PPB November 2018

Tina Berres Filipski is editor of PPB. WATER COOLER Seven Rules For Fearless Growth Successful companies are taking these steps to grow faster and smarter. In today’s era of disruption, companies need to stay agile enough to survive and thrive—yet it’s all too easy to respond to today’s business climate with fear and indecision. Business consultant Amanda Setili insists it takes only a few simple steps to navigate the new economy and achieve fearless growth. 1 Embrace uncertainty. Companies that grow fearlessly know that predictable markets often create situations in which all competitors look alike and margins are thin—thus, new opportunities to differentiate themselves. They take prudent risks and know how to manage it. In short, they operate confidently in uncertainty. Take a cue from the film industry and try placing multiple small bets. Repeat past successes and keep budgets realistic and proportionate to projects. You can also target niche customer groups that you can uniquely please. 2 Get in sync with your customers. S tay ready for the future by collaborating with customers, paying attention to outliers and observing how customers customize and use your products. Even top executives are getting involved in customer interaction. This gives you the information you need to innovate new products and services and ways of doing things and stimulate growth. 3 Partner, borrow and share. In the past, businesses needed to own or take responsibility for every aspect of their value chain, from research to development to operations to sales and marketing. Not anymore. Today, businesses that grow fearlessly crowdsource, outsource and make use of freelancers, bloggers, microbusinesses, individual innovators and myriad partnerships to achieve far more than they could on their own. 4 Connect and strengthen your ecosystem. When you create the right ecosystem for your company, it will take on a life of its own. Look at Airbnb: before it came along, staying in someone’s home was risky business but Airbnb created a platform for guests and hosts to score each other. Figure out who’s already in your company’s ecosystem and whom you would ideally like to have there. Then determine what value you would like each member to both give and receive. Consider creating a technology platform to enable richer interactions between ecosystem members, and facilitate and nurture real-life relationships. 5 Open the floodgates of employee creativity. Too often employers squander talent by over-measuring, micromanaging and failing to inspire their employees. Instead, facilitate employees’ natural desire to collaborate with others and to grow their own skills—give them the freedom, knowledge, and network they need, and you will unlock vast power. Allow new ways to work by encouraging collaboration and forming project-based groups, rather than top-down structures. 6 Learn fast and fearlessly. Keenly observing the business environment, taking action before you feel fully ready and incorporating what you’ve learned immediately into your strategy are all tickets to playing in today’s fast-changing global economy. Constantly experiment, learn from successes and failures, and apply your knowledge. 7 Build trust into all you do. Trust is the ingredient that enables the growth of relationships with employees, business partners, customers and those in your work community. By trusting that your colleagues will do their part, you can set more aggressive goals, place bigger bets and have a bigger imagination about what may be possible. PPB Why do you think skucon and skucamp have been so successful? Graham: We have approached these as community events first and “traditional conferences” second. commonsku as an organization is extremely community-oriented in terms of how we have built our product, marketing, content and education platforms. When viewed through this lens, I think most people feel they are attending a less traditional conference because of the focus on the community PPB How do you create and maintain that cool vibe? Graham: Brand is extremely important to us because it ultimately informs the customer experience at events like these. I don’t know that we intentionally try to be “cool” as much as we try being authentic and true to the community we serve. When commonsku started, its roots were deeply embedded in the entrepreneurial and creative segment of the industry, so we have continued to stay true to this community. PPB What can attendees at skucon in January look forward to? Graham: We are moving skucon to a beautiful new venue, the stunning Keep Memory Alive Centre in downtown Las Vegas. In addition to a fabulous gift collection for all attendees (we work closely with our supplier partners to build a unique gift set to showcase their creativity), we are featuring exciting industry entrepreneurs like Ryan Moor; Lauren Borelli-Fitzgerald; Sarah Penn; Larry Cohen, CAS; and Pierre Martichoux among many others who will be sharing inspiring stories and lessons from the stage. skucon takes place on January 13, 2019, and all information about our schedule and speakers can be found at www.skucon.com. 72 | NOVEMBER 2018 | THINK