News story

Elearning company inspires book on business growth

Plymouth, UK14 May 2015Learning NewsSponge

A new book about the rapid expansion of an elearning company challenges the myths about growth, and reveals how businesses can overcome the obstacles that stop them growing bigger.

Thinking Big is Not Enough by business consultant, Michael Walsh, tells the story of entrepreneur, Louise Pasterfield who has grown her elearning company, Sponge UK from £400,000 per annum to £2 million in three years, with plans to reach £10 million in the next 3 to 4 years.  

“There are a lot of misconceptions about growth that we business owners believe to be true, but all they do is limit us from getting what we want from our business,” said Pasterfield. 

“Growing a business can feel a bit like stepping into the unknown because owners don’t know how to go about it. 

“The book explores my change of perspective, how I’ve had to rethink almost every major aspect of my business, and the way I’ve overcome the natural traps to grow my company to the next level.”  

Walsh, who owns the Canadian business and management consultancy, Kaizen Consulting, started working with Sponge UK in 2011. 

“Many entrepreneurs believe to grow a company really big you just need to think in much bigger terms. If only that were true! There is much more to growth than that,” said Walsh. 

“It takes a different mindset to generate large-scale growth, and there are many ways to get stuck. 

“The real gold lies in determining where we get stuck, and keeping free of these traps.”        

Thinking Big is Not Enough identifies the perspective shifts, strategies and tools needed to overcome the barriers to growth, and offers practical ways to help business owners achieve their goals for more profit and more freedom. 

The guest foreward is by business expert, John Warrilow, founder of The Value Builder System™. 

He writes: “I think you’ll find that Louise’s story is eerily similar to a lot of businesses. It may even have something in common with yours: a non-linear path to success that looks more like a series of stepping stones than the graph we learned at school.” 

Sponge UK is one of the UK’s leading providers of custom-made elearning, having won Elearning Development Company of the Year at the Elearning Awards 2014 – the industry’s top accolade. 

The business is based at Plymouth Science Park and is one of the fastest growing companies on the site.  

The book is available on Amazon and via Thinking Big is Not Enough website.