People often ask me about the explosive growth that Correct Craft — the company I lead as CEO — has experienced over the past 20 years. In many ways, our company is the poster child of a business that was tired and near death before reviving it to become a healthy, thriving organization that is having a huge positive impact and celebrating its 100th birthday. In 2009, a tough year, we had $39 million in revenue, and by 2023, we had reached our goal of becoming a billion-dollar enterprise. So it’s not unusual for folks to wonder how our team achieved such success.
From the highest perspective, Correct Craft’s secret sauce has been culture and strategic planning. So before looking at other items, let’s start with these two critical building blocks of success.
I’ll start with culture, because everyone wants to be part of something big, and organizational culture can help fulfill that desire. I have seen this firsthand at Correct Craft. A healthy culture energizes teams to accomplish great things and provides a higher purpose that inspires people.
I have written and spoken a lot about culture, and much of that can be found online, so I will try not to be repetitive here. In short, impactful organizational culture requires a higher purpose, a clear identification of values and modeling of that culture by leadership. And when an organization is intentional about creating an energizing culture, the positive results are significant.
Next, strategic planning is something I have written a lot about, too, but here are a couple of highlights. When an organization does a great job identifying their current situation from an outside perspective, and uses that as a springboard to set big goals, it is powerful.
Strategic planning has catalyzed significant growth at our company organically, through greenfielding and acquisition. It has forced us to think ahead to determine what we should be doing to succeed in the future. Growth is evidence of a healthy organization, and an effective strategic planning process has helped us drive significant growth. I don’t know how leaders lead successfully without an effective strategic planning process.
Culture and strategic planning are a couple of big-picture requirements to grow a business. Here are a few specifics.
First, without a great product or service, nothing else matters. Your product must be filling an unmet need or solving an unsolved problem. By the way, market research is a notoriously bad way to determine if your product or service is good; people often won’t buy what they claim to want when being surveyed. We avoid the risks of bad market research by working to be market-driving, not market-driven.
Most important, make sure your product is solving a problem, meeting a need or changing someone’s life for the better — and you don’t get to be the judge of that. The judge of your product or service is potential customers who express their verdict by spending money, or not, on what you are offering.
Second, your business needs a compelling story. Correct Craft has an amazing 100-year story, and I wrote a book about it, Making Life Better: The Correct Craft Story. People tell me all the time that they would not buy a boat from anyone other than our company because of how much they appreciate our story. The best stories are ones that you don’t have to share; others will share them for you.
Third, be a learning organization. Being a learner is not just about how much information you consume; it is, about how you process the information. Learners process information to expand their perspective, not to validate what they already think. Knowers, the opposite of learners, hold themselves back by spending energy trying to be right versus trying to understand.
Fourth, focus on impact, not profit. Businesses that just focus on profit become too narrow-minded and make bad, often short-term decisions. If you and your team are focused on how to impact your market, or the world, for the better, the profits will come, assuming your product or service is solving a problem or meeting a need. Focusing on impact is an important mindset that will significantly change your results for the better. You can’t fake this. If you use a focus on impact just for profit, folks will see through your manipulation and hypocrisy. A sincere desire to have a positive impact drives great results.
My fifth recommendation, manage for cash, is a little in the weeds compared with the others but still very important. Profitable companies go out of business every day because they were not properly focused on cash management. You can think all is well, but if your inventory, capital expenditures and accounts receivable are mismanaged, you won’t last long. This does not just apply to start-ups or small businesses; it’s important for all businesses. This may seem obvious, but not properly managing cash is the downfall of many organizations.
Finally, to do all of this, you need the right folks on your team. I speak often about the importance of “who, not how.” I generally feel inadequate and often say that I am the least-talented person on our team. Fortunately, I am aware enough of this to know I need help and want smart people around me. Many leaders try to be the “smart one” or work to figure everything out themselves, but this significantly limits the organization. Find good people, and everything becomes easier, much easier.
Over a long career, I have unfortunately seen a lot of businesses fail and have observed how mismanaging the above items contributed to that failure. However, the opposite is true, too. When leaders get it right, their businesses, whether new or 100 years old, not only grow, but thrive.
Intentionality is a key to success at almost everything. Related, organizational growth rarely happens by accident; it results from intentional attention. If you are a leader working to grow your organization, use this as an opportunity to determine where you might be falling short. Doing so will improve the odds of growing your organization and achieving the success you desire.
Bill Yeargin is CEO of Correct Craft and author of six books, including the best seller Education of a CEO.
