EP365 Plant Corn For Fast Growth

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Plant Corn For Fast Growth

The title of this is Plant Corn to Get Corn. I’ve hinted to this one in the past. I don’t think I’ve hit it head-on. Using some very old, I’m going to say 150, 200-year-old managerial metaphors. One of the old managerial metaphors was if you plant corn, can you get wheat? If you plant soybeans, is there any way to get an oak tree? Of course not, that’s silly. Growth consultants would often ask a brand-new client what growth seeds do you plant? They would get what is known as the who-farted-look, and they would explain there are four types of growth seeds in the average business. I don’t think this has changed with technology.

You’re not planting anything. Meaning every day that goes by, every week that goes by, you might have set a yearly agenda months ago, but as the day goes by if you were to ask yourself now, “What new seed did I plant to ensure or virtually guarantee that the company grows in revenue tomorrow? What seeds did you plant?” The majority of businesses on a daily basis do not plant growth seeds of any kind. You’ll hear some types of growth seeds and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you’re not planting any growth seeds, any seeds whatsoever that ensure the company grows next week, next month, next year, by default, you’re growing weeds.

If a farmer chooses to take a couple of years off, which many do, and they don’t plant any seeds. Let’s say it’s normally a cornfield and they don’t plant corn next year. If he comes back a couple of years later and he didn’t plant any corn seeds, what’s there? We all know, it’s a field of weeds just rampant raging weeds. The reality is if you’re not planting specific growth seeds in your company you’re going to grow something called entropy. Weeds are going to set in. The company’s going to go stale. There’s going to be in talk and even in fighting inside your company because things are stale. There’s going to be the blame game. There’s going to be a lot of negative seeds planted that is entropy at its finest. Of course, both internal and entropic competition is going to take root. If you don’t know that one, it’s episodes 20, 21 and 22, the Three Types of Competition. They may be in the Today’s Growth Classics if they were very popular and heavily downloaded.

Seed number one, you’re not planting any growth. Seed planting number two, this one is very common. I get caught doing this one a lot. You’re planting check marks. Meaning you spend the whole day, if not the whole week checking things off your to-do list of things that are very important but have nothing to do with growing revenues in the company. They’re not moving the company forward. They’re not growing revenue. You’re planting check marks. That in and of itself to many companies is worse than planting nothing. Planting check marks masks the fact that you aren’t planting seeds of growth by planting seeds of activity. You become efficiently ineffective and then, you wonder next month, “How can I be so busy yet we’re not growing?”

You’re planting check marks. Number three, you’re planting non-vetted growth seeds. You’re technically planting growth seed. You could be doing Facebook ads, radio. You might have hired an SEO firm or a lead gen firm, but you didn’t vet them. You didn’t vet the technique against your own product line. You just thought it would be a good idea to try it. You had some sales so you’re sticking with it. The reality is if you didn’t vet that method, that person or that firm against your exact product in your space, you’re planting what is called non-vetted growth seeds.

This is highly dangerous because you might and probably will get some growth. It makes it look like it might or probably was a good idea, but the reality is as time goes by, you realize, “That might not have been the best use of our funds.” Quite frankly, because it has the possibility of working, it’s very much right up there with one and two very dangerous seed planting methods. Number four, the only one that grows a company and that’s planting proven growth seeds. This is going to sound silly, but what do veteran farmers plant? What’s the only thing they plant? Vetted, proven seeds. Would they ever plant seeds that weren’t sure to grow? Of course, not. Would they ever plant seeds before they stuck them in the earth, outside of a drought that these seeds are going to grow exactly what they need? It sounds insane. No farmer is going to gamble their season on a growth seed of some vegetable or a tree. They’re not going to plant it if they don’t know ahead of time that it’s going to work.

Most businesses now are planting seeds that look like any other seed. They look like a good seed, but nobody has ever shown them documentation that indeed if you plant this sucker, it is going to grow exactly what you need. Meaning if you plant enough of these growth seeds and enough of these Facebook ads, Google pay-per-click ads and enough of these SEO long tail keyword, short tail keywords. Enough of these lead gen programs, infographics that turned into backlinks, if you plant enough of these, enough of whatever, you are guaranteed to pass your competitor online. You are guaranteed to ring your phone inbound. You are guaranteed to have a brand out there so that when your sales reps do outbound calls, it falls on good ears, not deaf ears. I’d say 60% to 90% of the seeds that most business owners plant are non-vetted growth seeds.

How about stopping and using the following method? You plant three to five seeds right now that you think will work and you grow them for six months a year. You take stock. You take note and you watch which rows grow the best, which seeds grew the best. Next year, 80% of the seeds you plant are from the one set of rows that grew the best. The one method that grew the best. 80% of all your budget, time and energy goes into that seed, but 20% of your funding and your time gets allocated to split testing three to five new seeds. You’re going to look as hard at those as you did the year before at the one that proved out.

You’re going to vet those three to five. Then the following year you’re going to have two proven seeds. You’re going to split your 80% in any of those two proven seeds, and again you’re going to vet with 20% of your funding and time three to five new seeds so that over time you’re like that farmer. Every farmer still, I promise you, has certain rows that are always testing the latest, greatest seed. They don’t plant 100% of what they think is the best seed. Some can, some do, but I have driven by many farms where you see the big signs in front of those rows, “Testing the seed.” It’s the way to go. For this episode, if you plan corn, I promise you, you will get corn.

Important Links:

• Episode 20 Today’s Growth Classics
• Episode 21 Today’s Growth Classics
• Episode 22 Today’s Growth Classics

• Here’s How »

• kencourtright.com
• Today’s Growth Twitter
• Ken Courtright LinkedIn