signature blocks

Though I am planning on going through the six stages of growth, I wanted to just add a comment about signature blocks.

The other day I received an important email from someone I had met briefly a few days earlier, unfortunately I was out of the office and my blackberry was over the limit - I could receive emails but couldn't send replies. I tried to address the issue via telephone. The sender did not have a signature block. Other than their name I had no other information. The issue was resolved but not without undue tension.

As I was thinkng about this, the obvious hit me. Signature blocks are meant to provide information, typically is it a name, company, telephone, website, etc. But in todays world of information sharing, why not add a link in the signature block to the latest press release, newsletter or webpage update....it's a great way of spreading the word.

Just a thought.

Stages of Growth - Where are you, Where are you going?

nCompass utilises a six stages of growth approach:

one 'man' band
early success
operationalizing
the resource crunch
suit & tie
the corporation

regardless of the stage, the objective is to get to the next level of growth and reap the rewards associated with a process driven, well resourced organization that understands what to do when and can execute.

the main driver for continuing to grow is that growth attracts competitors, if you are not growing you are losing ground to those around you that have been attracted by your growth

the one 'man' band organizations are the true start ups, innovative, new. the issue here is that the market may not yet know that it wants or needs your product and you may not be 100% confident that there is enough of a market to sustain your organization. most often a one person show. the push is on the product and service and not necessarily on the processes and procedures that need to be developed to run the organization effectively and capitalize on opportunities to their fullest. there is vision but direction is sometimes a challenge. the key here is to understand the product, understand the market and understand that there is an entire backbone to the organization that will be required to make the venture a success. don't forget about the processes that bring the business model to life. granted, with a one man operations the management structure really isn't needed but, it has to be there, one day the organization is going to 'take off' and how the one man band does things has to be duplicated and duplicated and duplicated to sustain the growth, the only way to do this is have a process for the steps the business utilises to execute it's model. many businesses fail at the next step because the business can not mimic the actions that created that initial growth.

early success - next blog.