Has your business growth stalled? Can't work out why? The Entrepreneur's Yoda specialises in helping you find out why and then getting you back on track.


About Lonnie Sciambi
Lonnie L. Sciambi, “The Entrepreneur’s Yoda,” is Managing Director and CEO of Small Business Force, LLC and author of the best-selling book, “Secrets to Entrepreneurial Success.”

Lonnie hails from New Jersey.

Lonnie has had a long and chequered career! He started his career with IBM and stayed in and around technology. He started and a subsidiary of a conglomerate (he was an intra-preneur) making him the 5th youngest professional in the company.

“I got to run the company on somebody-else’s dime!”

Lonnie learned a great deal. He spent the next 20 years in and around ATMs, point of sale in the banking sector. He put networks in around the world. For the last 30 years he has worked for himself. He has been involved in company turnarounds, been an investor and has seen small business and entrepreneurship from every conceivable angle.

Lonnie now focuses on writing, speaking and selectively advising businesses. He does a blog post and a newsletter. He loves manufacturing – he describes it as the purest form of business.

Lonnie says he cannot keep a job!

He can walk into a company and within an hour he can tell you the culture.
What does an ideal client look like to you?
Typically, they are beating the head against a hard thing and have hit a certain point in growth and have stalled, but don’t know why. They have been around the same revenue number for a few years and cannot get through it.

Otherwise, operationally, a firm might be going sideways. And they don’t understand how they did it. Because they have been growing like crazy. AND THAT’S THE VERY REASON!

“Growth is a two-edged sword”

Most people don’t think about growth, that you need to plan for. It doesn’t just come about, if it does, you end up sideways.

He searches out interesting problems. He stays away from industries he has no experience. Like life sciences. The FDA forces people in that sector to sit around for five years and watch!
FOCUS
What Lonnie has learned, if you want to grow you have to change. If you don’t you wont grow. What got you here, wont get you there. The environment changes and the market changes.

Change is something that not everybody embraces easily.

You cannot just do the same stuff and expect something better. NO. You’ll be lucky to stand still.

If you want to grow, you can grow modestly. Out of cash flow. It will be modest.

START with Why – why should you grow based on what you are trying to do.

This is critical. You want to double every year? Why? Everything around you will have the grow. Your management team, employees etc. Often, without a plan, growth for growth’s sake. What are we trying to accomplish?
What’s a good why?
We penetrated a market, now we want to own it. The objective is to protect and grow. Everybody will have a different why. With outside investors, you have an entirely different animal. They’ll expect better results. They are looking for a return on investment and that’s not happening with 5% growth per annum.

If it’s your business, you get to decide how fast you want grow.

You decide:

WHETHER > HOW MUCH > HOW.
Lonnie Sciamba's iterative process
Growth is only one aspect of business. Lonnie takes companies through an iterative process. He sees it as almost sacrilegious when he says this: (especially to young companies)

Grow top line first!

Yeah, keep your eye on gross profit, but don’t worry about it. As long as you are getting by and you are throwing something off, good. Concentrate on top-level growth.

And then, move down the income statement…

Start to work on cost of goods sold, gross profit and make yourself more profitable.

Once you’ve made yourself more profitable, then go back to the top line again. And start working on growing top line.

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