Watch Your Speed! Three Fatal Mistakes to Avoid When Making a Smooth and Steady Return to Growth and Prosperity

This tends to be the time when everyone is out and about enjoying the great outdoors. I've noticed people heading to the beach or hiking in the mountains since in North Carolina, we have both!

With the nice weather, I've also noticed more motorcycles on the road. Most of the time people are wearing helmets and other protective gear. It is probably a lot hotter and maybe a little more restrictive and uncomfortable to wear all of that, but the consequences of wrecking without wearing that gear are far worse than a little discomfort.

This season has also brought with it some pretty high expectations and excitement for the end of the recession and a return to growth and prosperity. Companies that maintained their talent and strategy while cutting all other costs were able to weather the recession. It's now time for these organizations to take advantage of the opportunities available for overcoming the competition.

Keep in mind that it's easy to fall into the trap of moving much too fast -- and actually, reckless speed without a plan or understanding the great change that took place because of the recession can be fatal. Think of it as riding your motorcycle down a highway at 70 MPH without a helmet-- it might be convenient at the time, but you're taking a big risk.
Avoid this recklessness and think ahead instead.

Here are three mistakes to avoid when developing a profitable growth plan in the post-recession market:

1. Not taking the right amount of time and care to understand your current position and your customers' desires.

2. Don't focus too much on future profitable growth so that you miss existing opportunities. Instead, achieve goals over time. Otherwise, you risk moving much too fast for your stakeholders and growth plan to adjust, and expectations can't be met.

3. Not allowing for the time and planning needed to properly fund new initiatives with the capital required, which must flow from other profit sources that should first be cultivated -- before jumping in without the capital needs to fund your profitable growth.

I cover a lot more details on how to return to profitable growth in this installment of the Global Supply Chain Podcast series. It's the first of 10 podcasts I'll be publishing over the next few months on the topic of profitable growth.

You can listen to it here or read the text transcript.

Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to receive each one as it becomes available on the first and third Tuesday of every month.

Jim
Tompkins Associates