I HAVE SPENT THE BETTER PART OF MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE helping companies of all sizes and in many different industries develop strategies to grow their businesses, and I've observed that companies of all types and sizes want their companies to grow in one way or another--whether it's in terms of growth of revenues, profits, number of employees or customers, market share, or number of locations (or these days, the amount of new traffic to their Web site). Not everyone has aspirations to build the next Roman Empire, but all entrepreneurs want to see progress from year to year, even if it's just in the amount of money that they can take home to their families.

From a legal ...