February 26, 2020

191: Steve McKee — Unstick Your Growth

48 minutes

Are you feeling stuck, stalled, and stale? This show is for you! Today’s expert dives into what you can do when your growth stalls out and how to reignite it back on track. With 30-plus years of experience, the answers might surprise you.

Steve McKee is the President of McKee Wallwork + Company, a nationally recognized marketing advisory firm that specializes in generating new momentum for stalled, stuck, and stale organizations. He is also the author of three books, When Growth Stalls, Brand vs. Wild, and Power Branding.

After five years of being in business, Steve found himself on the Inc. 500 list as the fastest-growing private company in America. This was great news, but within a few months their growth stalled and things began to decline. They couldn’t figure it out and they went on a 20-month drift where they had 94% turnover.

As they were on the verge of going bankrupt, Steve commissioned a research piece on all the fastest-growing companies in the Inc. 500 list to see what they were doing right. He found some shocking factors: three external and four internal dynamics that shook up company growth. He also found out that he wasn’t the only one suffering from this problem, as 20% of those companies were in the same position he was in.

The four internal dynamics are lack of alignment, loss of focus, loss of nerve, and inconsistency. These four things follow a vicious cycle with one after another and this slow buildup of problems leads to what seems to be a sudden mountain of problems overnight. If you get into this cycle and you don’t interrupt it, you will go down.

Interview Links:

Mckeewallwork.com

Steve Mckee’s books

Resources:

Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.