Leverage and Synergy: How Combining Businesses, Products, or Audiences Multiplies Results

Mac Anderson built Successories from a niche catalog company into a formidable chain of retail stores, each powered in part by the others. His catalog’s millions of impressions not only generated direct sales but promoted the physical stores—each store, in turn, served as a bustling local billboard for the catalog and supported sales reps. The franchised model meant every new location multiplied the effect on the brand and cross-sold to corporate clients who wouldn’t have otherwise found Successories. Synergy wasn’t theoretical for Mac: it showed up steadily in annual sales growth.

Similarly, Bob Neumann leveraged a quirky hotel gift shop—Grizzly’s Gifts—into a $5 million-a-year operation by integrating retail, mail order, and property management. When an unexpected crisis (the hotel’s sale) appeared imminent, Bob bought the hotel outright, transforming a single profit center into a three-pronged, self-feeding machine. Each business unit’s customers and resources fed the others, and the combined value became exponential, not just additive.

Synergy works because the human brain (and businesses) naturally fall into ruts. Combining distribution, cross-promotion, and asset-sharing creates compounding returns and uncovers growth that isolated departments would never see.

Take a fresh look at every asset your business or skill set offers—products, audiences, connections, and skills. Write them all down, then challenge yourself to create two 'strange pairings' or bundled offers you’ve never tried before. This might mean partnering, cross-promoting, or offering special deals to one customer group based on another’s interests. Launch a trial this month, even if it feels odd or small. These combinations often create the biggest leaps in sales, loyalty, and impact.