Smart Growth: Cheers to Two Years on the Inc. 5000 List

Today, Canale Communications was listed on Inc. 5000’s list of fastest-growing companies for the second consecutive year – a rare accomplishment especially for innovative, emerging businesses. While it is a true honor to have made the list for a second time, I’d like to focus on the unique approach we take that has allowed us to get where we are today.

Of course, steady financial growth is an important factor for any business. But, if you look at our numbers, we didn’t double our revenue. Could we have? Probably. But to me, the best growth is smart growth—and this is the approach we’ve taken when developing our growth strategy. We don’t want to get too big too fast, or feel pressured to accept new opportunities that don’t align with our company values.

One of our core values is ‘Reputation is Everything’ – the work we do on behalf of our clients, and the work they do with us as their communications backbone, becomes our brand. It’s important that we only say yes to work that aligns with our values, is exciting to our team and is important to society in some way. To us, all money is not equal. We actually say no to potential business if it’s something that could jeopardize our reputation. And vice-versa. We say yes to potential business that might only be a fraction of our revenue goal because we see it as a differentiating opportunity or something we are truly passionate about, such as a women’s health company dedicated to expanding treatment options for women or an early-stage company with the bold mission of erasing cancer in patients by creating a new generation of oncology drugs with the hope to not just treat, but to actually cure. By not growing too big too fast, we’ve been able to be very selective about who we work with and, often more importantly, why.

Sure, we will always look at revenue growth, but we’re never going to be exponential. We will always stress the importance of smart growth. We are always going to be measured. We will always stick to our company values. Reputation is everything.