Harvest Time How to reap maximum benefits from a slow-growing product.

It wasn't like most of the business plans Jack Fernerreviews. Instead of investing more money to boost sales of awell-established but slow-growing product line, it outlined a planto shrink investment, keep sales static and milk the market forprofits as long as inventory lasted.

"The idea was to collapse advertising costs and otherdiscretionary expenses, treat [the product line] as a cash cow andliquidate the investment to focus on a product line they thoughtwas more promising," explains Ferner, a management professorat Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Usingthis kind of strategy to harvest the profits of a business orproduct doesn't come naturally to most entrepreneurs. Butexperts say a harvest strategy that allows you to redeploy assetsto better opportunities is an important part of an entrepreneurialtoolkit.

"People invest time, talent and money building value in aventure," says Mark Rice, director of the Center forTechnological Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institutein Troy, New York. "The time comes when it is appropriate ornecessary for them to get a return on their investment."