Two Strategies for B2B Business Growth

by: Jaffer Ali

While I believe that *growth* of a company is one of the most overrated business concepts, and  if growth becomes an obsession it can become toxic, getting to the “right size” means that growing into profitability is important but equally important is growing into a position where you are less fragile.

I am going to speak about two growth tactics. One is vertical and the other is horizontal. These are my terms and not something I learned reading from an MBA handbook. By the way, a company can grow both ways at the same time, but one must be mindful of how resources are deployed.

Vertical Growth, for the purpose of this short missive, means examining your existing client relationships and finding more ways to service them. This can be in the form of new services or finding new products to sell to them.

The advantage of this tactic is that you already have the relationship and can likely get the right ear to listen to you. Believe me, in this complex information landscape this is not trivial. The main consideration for you is how much of your resources will be used in learning and communicating the new service or products.

Often a client’s first reflexive response to your attempt at vertical growth is to say, “This is not our business model and we do not do that.” I have heard this so many times it boggles the imagination. They usually say this before giving any serious assessment of the resources that would be required to add to their business model. Du Pont began as a gun powder manufacturer but became huge and historic for manufacturing all sorts of products. They did not think, “Selling paint was not our business model.”

In point of fact, going vertical is the fastest way to grow revenues for entrepreneurs. If you have 50 clients, find *other* things to sell them or service them. Just do not expend too many resources and make your regular business suffer. Another advantage to vertical growth is you become more important to your client with every new thing you do for them.

Horizontal Growth involves the old tried and true method of getting more clients. If you have 50 new clients, who reading would not like 100? Of course this is a goal. The more clients you have, the more you can withstand losing a client or two. To exaggerate to clarify, if you only have 5 clients and one leaves, you lose 20% of your client base. If you had 100 clients and lose one, that is 1% of your client base. Math lesson over.

But the major problem of horizontal growth is that the amount of capital necessary to double your client base is rather expensive. In fact, horizontal growth *usually* is a short term capital drain. This growth tactic is actually difficult to achieve because building new relationships with new clients is not just expensive but often frustrating.

It should seem obvious that these tactics are not mutually exclusive and a smart and healthy company is ALWAYS thinking of both growth tactics. If your first reflex is, “That is not what we do,” you might want to take a step back and ask, “Should I do X?”

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Jaffer Ali is the CEO of PulseTV, an ecommerce company and TrySERA, a data company. Both employ horizontal and vertical growth strategies.

My Personal Health Journey

by: Jaffer Ali

What follows is an unusual blog post for me. This is not about media, not about business and not political. It is my story. Actually it is my health journey from cancer 20 years ago to the road back to health. This was a tweet thread that I wanted to share with blog readers.

1/ A personal thread of my health journey. I grew up extremely athletic and maintained fitness thru college and then thru my twenties. Rather muscular especially legs. Then 1 year I gained 35 pounds while traveling on business- 26 trips in one year.

2/ As my biz career blossomed, so did my waistline and eventually became morbidly obese. 5’11 and 260 pounds. Then in Dec. 2010, I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. I was diabetic, taking Metformin 2x a day. A physical mess at 54.

3/ I went to the best hospital to figure what to do with this cancer. They initially were going to remove my entire esophagus and fashion a “new one” from using my stomach & repositioning my stomach up.

4/ A major surgery that kills over 25% on the table. The cancer itself had a 93% kill rate within 3 years and I was far from the picture of health. The doctor suggested I get my affairs in order. I had 3 sons in college at the time.

5/ The surgeon suggested I see this Israeli doctor who was pioneering tumor removal endoscopically rather than the radical esophagus removal. I was examined and was a candidate for endoscopic removal. The cancer was caused by horrific acid reflux for years.

6/ On 1/10/11 a “well defined” 1.5 inch tumor was successfully removed. He cut well around the tumor & the cancer hadn’t spread. I did not require radiation or chemo-a complete success. I will skip all of the issues and 20 times I have had to go under anesthesia in the past 10 yrs

7/ It turned out cancer saved my life. I started a diet. Lost 25 pounds quickly and discovered intermittent fasting. My goal was to get to 200 lbs, the weight I was when I got married. I got to 208 pounds, cut my Metformin by 70%. But getting to my target was elusive.

8/ About 6 weeks ago, lost 8 pounds quickly. I joined the gym, started doing cardio and weight. Plus increased my intermittent 24+ hour fasts to 5X a week. I would work out at 5:00 AM and another time at the gym late afternoon or evening.

9/ The combo of intermittent fasting & the gym melted weight off. I am 188 pounds as of today and working hard to build muscle. Legs already showing progress. That makes 72 pounds off my frame. Most except last 15-20 pounds when I have been working out aggressively, came off slowly. The point of this? It is never too late to get healthy. End/