Archive for: Bo Burlingham

The author shared his new discovery about companies that have resisted the temptation to grow if it meant compromising their mission for growing. He tagged these companies as companies that choose to be great instead of big because they choose to focus on well-conceived core values coined round their employees, communities, and customers. This idea counters a business’s believe of rapid growth and stockholder performance in small businesses. Small giants in this context are businesses that maintain their personality and core focus without bending to the siren song or potential merger or public stock offerings. The most exciting part of Small Giants is the unique part these businesses take to grow and stay dominant while retaining their popularity. 

The 14 companies Burlingham studied demonstrate a sustained success customer, competitors, and external observers are drawn to most notably the resistance of selling out and growing merely to get that proverbial “next level.” Instead, they remain dedicated to their employee driven culture and communities, which created their success. Companies such as Cliff Bar and Co. owned by Gary Erikson would rather work at the eleventh hour than sell his business to a large food conglomerate.

Often, small business owners are passionate that they would instead choose quality over profit. Employees in these companies tend to be more motivated, focused on quality and passion rather than only maximizing profit and meeting sales targets. Therefore they tend to have more loyal employees and significant local ties with communities. 

Small giants have a soul. They have an excellent working environment that has been cultivated from early on and elusive quality that is intriguing, meaningful, and exciting for employees. The most important reason for this is the drive for outstanding quality. The small business owner could achieve that. At Zingerman’s Deli, all employees have a passion for great cooking. This event helps them understand and consider factors that many other companies might count as unimportant, such as the smell of food. They are the company’s best fans, putting themselves in the place of potential customers.

In addition, small business owners take their time in selecting the perfect location that will significantly impact the experience of customers who visits. Such devotion to setting and locating their business rightly is one of the reasons why they are often happy where they are with no desire to change location. Above all, there must be a fitting reason why small businesses choose to stay put, delivering the highest quality service if concentrated networks of partners can be developed. 

In conclusion, Bo Burlingham helped his readers to understand what Small Giants are made up of and how small businesses can grow to be one. The author shared his thought about small giants to be businesses that have chosen to stay true to their ideals rather than choose growth and compromise their mission. They are passionate and more concerned about what they do and focused on doing it exceptionally well. Following this little principle has made them very successful. This book will help you to discover a more excellent way to make your business successful. It also depends on you whether you will prefer to chase quality rather than growth or vice versa.

THE BIG THREE – KEYPOINTS

Key Point #1: Small Giants have a soul

Key Point #2: Owners of small giants retain control of their company so they can do what they love

Key Point #3: Small Giants understand employee’s satisfaction and motivation.

One Last Thing

“Busyness is certainly one of the reasons that owners don’t think about whether or not their journey is taking them to a place they really want to wind up. They’re constantly preoccupied—it goes with the territory—and figuring out the ultimate destination doesn’t seem particularly urgent alongside, say, meeting the next payroll or landing the next big customer” -. Bo Burligham