Review of Small Giants: Companies that Choose to Be Great Instead of Big By Author Bo Burlingham

This book pointed out to me the irony of the growth plan in the business plan. Many of the companies in the book Small Giants flinched at the idea of growth. Essentially, it looked like they flinched at growth. Really, they were each just scared of the idea of growth in the traditional sense and the rapid, revolutionizing nature of most growth regimes. If a business is successful, others encourage it to think about growth through franchising and other means. It's a knee-jerk reaction, and to varying degrees, each founder in this book's study had some kind of pang in their gut that they were supposed to be growing their businesses like all successful startups do. Instead, they were afraid of where growth would take them. They each enjoyed the idea behind their company's mission and the smallness and pursuit for quality control that is indicative of a startup.

The author points out time and again that small businesses - being so concerned with survival - often place emphasis on how much better they are than the competition in order to garner customer loyalty. Each business, while not a Fortune 500 company, is practically the best in their field as satisfying customers' needs and wants. The author points out, in more than way, that each company is great and that greatness is something startups-turned-large corporations often lose along the way. While this premise is seemingly self-explanatory with the title, it's remarkable in that the author's approach is completely opposite that of literature within this genre. Most books focus on large, successful corporations and the business philosophies of their founders and CEOs. Obviously, these individuals have much to offer in the way of business knowledge and expertise, but the author seeks wisdom from those business stand-outs that simply could not reconcile the idea of "bigger is better" with their individual business's mission and objective.