”
―Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times and Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and Succession: Are You Ready?

“In Energize Growth NOW, Lisa Nirell has written a smart, concise guide for business leaders looking to navigate growth successfully. The book provides valuable tips on how companies can grow better as well as bigger, and how leaders can create the kind of vibrant culture that’s critical now more than ever.”
―Ray Davis, CEO, Umpqua Bank, and author, Leading for Growth

“Lisa Nirell has captured the essence of what it takes to grow an entrepreneurial venture into a successful,sustainable enterprise.”
―Jerry Andres, CEO, Jeld-Wen Development, and Chairman of the Board, Clear Choice Health Plans

“What’s uniquely cool about Lisa’s book is the way she interweaves values with financial success. Making big bucks without values smells. Having high values go unrewarded ultimately destroys beliefs. She keeps them together.”
―Gary Sutton, author, The Six-Month Fix and Corporate Canaries