Produce results (P). The P role produces the results that enable the organization to meet the needs of its customers. It focuses on what needs to be done.
Administrate (A). The A role ensures that people do the right things at the right time and in the right manner. It focuses on how things need to be done.
Entrepreneur (E). The E role takes the organization into the future and makes it proactive rather than reactive.
Integrate (I). The I role changes the consciousness of the organization from mechanistic to organic.

At the same time, all companies go through an organizational life cycle that consists of distinct stages of growth and decline. The key to planning for growth, says MacDougall, involves knowing which management roles dominate in each growth phase and structuring the organization accordingly. The growth stages include:

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Managing the Predictable Problems of Growth

Each phase in the organizational life cycle has a unique set of highly predictable problems that befall all companies who enter it. By knowing where your business stands in the life cycle, says MacDougall, you can identify these barriers to growth before they occur and take steps to minimize their impact.

Infancy. The primary challenge in infant organizations is survival. This manifests itself in the following organizational problems

Running out of cash
Making a fatal mistake
Loss of commitment from the founder
Personal problems

To work through these inevitable problems in the infant phase:

Keep the cash flow positive at all costs.
Don't give up control of your business.
Track cash flow before profits.
Avoid premature delegation.

Go-Go. The predictable problems in go-go include:

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Keeping the Growth Alive: How to Avoid the Organizational Aging Syndrome

Organizations age when they lose the E role. According to MacDougall, four factors cause this to happen:

Failure to properly define the business. Defining the business by the product rather than by customer needs.
Mental age. Senior management thinks like a declining, rather than a growing, company.
Improper structure. The organizational structure is set up in a way that squeezes out the E role.
Style of the leader. The founder or CEO has an innate orientation that conflicts with the E role.
To prevent the loss of the E role and keep your organization young at heart:

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Financing Rapid Growth

According to Vistage speaker and capital finance expert Gordon Tunstall, most entrepreneurs make three huge mistakes when planning for growth:

They limit their growth based on access to a common commodity -- cash.
They limit their thinking to traditional "secured" financing.
They attempt to acquire capital in increments rather than getting all they need at once.

The solution? Determine the full extent of your capital needs and acquire the financing all at once rather than piecemeal.

"When planning for growth, most entrepreneurs ask, 'How much capital do we have in the company and how can we best allocate it?'" explains Tunstall. "In contrast, high-growth companies ask, 'What could we do with the business if we had all the money necessary to grow it to its full potential?'"

Laying the foundation for obtaining growth capital starts with three basic steps:

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Six Principles for Financing Growth

Before approaching the capital markets, says Tunstall, make sure you know the ground rules for success.

Match your financing needs with the correct financing product. In order to pick the financing products that meet your capital needs:
- Do the research.
- Get crystal clear about your financing needs.
- Get professional help.
Minimize risk. Entrepreneurs often think they have to bet the farm in order to obtain financing. On the contrary, financing your growth should involve less risk, not more. To minimize risk:

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How To Avoid "Growing Broke"

Growing broke -- outstripping the company's ability to pay its bills even though sales are increasing -- presents a real risk for every entrepreneurial business. In fact, says Vistage speaker Catherine Gibson, if you're growing at a sustained annual rate of 15 to 20 percent or higher, running out of cash probably represents your biggest threat.

Financial deterioration usually occurs when the entrepreneur focuses on top-line sales at the expense of more meaningful performance indicators. Maintaining healthy (i.e., profitable) growth requires protecting your balance sheet, which starts with an understanding of three fundamental principles:

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The Entrepreneur's Dilemma: How to Get Through No Man's Land Without Blowing Yourself Up

Entrepreneurial companies face many obstacles in their journey from new kid on the block to established player in the market. One of the deadliest is No Man's Land -- that difficult area between when you are too big to be small and too small to be big.

According to Vistage speaker Doug Tatum, making it safely through No Man's Land requires a transition in four key areas:

The economic model
Marketing
Management
Money

In the early stages of most growth companies, the value proposition is built around the "cheap, high-performance labor" provided by the founder and one or two senior executives. Making it through No Man's Land requires developing a sustainable value-added proposition beyond high-performance cheap labor. To determine whether you have a sustainable economic model:

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