How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed

A playbook for growing your business no matter the circumstances.

“Weeds scale faster than any business. It’s in their DNA.”—Kathy Ireland, CEO, Kathy Ireland Worldwide

Hall-of-Fame-nominated marketer, bestselling author, and Wall Street Journal cartoonist Stu Heinecke shares his fascination with weeds and how anyone can grow their business into something resilient and unstoppable.
How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed applies a model to business growth, examining the successful strategies that ordinary weeds use to spread, and prosper in almost any situation.

This book will enable readers to apply strategies, mapping their own path to rapid and sustainable growth, while providing focus on weed-based attributes to get the job done quickly and effectively. It also provides a pathway to transform their entire team into a collective of weeds operating on behalf of the company, acting as an incubator for innovation and productivity, while enriching their own opportunities for growth and security.

An accessible and practical guide that leaders and companies across industries can help increase their market share, prominence, and customer base, this book enables them to grow, expand, dominate, and defend their turf.
Stu has explored the Weeds model for several years, collecting insights from thought leaders from the worlds of business, government, and entertainment including: T. Boone Pickens, Kathy Ireland, General Barry McAffrey, Henrik Fisker, Gareb Shamus, Giovanni Marsico, Esther Dyson, Christopher Lochhead, Nathan Myhrvold, Carmen Medina, Jon Ferrara and Jonna Mendez.

“‘Grow like a weed.’ It’s not just an expression. If you read this book, it’s a promise.” —Dale Dupree, Co-Founder of The Sales Rebellion

“Resiliency tinged with tenacity is perhaps the successful entrepreneur's greatest super power. Anyone who's done battle with something they might call a weed knows this all too well!” —John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Ultimate Marketing Engine

“A lot of books use metaphors to explain how to grow a business. After reading this book, I can’t imagine a more logical metaphor for rapid, disruptive growth than weeds. They don’t say ‘grow like a weed’ for nothing.” —Jeb Blount, author of Fanatical Prospecting, CEO of Sales Gravy

“All strategy is 'rooted' in customer value.  It’s imperative to do a strategic deep dive to better understand the evolving 'landscape' around new opportunities that, like a weed, continue to pop up in unexpected, yet scalable, areas.” —Sam Reese, CEO of Vistage Worldwide

“It’s not just a business growth guide, it’s a whole new mindset. You’ll wear out a highlighter reading this book!” —Jay Baer, coauthor of Talk Triggers and Hug Your Haters

“READ THIS BOOK to grow your business like a weed. The weed metaphor is brought to life through point-by-point instruction and entertaining anecdotes. It's an apt description of Stu Heinecke’s own brilliant, unconventional rise from Wall Street Journal cartoonist to business guru. You too can become like Heinecke: irrepressible, resilient and adaptable in the face of adversity. The book lives up to it's audacious premise that ‘everything in this book describes some form of unfair advantage, covering every aspect of life for weeds’ and how to apply it to your business.” —Bruce H. Rogers, Forbes Senior Contributor and Founder, Forbes CMO Practice

“I’ve always looked down at weeds, especially the ones attempting a hostile takeover in my yard. This book has convinced me to turn a new leaf. I now see weeds for their miracle of can-do spirit and as the ultimate guides for growth. If you buy this book, I will plant a weed in your name in my neighbor’s yard.” —Rick Dees, Angel investor, legendary radio personality

“I wish I had this book when I was in my 20’s, I could have saved millions of dollars worth of mistakes.” —Dennis Brown, Host of Growth Experts Podcast, seven-time Inc 500 fastest growing entrepreneur

“Stu Heinecke has delivered a fresh and deep-thinking approach to strategic business leaders who need to disrupt, pivot, and adapt for rapid growth.” —Marcia Daszko, author of Pivot, Disrupt, Transform, speaker, strategic change consultant

“There are few books that I’ve come across in my life that cause me to drop everything I’m doing. For me, those books include The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Crossing the Chasm, and now I add Stu’s masterpiece—How to Grow Your Business like a Weed.” —Ammanuel Selameab, Founder of venture capital-backed startup Accrue.io

“We’ve always known what it means to grow like a weed. This book tells us how to scale like a weed.” —Robert Mankoff, former cartoon editor at The New Yorker, co-founder of Cartoon Collections

“While gardeners have been waging war with weeds, we have neglected to learn from these skirmishes. In How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed, Stu Heinecke shows us the many lessons we can learn from these invasive plants. Like weeds, these ideas will creep into your thoughts and inspire you!” —Charles Birney, Co-founder of Podville Media

“Weeds teach us that our business roots must take hold in conditions that enable growth and scale. Weeds also show us that while we must remain grounded, agility is the key to sustainability. As we read this practical, must-read guide to growing any business, we couldn’t help but notice that Stu Heinecke consistently mentions “conditions” (culture) and “grounding” (values) before growth, scale, and agility. In other words, throughout this book, Stu provides leaders with the best possible advice: Before building a business that can thrive in even the harshest of environments, we must intentionally create—and consistently maintain—an inspiring foundation.” —S. Chris Edmonds and Mark S. Babbitt, Co-authors of Good Comes First

“This is a really innovative concept—a brilliant read that reframes seed stage startups as mighty weeds.” —Chris Wilkes, Vice President, HearstLab

“For millions of years, weeds have perfected their processes to adapt, spread, and grow. Stu brilliantly outlines how weeds are genetically programmed to execute their process and the unique attributes that give them their unfair advantages to dominate. I highly recommend this book as part of your own process to grow and scale your business.” —Eric Bristol, Demand Generation at Salary.com

“Stu Heinecke’s book opened my eyes to how the weed ecosystem and the world of professional sales are so similar. The sales process is replete with positive growth agents such as referral sources, social media influencers, and reference customers, while there are also negative agents such as the competition, objections, and ghosted prospects. I love how he presents this intertwined set of forces as fighting and at the same time, working in tandem.” —Fred Diamond, Institute for Excellence in Sales

“Successful entrepreneurs are a lot like weeds. Both adapt to thrive despite the environment, challenges, and competition they face.” —Jeremy Knauff, Entrprepreneur columnist, CEO of Spartan Media

“This book brought back to me how the Marines who stood up the Marine Special Operations Command as a part of SOCOM in 2006. We were a weed to the rest of the Marine Corps.  Our Commander, General Dennis Hejlik, saw how we were going to create a long term relevancy for us as the world migrated away from traditional military operations.  The establishment wanted us to go away, but we persevered to resist the desire to pull us out of the ground.  I have taken this mindset into my practice as a digital marketer.  Many scoff at the idea, but like a weed, virtual live selling has become even more important with the challenges that the pandemic created for brick and mortar companies. Weeds are the out-of-the-box thinkers of our planet and look to thrive no matter what the circumstances.” —Jim Fuhs, LtCol USMC retired, President of Fuhsion Marketing

“Next time you spot a weed, take a closer look. It’s a miracle of evolution, mindset, process and growth strategy. As Stu explains in this book, there is a lot to learn from weeds that can transform the scale of any business.” —Jim Huffman, GrowthHit CEO

“In How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed, Stu Heinecke shares his exhaustive research from interviews of everyone from billionaires to scientists as to the parallel to growing a business—or nonprofit—or community like the amazing garden weed. Those building a business in today’s changing landscape will benefit from the Weed Mindset and the W.E.E.D.S. model for success. Once the right process and mindset are in place, growth can be massive. This book leads the way for that to happen.” —Lori Richardson, author of She Sells, CEO of Score More Sales

“The mark of a good book is that it gives you insights and strategies to be successful. The mark of a great book is that it transforms how you think, how you feel and how you react to challenges and opportunities. Stu Heinecke has written a great book—one that should be read and referenced over and over again. The weed metaphor is a powerful illustration of how to capitalize on the shifts happening in our marketplace, expand our sales organizations and grow our businesses. Just brilliant!” —Meridith Elliott Powell, author of THRIVE, keynote speaker, CEO

“I speak with thousands of small business owners every year, and they always ask the same question—how do I grow my business? From now on, my answer will be, 'Buy this book!'” —Ramon Ray, Smart Hustle founder, SCORE podcast host, author of The Celebrity CEO

“Today, what every business is looking for is resilience and the ability to scale new ideas in even the toughest environments. Author Stu Heinecke in this new book shares his decades of experience, expert case studies, and a brilliant new perspective on how you can grow your business 'like a weed!' Highly recommended reading you can take practical actions from immediately.” —Scott Newton, Managing Partner of Thinking Dimensions

“I’ve worked really hard throughout my entire career.  As a result, I now find myself with a beautiful garden that I am extremely proud of. Stu’s book has challenged me to rethink the value of the dandelion. It disrupts a gorgeous green field with almost no effort at all. I want to be that dandelion.” —Ted Clouser, President/CEO of PCA Technology Solutions

“With How to Grow Your Business like a Weed, Stu continues to open our eyes with his insights into new perspectives, possibilities and ideas to market and grow our businesses. His astute observations regarding the parallels between business growth and sustainability to that of 'weed strategy' will benefit any entrepreneur interested in accelerating their success!” —Todd A. Gold, President and Managing Partner of REOC San Antonio
 

About the Author:
Stu Heinecke is a bestselling business author, marketer and WSJ cartoonist. His first book, How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, was named one of the top 64 sales books of all time. His latest, How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed, lays out a complete model for explosive business growth, based on the strategies, attributes and tools weeds use to grow, expand, dominate and defend their turf. A twice-nominated hall of fame marketer and Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center author-in-residence, he was named the “Father of Contact Marketing” by the AMA. He lives on a beautiful island in Washington State.