At this point, one of three things happens: (1) the business plateaus, reaching its internal limitation to growth, (2) or the business declines and fails (3) or the company experiences a breakthrough by redefining its business strategies, structures and processes. It marks a crossroads, sometimes seeing the founder/entrepreneur moving on. If this stage is managed well, the company begins a new cycle on the growth curve: serving new opportunities for profitability.

If you believe your company or business is at this stage you may find some very helpful articles and videos with all sorts of advice in the Next Level section of this site. You may also like to hear from some other entrepeneurs telling their stories from Newstalk Podcasts or why not have your own say on the lively smallbusinesscan.com Forum

Product Adaptation For International Markets

In the rapid growth stage the business will typically have started its internationalisation, frequently by “passive/indirect exporting”, whereby multinational businesses in the local market and visitors will buy the product for consumption back in their parent country/country of origin.

Before you go to market, make sure you have done your ‘go-to-market’ map. This becomes your key management tool to align, co-ordinate and manage all tasks that are needed to ultimately ‘make the sale’.

There are important differences between B2B and B2C marketing communications in terms of the communication context (the former being formal and the latter being informal), decision makers (many versus a few) and the primary communication tools used – personal selling versus advertising and sales promotion.

Consumers and businesses are bombarded daily with promotional and advertising noise; they receive hundreds of textual and auditory messages from morning until night, 24/7 and 365 days a year.

There are four steps in devising and delivering a differentiated, motivating and consistent delivery of your ‘customer brand experience’.

Brand and Exit are two of the most difficult challenges the entrepreneur faces in creating and then subsequently realising value in the business venture.

Leadership brand positions are built over time in a very specific progression through four consumer perceptions: differentiation, relevance, esteem and knowledge.

This tool will help stimulate your thinking about a ‘key customer account’ – in a way that you may not have before.

Ken Morse*, Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Centre, shared these insights into targeting the buying committee in typical B2B sales transactions:

It is an immutable business fact that 80 per cent of revenues come from 20 per cent of your customers. It therefore pays to target those key customers.

The ABC sales: contribution analysis helps companies to identify the relative value of different market segments and assists in deciding on resource allocation as a result.

Stefan Stremersch, a visiting associate professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, has been working to demystify the takeoff of new products around the world.