Description
Tradition says there are three ways to grow a company’s profits: Fire up the sales team with empty promises, cut costs and downsize, or cook the books. But what if there’s a better way—a way that nine amazingly profitable and well-run companies are already embracing?
Jason Jennings and his research team screened more than 100,000 American companies to find nine that rarely end up on magazine covers, yet have increased revenues and profits by ten percent or more for ten consecutive years. Then they interviewed the leaders, workers, and customers of these quiet superstars to find the secrets of their astoundingly consistent and profitable growth.
What they have in common is a culture—a community—based on a shockingly simple precept: Think big, but act small. It works for retailers like PETCO, Cabela’s, and O’Reilly Automotive, manufacturers like Medline Industries, service companies like Sonic Drive-In, private educational companies like Strayer, industrial giants like Koch Enterprises, and software companies like SAS.
These companies think big ideas about solving customers’ problems, making better products, and creating value. And yet they never stop acting like start-ups—staying humble, treating every employee like the owner, and teaching managers to get their hands dirty.
Jennings and his researchers have updated this book with new stories and insights about why these companies continue to thrive—through the economic downturn—and have now increased revenues and profits for fifteen consecutive years. Any company, no matter the size or industry, can benefit from following their examples.
About the Author
Jason Jennings (b. May 31, 1956, Negaunee, Michigan) is the author of the 2001 Harper Collins NY Times bestseller, It's Not The big That Eat The Small - It's The Fast That Eat The Slow, and his subsequent business bestsellers for Penguin Putnam , Less Is More (2004) and Think Big-Act Small (2006).He began his career as a broadcast journalist and later owned radio stations in Oklahoma, Washington and Arizona. The consulting firm he founded Jennings-McGlothlin & Company became the largest media consultancy in the world and served clients in the broadcasting and retail industries.He does between sixty and eighty keynote speeches each year around the world and in 2007, USA Today named him one of the three most in demand business speakers in the nation alongside Tom Peters and Jim Collins.