Howard Speaks: Are You Poised for Growth?

Is your house in order? Are you poised forward growth? The first Dollar General store opened in Springfield, Kentucky in 1955 and today has 16,368 stores in the U.S. which is 3.5 times as many as the 4,743 Walmarts. They locate their 7,500 square foot stores and plan their merchandise selection to best serve their target customers of the low and fixed income households who are underserved by other retailers, with 75% of their stores in towns with less that 20,000 people. Going where your completion ain’t is the antonym of being just another me too product and service. In the past Dollar General had trouble with mergers and acquisitions and found starting their own de nova stores worked better, measuring their success with the final metric being same store sales growth. If your only dental office, or all of your offices are shrinking in same store sales the. you need to stop, adjust and get back to growth before you start expanding. Dick and Mac McDonald, now you know why they call it McDonalds, spent six years starting in 1948 experimenting with hot dogs and BBQ before perfecting their business model and selling their six franchise locations to Ray Kroc in 1954. Krispy Kreme started in 1937 and in the first 63 years only had 142 locations now have just over 1000 locations today.