Laurie Taylor, founder of FlashPoint! and a business growth specialist, will be the featured speaker at a Business Growth Curve workshop on Sept. 28.
The event, Leading Through the Chaos of Growth, is sponsored by Manufacturing Excellence Advisory Boards, and will take place at TPC Valencia from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m.
“This is a workshop on a topic that you will never take a college class on, never read a book about, never read about in any business magazine, HBR or the WSJ,” said Ken Keller, the advisory board’s founder.
“It’s about the business growth curve and how as leaders you can understand where you are today and where you’ll be tomorrow as your company grows and what you can do to prepare for it,” he said. The target audience is manufacturing company CEOs, owners and entrepreneurs as well as leaders of other businesses.
Taylor was a reluctant entrepreneur. With no money, no experience and no business plan, Laurie and her business partner took a concept – helping companies communicate their message – and parlayed it into a multimillion dollar enterprise. In the first three years the company grew quickly, showing a huge 300 percent increase over that same period, employee count was increasing as was the complexity.
After landing a large contract with a Fortune 50 technology company, growth became even more of a challenge. Between 1993 and 1996, the company grew on average 58 percent per year and by the time the DotCom implosion was showing its ugly face in March of 2000, the company had had three solid years of 65 – 67 percent revenue growth.
Taylor’s experience in leading and managing a growing organization and dealing with a downturn that almost sent the company into bankruptcy give her insights into the challenges and the ups and downs of business ownership.
While working with James Fischer, author of “Navigating the Growth Curve,” and researching the 7 Stages of Growth, Laurie became convinced of the validity of James’ model in allowing a CEO and his/her management team to better predict how growth would impact the company.
Today, Laurie’s focuses on the 7 Stages of Growth. A published author, Laurie is writing a book on each stage of growth. Volumes on the Stages 1, 2, and 3 are available now on Amazon, and her look at Stage 4 is due out soon.
Please register for Leading Through the Chaos of Growth at www.MEABWorkshops.com.
