Every one of the largest, most successful corporations were, at some point, mere startups. McKee explains what enables some companies to growbigger and better, while others stumble along year after year, running but never winning the race. The difference is that the biggest and best brands arena (TM)t slaves to conventional marketing wisdom. McKee shows by example how the same, sometimes counter-intuitive, strategies used by the biggest brands can also best serve small and mid-sized companies. Among the topics explored: How can a company grow big by thinking small? Why do the best companies sometimes avoid being better? Why do brands that create the most memorable advertising stay away from focus groups? What is the secret to an effective slogan? When can admitting a negative become a positive? A diverse selection of companies provides powerful lessons, ranging from traditional icons like Coca-Cola, McDonalda (TM)s, and General Motors, to new media models like Google and Facebook. This book appeals not only to time- starved executives, but also to middle managers and owners of small businesses who have a wide variety of marketing problems to address and who need to change the way they think about how to generate healthy, consistent growth.

One of the toughest lessons every business leader learns is how hard it is to generate sustained growth. Stalled growth is the rule, not the exception--even for the best-managed companies. That's especially true in unpredictable economic environments such as the one we're experiencing today.

McKee has a unique understanding of what happens when growth stalls. His firm commissioned a study of 700 companies that had at one time been among the nation's fastest-growing businesses. Developed in concert with Decision Analyst, a leading national research and consulting firm, the study probed areas as diverse as corporate structure, competition, branding, finance, and strategy. The target respondent profile were CEOs, owners, principals, presidents, managing directors or chairmen of the board. In-depth follow-up interviews yielded fascinating stories and personal comments from executives who had been living on the front lines of real-life growth crises. McKee presents compelling knowledge about how and why companies lose their way, and offers practical advice about how they can rekindle growth.

"When Growth Stalls" demonstrates that sluggish growth is generally produced not by mismanagement or strategic blundering but by natural market forces and management dynamics that are often unrecognized--and widespread. The book presents seven characteristics that commonly correlate with stalled growth and what to do about them. Some are external forces to which countless companies have fallen victim: economic upheavals, changing industry dynamics, and increased competition. What McKee points out, however, is how often they catch companies off-guard. More surprising are four subtle and highly destructive internal factors that conspire to keep companies down: lack of consensus among the management team, loss of nerve, loss of focus, and marketing inconsistency. McKee makes the case that, regardless of what's going on outside of an enterprise, it's what's inside that counts.