This document summarizes 10 favorite business techniques for growth from a book by Tom Gray. The techniques include breakthrough conversations to identify obstacles, segmenting employees to boost results, determining if a business is worth doing based on returns, using quick wins to boost cash flow, growing through collector relationships, removing waste through standardization and simplification, negotiating with off-target responses, making good decisions with a checklist, and getting a business ready for sale. The document encourages adding your own favorite techniques from Gray's book, which describes over 60 techniques.

1. TEN FAVORITE
BUSINESS TECHNIQUES FOR
GROWTH
Tools for Small Business Success
CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014
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2. BUSINESS TECHNIQUES FOR GROWTH
 New book by Tom Gray explains more than 60 techniques
 Grow your business with prudence, not passion
 Practical techniques for
 Managing People
 Growing Revenue
 Improving Operations
 Negotiating and Deciding
 Selling Your Small Business
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3. MY 10 FAVORITES – ADD YOUR OWN!
CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014
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1. Breakthrough
Conversation
2. “Knowledge leads to
Behavior” Graphic
3. Segment your people
to boost team results
4. Is my business worth
doing?
5. Quick Wins
6. Growing through
“collectors”
7. Simple techniques to
remove waste
8. Negotiate with off-
target responses
9. Humility in decision-
making
10. Getting the business
ready for sale

4. 1. THE BREAKTHROUGH CONVERSATION
1. “Show me how you do that”
2. “What gets in your way? What makes doing that harder
than it needs to be?”
3. “Which obstacle matters most to better/faster”
4. “How does that obstacle prevent better performance?”
5. “Why do you suppose we do it that way? Why did we think
that was good for us, at some time in the past?”
6. “What would be a better way, so you could do your job
better and faster?”
7. “How should I measure the change in your performance,
so we know that removing the obstacle is worth doing?”
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5. 2. KNOWLEDGE LEADS TO BEHAVIOR
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CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014
Drawings
Work
Instructions
(Methods &
Procedures)
Training:
•Write: What, How,
Right/Wrong Photos,
When, Why
•Teach
•Practice
•They Demonstrate
Organize The Work:
• Schedule
• Job Aids
• Measurement
• Accessible references
• Timely parts/tools
• Timely inspections
Perform the Work
Feedback:
• Immediate
measure
• Visual progress
display
•Mgr observes
•Mgr’s personal
feedback
• Mgr makes
improvements in
preceding steps
Policies

6. 3. SEGMENT YOUR PEOPLE TO BOOST RESULTS
 Segment your people; choose one thing each could do
better for the most impact on results
A: Your star(s)
B: Potential to be an A with additional experience or
coaching; tell them what it would take
C: Steady and reliable
D: Marginal; requires supervision; work re-done too often
F: Substandard; negative influence on the team is an open
secret, sometimes acknowledged
 C’s and D’s may be surprised; that’s productive!
 You work with A’s and B’s; let them coach C’s and D’s;
exit the F’s
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CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014

7. 4. IS MY BUSINESS WORTH DOING?
 Wages/salary pays for your work IN the business
 “Return” (profit) pays for your investment and risk of working
ON the business
 Compare your profit to returns on other uses of funds
 3-4% on A-rated corporate bond; low risk
 9–11% on S&P 500; moderate risk
 6.5% return on 50/50 portfolio; one hr. per week vs. 80!
 What return (profit) compensates you for risk, worry, and effort
of owning a small business?
 20% annually on your investment (including loan)? 7
Copyright Thomas H. Gray Inc. 2014

8. 5. QUICK WINS
 Boost cash flow and morale
 Step back; view business as an outsider to see
opportunities for quick wins
 Opportunities:
- Raise price - Use technology
- Negotiate with suppliers - Change timing
- Process changes - Wages vs. market
- Hours - Support people
- Margin per product - Fix, paint, replace
- Ask your people - Standardize 8
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9. 6. GROWING THROUGH “COLLECTORS”
Collector = one relationship to generate multiple customers: their
members or users
 Distributor, Association, Team, Agency, Prime Contractor, etc.
First, decide what you want
 Access to their members: list of email addresses; publication/website for
advertising.
 Opportunity for personal presence, such as participation in an event,
speaking engagement, sponsorship, or posting your articles on their
website or blog.
 Status as a preferred provider, such as an endorsement.
Then, decide what to offer the collector
 Fee to join the association;
 Sponsorship fees;
 Event entry fees or booth fees;
 Pay for each use of the member list for email;
 Pay for ad in website or publication;
 Possibly, a referral fee, sales commission, or donation.
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10. 7. SIMPLE TECHNIQUES TO REMOVE WASTE
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CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014
Standardize Define process; metrics; poka-yoke
Simplify Cut steps; subassemblies; offload, limit options
Balance the Steps Equal time; work cells; buffer stocks
Pull and
Continuous Flow
Trigger replenishment with signal from following
step; kanban
Visual Alerts Kanban; kitting; flags for help; color for priority
Optimize the
Bottleneck
Offload it; more capacity; no downtime; redesign
process; small lots
Continuous
Improvement
Reflect and apply elsewhere; move on to
second stage

11. 8. NEGOTIATE WITH OFF-TARGET RESPONSES
 Direct adversarial responses to the other party’s
position just make them try harder to justify that
position!
 Makes progress more difficult
 Instead, respond with a change
 Don’t address what they said
 Suggest a new basis for discussion, e.g., annual
volume commitment, or revised timing
 Veer away from their position, seeking win/win 11
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12. 9. CHECKLIST FOR MAKING GOOD DECISIONS
CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014
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1. Delegate
2. Decide
3. Understand timing
4. Use a Framework
5. Work hard at defining
the problem
6. Check your attitude at
the door
7. Test and quantify your
assumptions
8. Create multiple
alternative courses of
action, then assess
them
9. Ethics: “Listen at the
heart of the spider web”
10. Work hard at
“unintended
consequences”
11. Implementation requires
forethought – it’s not an
afterthought

13. 10. GETTING THE BUSINESS READY FOR SALE
Goals: Highest valuation; most bidders
Method: Change the valuation’s critical discount factors:
1. Owner’s operating role
2. Concentration of customers
3. Growth prospects
4. Reliable cash flow; reliable financial reports
5. Key people committed to staying
6. Operations documented and quality of systems, facilities
7. Key customers/suppliers committed to staying
8. Barriers to competitive entry
9. Product diversity 13
CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014

14. ADD YOUR OWN FAVORITES
 Business Techniques for Growth explains 60 techniques…I
chose only 10 today
 Others you might like:
- Growth Machine - New Product Development
- New market segment - Process mapping
- Motivation/demotivation - BATNA
- Incentive plans - Decision Framework
- Selling process - Valuation
 Order book then add your favorites to this list!
 http://www.businesstechniquesbooks.com/books/business-
techniques-for-growth/ 14
CopyrightThomasH.GrayInc.2014

15. WHO IS TOM GRAY?
 Small Business Consultant since 2001
 Author: Blog and Books – Business Techniques in
Troubled Times and Business Techniques for Growth
 Certified by SCORE, SBDC, Turnaround Management
Association
 MBA Professor: Benedictine, Aurora, Concordia
 Interim CEO and Director @ 2 Nasdaq firms
 At Ameritech: VP, General Manager, Marketing Manager,
Operations Manager
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Copyright 2013 Thomas H. Gray Inc.