The Breakthrough Company or The Inventors Guidebook

The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers

Author: Keith R McFarland

The vast majority of small businesses stay small—and not by choice. Only the most savvy and persistent—a tiny one tenth of one percent—break through to annual sales above $250 million. In The Breakthrough Company, Keith McFarland pinpoints how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that luck is a negligible factor. Rather, breakthrough success turns out to be associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate—from small startup to industry leader.

Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world’s largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was simple: to identify the secrets of breakthrough.

The Breakthrough Company is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle. Among the book’s takeaways:

• Common wisdom holds that the founders and core entrepreneurial leaders of a company must step aside for the business to reach the next level. Not true—as long as founders “crown the company” instead of themselves.
• It’s not reckless to make ever-escalating bets on your company’s future, even going nose tonose with competitors many times your size. In fact, it turns out that the only safety comes in constantly upping the ante in exactly this way.
• A Business Bermuda Triangle does exist, gobbling up companies on the verge of breakthrough. Presented here are three ways to navigate this potentially deadly hazard successfully.
• However good you are—or think you are—you can’t do it alone. Learn how to surround your company with networks of outside resources, aka “scaffolding,” and how to enlist the aid of “insultants”—people who are willing to question a firm’s existing assumptions and ways of doing business.

With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter—and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who’ve taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability—The Breakthrough Company is one of the most provocative, inspiring, and instructive business books you’ll ever read.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction     1
Throwing the Dyno     9
Crowning the Company     27
Upping the Ante     55
Building Company Character     93
Navigating the Business Bermuda Triangle     121
Erecting Scaffolding     145
Enlisting Insultants     167
Graduating from Tough Times U     187
Building Breakthrough Capabilities     201
Afterword: Post-Breakthrough-Avoiding Breakdown     225
Research Note A     229
Research Note B     235
Research Note C     247
Endnotes     249
Index     262

Book review: The Smart Travelers Passport or Eiger Dreams

The Inventors Guidebook: Patent, Protect, Produce and Profit from Your Ideas and Inventions Yourself!

Author: Victor N Vic Vincent

Vic-Vincent wrote this book for you, the Inventor, with little or no knowledge about how to create an invention. He has been successful in creating businesses and products throughout his life. He and his products have been wrote about in: Success, INC., USA Today and hundreds of other magazines and newspapers. His products include: "Bankruptcy" the Boardgame. "Fizzies" men's and women's neckties. SlimPatch a transdermal weight-loss patch. "The Thirst-Aid Kit" a liquor first aid kit. "Hurricane Survivor" T-Shirts. "The Decision Maker!" an executive desk plaque. "The Sticky Ticky" a children's toy and many more. He managed R&B recording artists, wrote and produced songs and is the author of several books. He invented and created all of these products on his own without a degree in marketing. Learn from the school of hard knocks of what not to do and what to do when creating your idea. He offers free advice on his website: inventorsfreehelp.com to help the inventor avoid being scammed. Learn how to: File Patents-Trademarks-Copyrights- Learn how to: Get free publicity-publish your book or music-avoid being scammed-Internet marketing-protect and produce your idea or product and get it to market. "Your idea is no good if it is just an idea you must, act on it, believe in it and create it". This book is educational, inspirational and motivational. Get it today!