Confident and Sales-Focused: A Look at the Entrepreneur360 'Classics' The companies in this category tend to be sales superstars.

By Entrepreneur Staff

AlleyNYC

Through surveys and available data, we've examined hundreds of small businesses and come away with six archetypal sets of practices and characteristics that we believe are representative of most growth companies operating today.

The qualifications were simple: Companies had to be domestically owned, privately held, for-profit and have shown net capacity growth over at least two years, with an employee size in 2015 of 10 to 1,000.

Below, we examine the traits of Classics, one of the six archetypes of the Entrepreneur360™ Performance Index. To see the other five archetypes, click here.

Classics place an emphasis on sales but glue themselves to the middle of the road when it comes to most management practices. Because of their sales focus, Classics express confidence about continuing growth, and their sales, marketing and HR teams handle the growth in stride.

Key characteristics

  • They express relatively high confidence in growth, apparently because they are sales-focused, seek customer input in planning and work hard to communicate success to customers. Even their charitable contributions are seen as supporting customer relations.

  • They solicit input from employees in business planning.

Takeaway

In spite of all we hear about leading-edge management practices and disruptive companies, there is still plenty of room for more conventional companies to notch growth year after year. Markets don't award extra points for being flashy, and success can be built around a mastery of sales.

Assay Depot

Assay Depot

Founded: 2007
Business Type: Pharmaceutical
Birds Barbershop

Birds Barbershop

Founded: 2006
Business Type: Personal services
Burns Marketing

Burns Marketing

Founded: 1972
Business Type: Marketing
CarGurus

CarGurus

Founded: 2006
Business Type: Automotive
CircleUp

CircleUp

Founded: 2011
Business Type: Investment
Formlabs

Formlabs

Founded: 2011
Business Type: 3-D printing
Legion Logistics, LLC

Legion Logistics, LLC

Founded: 2009
Business Type: Transportation
Live Lingua

Live Lingua

Founded: 2008
Business Type: Education
MedCPU

MedCPU

Founded: 2008
Business Type: Health care
O3 World

O3 World

Founded: 2005
Business Type: Marketing
RebelMouse

RebelMouse

Founded: 2012
Business Type: Publishing
Ring

Ring

Founded: 2011
Business Type: Cloud security
UniqueHR

UniqueHR

Founded: 1991
Business Type: Human resources
UpCounsel

UpCounsel

Founded: 2012
Business Type: Legal
WebpageFX, Inc.

WebpageFX, Inc.

Founded: 1997
Business Type: Marketing

Read more about each archetype:

For Entrepreneur360 'Data Champions,' Success is Steady, Plotted and Planned

What Entrepreneur360 'Controllers' Know: Watch Markets and Keep the Customer Happy

The Success Secrets That Helped the 'Best Practicers' Land on the Entrepreneur360

How Staying in Front of the Pack Helped the 'Forward Thinkers' Nab a Spot on the Entrepreneur360

Growing Against the Grain: Meet the Entrepreneur360 'Contrarians'

Wavy Line
Entrepreneur Staff

Entrepreneur Staff

Editor

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