HERDING GAZELLES  

Karl Stark and Bill Stewart


Who Are Your A-list Customers?

Which customers should you be rolling out the red carpet for? Follow these three steps to identify the customers and prospects worth nurturing.  Read story

Are You Doubling Down for Growth?

Entrepreneurs and growing companies must be willing to bet last year’s profits to increase the odds for future growth.  Read story

Who’s Accountable for Your Growth?

Capturing growth opportunities requires alignment on targets, timelines, and, most of all, accountability.  Read story

Why Your Banker Cares About EBITDA

There's no good reason to care about EBITDA, right? Wrong. Your banker and investors will care--so should you.  Read story

Why You Need an Advisory Board

An outside perspective is critical to building the future of any business, big or small.  Read story

The Price is Right – Or Is It?

How to develop a pricing strategy that reflects the true value of your products.  Read story

How to Build Long-Term Shareholder Value

Don’t goose near-term results at the expense of long-term value creation.  Read story

4 Rules for Better Marketing

Great companies use this approach to cut their cost per acquired customer in half and generate a positive return. Can it work for you too?  Read story

Maximizing Shareholder Value Is Not a Dumb Idea

Despite what the critics say, management teams should still try to increase shareholder value--by delivering value to customers.  Read story

Why You Should Broaden Your Investment Choices

Big, nonsensical blunders such as a bad acquisition can happen when you don't consider a broad enough set of growth paths.  Read story

Building a Growth Agenda? Keep It Simple

A short list of high-value opportunities will keep you focused on what really matters.  Read story

Unlikely Cities Yield Surprising Profits

A retailer expanding its locations holds lessons for any growth-oriented company.  Read story

Your Team Can’t Agree on the Facts. Now What?

Get your facts straight before you launch an attack on your competitors. Here's three facts you can't get wrong.  Read story

Happy New Year! Your Revenues Are $0

Each year provides a clean slate and a chance to grab market share from competitors. Here are three tasks to get you started.  Read story

The Secret to Retail Store Profitability

How one retailer discovered the secret to expanding from three to 15 stores profitably.  Read story

Get Your Team on the Same Page

If your strategy’s off track, complete this four-step process to put your business back on a growth path.  Read story

Your Value Model is Dead. Now What?

A dead or dying value model can take your company down with it. Here's how one company came back from the brink.  Read story

How Do You Define Customer Value?

Business owners sound off about determining customer value.  Read story

5 Steps to Creating More Customer Value

By focusing efforts on your best customers, you can increase customer value and grow your business.  Read story

The Real Value of Your Business

Measures like Price-Earnings Ratio and EBITDA multiples are just gross generalizations of the value of your business. Here's how to determine the real value.  Read story

4 Steps for Calculating Customer Value

Understanding customer value is by far the most important factor when looking for ways to grow your business.  Read story

3 Steps to Energize Your Business Performance

You’re ready to start investing again in growth initiatives but your management team is at odds over what to do next. Building a value model will help trai...  Read story

This One Mistake Can Eat Your Business Alive

P&L targets are supposed to help a company create more value. But used incorrectly, they can erode business value and consume growth opportunities from the i...  Read story

Stop Overpaying for Acquisitions

You want to grow your business but buying your growth may not be the best strategy.  Read story

Lessons from a Dying Business

Redbox has built a successful DVD kiosk business, but its days are numbered. Here's why that's not such a bad thing.  Read story

3 Reasons Not to File an IPO

An IPO is no panacea: In some cases going public may even stifle the growth of your company. Find out why.  Read story

Top 3 Priorities of the Best CFOs

Get the most out of your CFO: Encourage him or her to explore beyond the bean counting to identify profit growth opportunities for the business.  Read story

No. 1 Reason Acquisitions Fail

Too often company executives driven by expanding their empire or blinded by a "quick fix" for entering a new market end up in an overpriced deal.  Read story

How to Avoid a Bad Case of ‘Deal Fever’

The frenzy to snap up competitors as they come onto the market is ill-advised. You should do the proactive work upfront to avoid bad M&A decisions.  Read story

5 Ways to Improve Customer Retention

Building these steps into your operations will help you to significantly improve customer retention and create significant value for your business.  Read story

What’s Driving Your Customers Away?

You are. This case study proves that customer attrition has little to do with the economy or prices.  Read story

The Hidden Costs of Customer Attrition

It may surprise you just how much each lost customer is costing your business.  Read story

A Bad Meeting is Like a Bad Marriage - You Feel Trapped

These tips on improving communication during office meetings may even elevate your standing at home.  Read story

It's Cheaper to Keep 'Em

Your customers that is. If you're spending tons of money on attracting new customers, you're making a mistake.  Read story

Profits First, Growth Second, Always

Why the logic of focusing on growth first and worrying about profitability later is often a bad idea.  Read story

How to Pitch a Risky Investment

By the time you're finished, you'll have them pitching you your own idea.  Read story

How to Hook a Life-time Customer

Put yourself in the mind of the customer: give them what they want and don't make them pay for it...right away.  Read story

When Your Financial Target is Way Off

This plan will help you refocus on high-potential opportunities that will bring your target back in view.  Read story

4 Steps to Super-size Your Growth

You need not look further than your core business to unlock your company's growth potential. Here's how to do it.  Read story