My mission was defined by the brilliant, ambitious Global Chairman/CEO of Publicis Groupe SA, Maurice Levy, who constantly reminded me of this profound insight about growth, one that he recently repeated in an interview with CNN: "No one stays small because of his goodwill. It's not by his goodwill that he stays small; it's because he cannot grow. So if we grow it will be because we are very good, because we are the best."

During my tenure as CEO of Publicis USA, I quadrupled revenue, expanded to 12 domestic offices, managed a staff of over 1,000, and developed a roster of world-class clients such as L'Oreal, BMW, Nestle, Siemens, T.G.I. Friday's, Whirlpool, Fujifilm, T-Mobile, and many others.

And it worked again as I applied my growth concept to clients' businesses, devising strategies to generate profitable growth for their brands, products, and services. I'd like to take you back for a moment to the beginning of my career in Texas and the genesis of my approach to growth. I wasn't born in a corporate suit -- I began in business as a frustrated entrepreneur, worrying about our growth-starved 12-employee ad agency.

In searching for ways to stimulate the business, I came to realise that our greatest strength, our hidden potential, was staring me right in the face - our Texas location. At the time, we were in the center of the rapidly growing "Sunbelt" region of the United States. Dallas was a virtual boomtown, and we were riding its crest.

Our ad agency's Inside Advantage was the firsthand knowledge we possessed of the unique Sunbelt region and its people, and our proven ability to create campaigns that worked extremely well there. I used this reputation to win clients headquartered outside our home region who wanted to grow their Sunbelt brands.

For example, we were hired by the fledgling Marriott Corporation to launch a hotel it was building in Dallas -- the first hotel outside the company's Washington, D.C., home office region. It was then that I met J W Marriott, Sr, who started his distinguished career serving up hamburgers in a small family food stand near the DC airport.

As the assignment progressed, I worked closely with J. W. (Bill) Marriott, Jr., who used his entrepreneurial genes to build a global hotel empire. The Marriott family hospitality was and still is the company's Inside Advantage.

There were plenty of other national companies that needed our specialization to grow their smaller Sunbelt brands. Our Inside Advantage got us in the door of many companies with large portfolios of brands that we could grow with. Our initial assignment from Block Drug Company was an analgesic product marketed exclusively in the Southeast.

This led to our assignment of Block's national PoliGrip and Beano brands. We won Libby's line of canned meats, a Nestle brand with heavy consumption in the southern part of the country. This led to our assignment of Nestle's national Juicy Juice brand, ice cream products, and Power Bar brand.

Throughout the book, you'll read much more about how we located and leveraged the Inside Advantage in these businesses, achieving success for them and our agency.