Energize Growth NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Guy Kawasaki (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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

From the Inside Flap

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. 

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (June 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470413921
• ISBN-13: 978-0470413920
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #470,021 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personal and practical methods to position your company for growth..., July 26, 2009

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I had the distinct pleasure of receiving an advance copy of Lisa Nirell's new book Energize Growth NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company. I've read a number of business books on how to "energize" growth and build your company, but all too often they read like a theoretical, academic methodology that would take a rocket scientist to follow and implement. Nirell avoids that problem with simple, down-to-earth steps that, if followed, will definitely place you on the right track for moving your business to the next level. It'll also position you well to be able to exit your company properly with a sale or acquisition in the future. Regardless of how you view your end-game, you'll be much better off for having read and followed Nirell's advice.

Contents:
Running on Empty; Brains, Beliefs, and Growth Blunders; Say No to the Good, and Yes to the Great; Increase Your Wealth Quotient; The Path to Planning; The Inside Job; What's on Your Dashboard; Design Your Dashboard; Plan Your Brand; More Revenues, Fewer Clients; Future Energy Sources - How to Grow Your Wealth Quotient with Social Media; Appendix A - Sample EnergizeGrowth Plan; Appendix B - Sample ProfitCents Report; References; About the Author; Index

There were so many ideas in Nirell's writing that stood out in her approach. One of the biggest was the imperative to "write down your plan." She recounts many situations where business owners had various "good ideas" about where they wanted to go, but were stagnating in the process of getting there. The simple words "show me your written business plan" was all it took in many cases to uncover the fact that the owner had no concrete ways to get to where they needed to be. Once that task was tackled, often the growth started immediately, as the person had a plan to follow and track. Seems very simple and intuitive, but all too often is left undone.

Another common pitfall for the small business owner is the idea of delegation. Generally, the owner is the commodity being sold, be it a consultant or a professional position. Time spent doing non-value-added tasks takes away from time that could be spent billing clients and growing the business. You may *like* to do the billings or the books yourself, but you could hire someone to do it for less than you'd bill. Therefore, saying "no to the good, and yes to the great" can offer up an instant spike in your time and energy that can be devoted to growing your business. This concept also applies to figuring out what your business offers that is better than anything else out there... your "hedgehog." Once you know where your most profitable parts of the business lie, then you can start trimming out the parts that don't contribute to your growth.

Obviously, there are many more parts of Nirell's plan, and I could go on about it for a long time. But suffice it to say that her advice is practical and personal, and has been validated with many of her clients over the years. This is a book that will stay on my business shelf for personal reference. Should I ever find myself truly running my own business, I plan on getting things started on the right foot with Energize Growth NOW.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wisdom and Realism for Entrepreneurs, July 4, 2009

By	Paul Copcutt "Square Peg - personal brand con... (Dundas, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At last a business coaching book that understands the challenges entrepreneurs face at various levels of their business growth and offers practical, realistic and challenging solutions to stimulate action and moving forward.

Lisa Nirell has written from a point of experience and lessons learned, both in her own career and business as well as with the many small and mid-size clients she has worked with in building the businesses they want.

I loved that each chapter was full of logical steps to solve the various problems encountered - but there was also the mind set of reality checks and balances.

A massive proponent of delivering value based business and avoiding 'commodity mindset' the Chapters 7 & 8 about the 'Dashboard' are written around defining what stage of growth you are at and then defining the relevant measures are golden, and worth purchasing the book just for this wisdom.

But there is so much more. A surprise for me was that there is an Eastern philosophy theme that particularly comes thorugh in the chapter about your Wealth Quotient - sometimes its not about the revenues and the next $.

A well structured and thought through book, it can be easily read, but might take a little longer to master - definitely one that you will want to add to the bookshelf and return to on a regular basis - my pages are already marked and margins written in and will continue to be added to.

One piece I felt missing was a final summary chapter, but this does not detract from the book and there are also additional downloads and resources from her site [...] that just add to the value.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Way to Understand the Complete Marketing Mix, July 2, 2009

By	Darrell Crawford - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is great information melding marketing and strategy in strategic planning. Lisa's book brings some considerations into focus that traditional strategic planning tends to ignore. If I were counseling someone who was considering starting a new business or wanting to change direction, I would recommend this book as a "mini MBA" course for strategic and marketing planning. It oozes practical application in every chapter!