When Leigh Mercer first published that well-known palindrome in 1948, he was interested solely in its “fun with words” value. However, the phrase also offers a pithy comment on the importance of planning for growth. As another pundit (identity unknown) put it, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Business and strategic planning is critical for success, and planned growth is particularly important to the survival of small and medium-sized businesses. An extensive study of the strategic and business planning practices of fast-growth family businesses conducted by Joe Felan, a Professor of Management at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock College of Business, and published in the Journal of Small Business Management reached several important conclusions. Growth-oriented businesses should:

• adopt long-range planning;
• make the plan detailed enough that it can be tied to performance;
• communicate the plan to all employees on a regular basis;
• inform employees about performance relative to the plan; and
• develop a strategy that builds on the motivation for quality and reputation.

Just how growth planning is pursued by individual companies is subject to many variables, including size, industry and each company’s specific goals. There can be wide variances among the approaches taken, but what most successful companies have in common is that planning for growth is an important part of their business strategy.

For Matt Branche, President of Carmel, New York-based Davidson-Branche Construction, growth planning involves dealing with the vagaries of fluctuating economies and governmental budgets. The roofing contracting company does work in both the public and private sectors, taking on jobs that vary in size from tens of thousands of square feet at large government facilities to just a few hundred square feet in private homes.

Branche develops a formal growth plan every year, tapping an informal advisory board that includes key employees, suppliers, long-term clients, his accountant and some trusted advisors. He sets goals, strategies for reaching them and benchmarks to measure the company’s progress as the year progresses. However, the nature of his business requires that the plan remain flexible.

“We often have to ramp up or down quickly when a big project materializes or an expected one falls through,” Branche explains. “There’s only so much you can do about circumstances outside your control.”

Branche relies on bonuses and non-monetary compensation such as personal use of company vehicles as incentives to motivate employees and contract workers to meet tight deadlines on projects. He meets with his core group of employees on an almost daily basis to review progress and does a quarterly reevaluation of benchmarks.

“For continuing business segments, we make projections based on prior-period results. That’s the easy part,” says Eugene Okamoto, founder and co-owner of Harvest Book Co., a used, rare and out-of-print bookseller based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. For the more challenging aspects, he relies heavily on a collaborative process involving employees at all levels of the organization.

Okamoto routinely establishes goals and interim measurements that are shared and reviewed with employees as the year unfolds. For new business initiatives, it is less a matter of planning and more of a brainstorming process. “I try to use everyone as a sounding board,” he says. “I have stopped people in the warehouse to ask them ’what if’ questions about trying some crazy ideas. A few of them we actually try, and over the years some have grown into meaningful segments. I think people here are used to collaborating in this informal way.”

At the beginning of each year, Okamoto sets targets for revenues and then breaks down drivers to establish goals for each driver. His objective with this process is “to drill down to where everyone here knows what goals have to be met on a daily basis in order to make sure we meet our year-end goals,” he says. “The thinking is that if we understand what drives our business and hit our marks every day, the year will take care of itself.”

With about 25 employees, Harvest Book is still small enough that everyone can be included in discussions about revenue drivers, Okamoto feels. Employees recognize the importance of delivering in their individual areas of responsibility and understand the role that plays in the overall success of the company.

“We review benchmarks on key drivers constantly, depending on what makes sense for what is being measured,” Okamoto explains. In the operational arena, for example, benchmarks that affect on-time shipping are reviewed daily. New inventory cataloging and sales benchmarks are reviewed weekly and compared to benchmarks in the plan.

Bill Parness is founder and President of Parness & Associates, an Aberdeen, New Jersey-based public relations firm specializing in business-to-business communications. For the past 30 years, he’s had a ringside seat to observe the pitfalls and payoffs companies of all sizes face as a result of planning for growth—or failing to—and he’s benefited from the lessons learned.

“As a witness to the perils of companies that have grown too fast, I have taken an informal yet very measured approach to planning for the growth of my agency,” he says. “This has meant keeping this a small, but profitable, sole proprietorship that, for the most part, has experienced moderate, single-digit annual revenue growth once the business had fully matured.”

Relying on a team that includes three employees and a longstanding support group of highly experienced freelance writers, media specialists and artists, the company has the flexibility to ramp up for new business and weather the loss of accounts without resorting to layoffs. “This selective approach has also enabled me to provide the hands-on personal involvement many of our clients demand without spreading myself too thin,” Parness notes.

The firm’s planning process is collaborative to some extent, with certain employees and freelancers assisting Parness in the development of proposals for prospective clients. “Such input not only improves the depth and quality of our proposals, but gives them a strong sense of participation in the agency’s long-term success,” he says. “And of course, winning new business can ultimately mean more money for them.”

Despite the different approaches to growth planning taken by these three companies, one thing they share is a belief in its importance. Another thing they have in common—perhaps not coincidentally—is longevity. Each business has been operating successfully for 20 years or more, and their consistency in planning for growth surely plays some role in that.