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Growth

Growth Leaders Love to Get Dirty

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“There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you.” – Derek Jeter

Driving organizational growth is hard work.

It can be messy. Stressful. Full of uncertainty.

It is seldom easy. Nor is it ever free.

Leaders cannot just delegate growth. The best ones lead the charge, not from a cozy corner office, but out in the field.

I have found that the best growth leaders are the ones who dig in to the challenge right alongside their teams.

They get out of the building, and spend time in the market.

They also show up ready to do the work.

Put simply, they get dirty.

Leadership is Hard Work

There is no mistaking that growing an organization takes hard work, regardless of the industry or market.

Let’s be honest. If it were easy, then everybody would be doing it. Right?!

Peter Daland, the former USC and Olympic swimming coach put it this way, “The secret to swimming is not how far you swim, and it’s not how hard you swim. The secret to swimming is how far you are willing to swim hard.”

I think this same sentiment rings true for leadership. Great leaders are willing to work hard. They don’t give up. They keep going.

Many people mistakenly look for the easy way out. Unfortunately, it is very rare to find a single tactic or “hack” that drives organizational growth. As I shared in an earlier blog article, there is usually no silver bullet to growth.

Driving growth takes courage, commitment, perseverance, and an unwavering belief in your vision of the future.

Driving growth also takes a willingness to be make mistakes (and to learn from them!)

Even if you do the wrong thing, at least it is something. You will learn from it. Moreover, you can now cross it off the list of things to try! And, you will then be in a position to pivot towards a better solution.

A leader who does not do the work will not get the benefit of these lessons. They will eventually reach a point where they fail. However, a hard working leader who also works smart will eventually find a way to overcome whatever obstacle lies in their path.

One thing is as certain for businesses as it is for human beings: A sedentary life does not lead to healthy outcomes. You have to get out and move!

You have to get dirty.

Tips on How to Lead Smarter

In addition to hard work, the real secret is you also have to lead smart.

What do I mean by this?

Here are a few examples of great growth leader strategies and behaviors. I have witnessed them in practice and tried to exemplify them in my growth leadership roles:

  • Lead From the Front – Growth leaders are visible. They spend a lot of time with their teams, and out in the market. For example, the CEO participating in sales pitches. The CMO writing copy or dissecting web analytics. The Head of Sales carrying a quota and actively coaching their team in the field. The bottom line is you can’t credibly lead what you can’t (or won’t) do yourself.
  • Communicate Frequently and Clearly – Growth leaders are not only visible to their teams. They communicate with their teams frequently and clearly. The goal is not to just speak to be heard. For growth leaders it is always to speak to be understood.
  • Always Looking Over the Horizon – Growth leaders are always asking “what if” questions of their teams to stress test strategies and plans. Helping them to identify potentially adverse scenarios and thinking through the right approach.
  • Convert Ideas Into Executable Plans – In growth companies, ideas are cheap. Everything looks like an opportunity. However, it is a trap. Ideas are free. They are actually easy to find. It is execution that is difficult. Growth leaders focus on helping their teams convert great ideas into achievable plans. Execution is everything.
  • Push Hard, But Not Unrealistically – To drive growth you have to be aggressive, which includes setting aggressive goals and timelines. However, they must also be realistic. The quickest way to burn out a team is to push them to do something that is unachievable. Nobody likes being set up to fail.
  • Do It Right the First Time – There is an old expression that “haste makes waste.” This is an all too common outcome in growth initiatives. Remember the US Navy SEALS mantra that slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
  • Delegate, But Never Abdicate – Many leaders get this wrong. They think they are delegating a task or responsibility, but in reality, they are abdicating. What’s the difference? Abdicating is telling a team member to do something, but not making sure they know what to do and never following up. It is a cancer in any organization. Delegation, on the other hand, is telling a team member to do something, and then verifying they know what to do, offering insight or education as needed, providing encouragement, and following up to check on the status.
  • Provide Emotional Balance – When the team is stressed out, growth leaders demonstrate calm. When the team is out of energy, growth leaders share their passion. When the team doesn’t know what to do next, growth leaders show the way.
  • Provide Support – Growth leaders always focus on removing obstacles that prevent their teams from moving forward. Sometimes this translates into proving extra resources. Other times it might mean helping the team to solve problems. Sometimes it is literally lending a helping hand.Growth leaders never underestimate the team building and camaraderie that comes from an “all hands on deck” exercise to solve an urgent problem or meet a deadline.
  • Check Their Ego at the Door – Just because someone has a C-level title that does not automatically make him or her an effective leader. The quickest and easiest way to destroy any hope of achieving a growth strategy is to be so arrogant that you are unwilling to roll up your sleeves and get dirty.

Parting Thoughts on Getting Dirty

In my years of being a growth leader and member of a number of management teams, I have on more than one occasion witnessed individuals who think that once they ascend to a leadership role they don’t have to do “real work” anymore.

This dynamic inevitably leads to a rotten organization. Because even if the leader does not feel that way, you can be sure their team does!

Of course, growth leaders do have to take part in meetings with other executives and the board of directors. They also have to manage the functional departments to keep the organization running. However, the best growth leaders recognize that it is never a choice of doing one over the other, it is the decision to do both.

You cannot effectively lead an organization from the ivory tower…you have to be out in the market. In the dirt with your team.

There are no shortcuts.

In conclusion, there is one last important aspect to getting dirty. It is very gratifying, and is often the place where growth leaders find the most joy in their role. As a good friend of mine, and fellow growth leader, is fond of saying: the fun is in the mud!

-Onward

Six Business Growth Superpowers

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Leaders who want to drive growth for their organization have an almost limitless number of strategies and tactics at their disposal.

This virtually unlimited choice can be overwhelming for many. Reaching the point of paralysis for some.

Fortunately, I have found that a few “macro” strategies consistently rise to the top. These proven approaches have nearly universal applicability. Regardless of your industry, size, or growth challenge, deploying these strategies will create a solid foundation for growth. When you get them right, they become success enablers for more specific tactics and strategies to follow.

I call them the six business growth superpowers.

Here they are:

#1 – Have a Plan

This will sound crazy, but to get started on your growth journey it is important to first define the growth you want to achieve for your organization and have a basic idea of how you might try to accomplish it.

Such simple advice, yet very few follow it. Most people just dive right in, and start firing away. This “ready, fire, aim” approach often results in failure, wasted time and resources.

A better approach is to spend a little time to develop a basic plan of attack. This includes a quick survey of your strengths and weaknesses, and an assessment of the market(s) where you compete.

This important groundwork will provide direction and focus for you, and your team.

It does not have to be perfect. In fact, I can promise you it probably never will be. That is okay, because you will quickly learn and refine your approach based on real-world feedback from your market.

As part of your plan, you should also set a target. This definition of what you want to achieve will become your guiding “North Star” as you move forward in developing a more comprehensive growth strategy and plan, and will help you to measure progress along the way.

The great news is you do not need all the answers to get started. Pick a direction. Any direction, even if proven wrong, is better than no direction at all. You will quickly learn what works, and pivot away from what does not.

Ultimately, the power of having a plan for growth is it helps to prevent tactical and reactive thinking. Instead of “shooting from the hip” at every real or perceived opportunity that comes into your field of vision, you can selectively focus on those that are in alignment with what you are trying to achieve and likely to deliver positive results.

Considering if something brings you closer to your growth goal, allows you to be proactive instead of reactive.

#2 – Know Your Value

Many company leaders who are seeking growth do not understand what makes their organization special or unique in the marketplace.

This absolute cardinal sin will effectively prevent any effective marketing or sales from taking place.

If you cannot clearly articulate what makes your product(s) and/or service(s) different or demonstrably better than your competition, then how can you expect to be successful?

It is important to remember that your prospects always have many options, including the dreaded “no decision”. To grow you must always be connecting the dots between your unique solution, and your buyer’s pain, problem, or potential opportunity.

This is where sales happen, and client loyalty is born.

#3 – Understand Your Buyer

Once you understand and can clearly articulate your value proposition, you need to answer an important question: For whom?

By definition, in order to grow you are going to need to sell something. There are only 4 basic approaches to increase sales.

Regardless of which one, or combination of these strategies you choose, you will need to know who your buyer is.

The best way to define this is to think about what your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) looks like. For B2B sales, this means what industries, sizes of companies, and geographies are the perfect match for what you are selling? Also, within each of these organizations, who are you selling to? Create a profile (persona) that defines each individual.

The final step in understanding your future client is to create a model of your buyer’s journey. What triggers their need? How do they search for you? Decide to buy? How can you help them?

A great way to really understand your buyer is to think about their “job to be done” – What are they responsible for? What keeps them up at night? How can you help them to be successful?

The answers to these important questions will help you to tailor your value proposition message and close more deals.

Most go-to-market organizations focus only on making a sale. Unfortunately, too few organizations have a focus on client success. To drive growth, keep your eye on your buyer. Help to make them successful from the time they are a prospect to the time they are a client. You will sell more, and grow quicker.

#4 – Make It Easy

The “secret sauce” of high growth companies is a relentless focus on their clients.

The smart ones also think deeply about their process to gain new clients. They focus on optimizing the marketing and sales process, and making the buyer experience easier and more attractive for prospects.

This go-to-market mindset requires you to ask questions and translate the answers into a better understanding of the typical buyer’s journey and making every step as easy and frictionless as possible.

How can you make it easy for customers to buy from you? A few proven suggestions:

  • Educate them on how to buy your product or service. What are the key elements they should consider? Where have others failed?
  • Provide them with insights that help them to do their jobs better.
  • Walk them through a typical buying process, what should they expect moving forward?

Many growth leaders forget that sales is a two-way dance. Yes, you need to focus on making it easy for your buyer. However, what about the seller? Smart GTM organizations also try to make it easy on their sales team. Some ideas:

  • Revisit your sales process. Can you economize any steps? Are there selling tools (case studies, calculators, etc) that can help your sales team to be more effective?
  • Review your pricing and contracting process. Can you make it easier for your sales team to generate quotes?
  • Can you standardize as much of your contracting and approvals process as possible. Not only will your sales team appreciate the reduction in “thrash”, so will your prospects!

When you get it right, the go-to-market process becomes a virtuous cycle:

  • GTM Strategy enables effective marketing.
  • Marketing enables sales.
  • Sales enables client success.
  • Client success enables retention, expansion, referrals, and new growth!

#5 – Embrace VUCA

If the year 2020 has taught us anything it is that we live in stressful and rapidly changing world.

There is simply no escape from the many powerful VUCA forces in every industry and market across the globe. We must all get comfortable with VUCA, and learn how to quickly make decisions with less than perfect information.

Since we know they exist, and are not going away anytime soon, there is no excuse for not understanding and embracing these forces so that you can effectively counter them. There are many proven approaches for dealing with VUCA. Understanding your market, and developing a deep situational awareness is an important first step.

Perhaps the best strategy for dealing with the change and uncertainty in your market is to embrace it. Instead of allowing the market to dictate change, be proactive and lead the market. Be a catalyst for change. Adaptability is the antidote. Without it you are dead.

#6 – Take Action

Along with unpredictable VUCA forces, almost every organization is experiencing a faster pace of play in their market.

Everything from product lifecycles, to time to market, to delivery expectations, to innovations are accelerating. These trends are driven by technology, globalization, and aggressive competitors…all things out of our direct control. However, that does not mean we cannot manage them.

Organizations must learn how to accommodate this new faster pace. As referenced above, removing friction is certainly part of the answer. So is focusing on agility. Constantly pushing for doing things quicker, and better, at a lower cost.

What should growth leaders do? For starters, get out of the building, and into the market. They must also encourage their teams to embrace the ethos of MFGSD. By taking action and pushing through more cycles, you will gain the benefit of more learning opportunities!

To Infinity, and Beyond!

Any business growth problem or opportunity often has many different possible solutions to consider. Evaluating this vast “toolbox” of options is certainly part of the challenge (and for practitioners, part of the fun!) in developing and executing growth strategy.

There are many risks to avoid. Perhaps the most glaring is diving in without any direction or plan.

Knowing where you are today, and where you want to go tomorrow, is very powerful.

Developing a growth strategy and a resulting plan forces you to think deeply about your business, your operating environment, and the opportunities in front of you. With clarity around your value and your buyers, you can focus on selling more and leading the market instead of being a victim to external forces.

Take action today. Growth will be your reward.

-Onward

There is No Silver Bullet for Growth

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“There are no quick wins in business – it takes years to become an overnight success.” – Richard Branson

It is human nature to want a quick fix for every problem.

The proverbial “silver bullet” that will slay fearsome creatures with one shot.

The prospect tempts us every day:

  • Take this diet pill, and lose 5 pounds in a week…
  • Buy this stock, it is certain to double in the next quarter…
  • Execute this marketing tactic, and you will double your sales pipeline by the end of the year…

You get the idea. We all seek the easy solution. Oh, and, we want it to be painless too.

So, here is a news flash: It doesn’t exist.

Sorry.

There is no silver bullet.

The Conversation That Inspired This Article

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine last week. He was curious about my fractional Chief Marketing Officer services, and the focus on helping organizations grow. He wanted to know what the answer was…as if I had discovered “the” secret to growth and packaged it up for sale!

I explained to him the process I go through to help organizations unlock their growth potential.

It is a discovery and development process. It requires introspection. Honesty. Creativity. And, hard work.

It often involves asking difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, questions.

The “answer” to the growth question is not canned, but is as unique as each organization is.

Therein lies the rub.

Many leaders naively look for that secret marketing formula, or magical sales elixir that will fuel exponential growth for their business.

The reality is, in 99% of the cases, the big growth you see in an organization today is the result of a lot of hard work (the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears!) that took place over the course of many months or years.

What we are seeing is the compounding effect of multiple aligned actions, which taken together, over time, result in growth.

There is no silver bullet for growth.

Growth is Not Easy

Business innovation and growth are not easy.

It is easy to look at companies like Apple or Google and jealously think how easy they must have it. With their $Billions of market capitalization and a huge army of employees, they seem to effortlessly turn out a steady stream of great products and services which everybody wants.

The dirty secret is we are only seeing their successes. These are innovation-driven organizations that are constantly experimenting, testing, and refining new offerings. They invest huge sums of time and money into the effort, and have a well-developed playbook to bring them to market. Rarely do we see their failures because they have quietly killed them off and moved on.

Everyone wants the quick fix, but it doesn’t happen overnight. You have to be willing to put it all out there. I call it ‘the secret to being an overnight success,’ which means there really isn’t such a thing as an overnight success! The secret is you work really hard for 10 years, and then you become an overnight success. – Jon Gordon

True, there are those rare companies that get lucky and realize stratospheric, seemingly overnight, growth. Sadly, most of them do not survive in the long-term because they failed to build a solid foundation or invest in a sustainable business model.

There is no silver bullet for growth.

What to Do Next?

So what should you do if you are seeking growth for your organization?

First, make sure you really are ready for growth.

Next, take a disciplined and methodical approach to develop the best strategy for your organization from the ground up. A great place to start is by answering these six fundamental growth questions.

If you are feeling stuck, a fractional CMO can provide immediate assistance.

The harsh reality of the VUCA forces in our world is there are no silver bullets.

You need to be prepared. Have a plan. Execute (MFGSD) relentlessly. Expect the unexpected. Pivot quickly and adapt to changes. Keep on moving!

-Full speed ahead

Six Fundamental Growth Strategy Questions

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“Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life.” – Leo Tolstoy

Developing a growth strategy for any organization is challenging even in the best of times. In today’s disruptive VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) business environment, it has become exceptionally more difficult.

One proven approach for dealing with difficult problems, especially those situations where there are many unknowns, is to go back to the basics. If we revert to a few fundamental strategies, and ask some simple questions, we are often in a much better position to start problem solving.

Tackling the challenge like a reporter would, asking basic questions first, is a great way to quickly get clarity. It helps provide valuable perspective and a solid platform from which to develop robust strategy and formulate comprehensive plans.

I like to call this the “start simple” approach, and it is a proven way to begin developing an effective growth strategy.

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid!

When it is time to think about a new growth strategy and developing a go-to-market plan the best advice is always to start simple. A good place to begin is to make sure your organization is ready for growth in the first place.

There is always a tendency to over-complicate things. This can be a huge time sink, and sometimes a fatal mistake for leaders and their teams. The concept of starting slowly, walking before you run, is a great way to avoid complexity.

Next, you will want to do some investigation, ensuring you have good situational awareness of your market. While there are a many questions that could, and ultimately will, be asked, it is always a good idea to start the strategic planning exercise by answering fundamental questions first. You can layer in more depth and complexity later.

The Only Four Ways to Grow Sales

The very essence of growth strategy for any business organization is to drive growth. Without selling something (to new or existing customers), there can be no growth.

As a reminder, there are only four fundamental ways to increase sales:

  • Increase the number of clients – turning more prospects into paying customers.
  • Increase the average transaction – getting each client to buy more at each purchase.
  • Increase the frequency that the average client buys from you – getting each customer to buy from you more often.
  • Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of each step in the marketing and sales process – driving greater “funnel velocity” and higher conversions.

At least one of these four drivers will be part of any growth strategy.

Focus on Blocking and Tackling

In the game of American Football, blocking and tackling are often called the fundamentals of the game. In the game of growth strategy, I think there are also two fundamentals:

  • Where-to-play – Which specific markets and prospects to target in order to sell your products and/or services.
  • How-to-win – How to create and deliver a compelling value proposition for those prospects so that they choose to buy your products and/or services over any other option.

At first glance, these seem straightforward. However, there is a lot of detail there. To make things a bit easier, these two fundamentals can be broken down into six fundamental growth strategy questions.

Six Fundamental Growth Strategy Questions

The six fundamental growth strategy questions are modeled after a time-tested and proven formula. Journalists, researchers, and police officers learn this basic investigative formula often referred to as “The Five Ws and How” (or, 5W/1H):

  • Who
  • What
  • Where
  • When
  • Why
  • How

Many people consider the answers to these 5W/1H questions as the basic starting point for information gathering or solving any problem. This line of basic questioning is certainly not new…as it turns out; the origins of this line of inquiry go all the way back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle!

In the context of growth, answering these six fundamental questions is a great starting place that will help frame up your strategy and approach:

  1. Who is the buyer? – What is the Ideal Client Profile (ICP)? Their profile with demographic, firmographic, and psychographic details (persona).
  2. What is their need? – What (problem/pain/challenge) does our product/service fix for the buyer?
  3. Where do we find them? – What specific markets, industries, and/or organizations will we target?
  4. When are they likely to buy? – What internal and external influences cause prospective buyers to take action? Are there calendar or market triggers?
  5. Why will they buy? – What is the value proposition of our product and/or service? How is it better and/or different from any alternative solution (including doing nothing)?
  6. How will we win? – What is the repeatable process and tactics that enables a consistent stream of qualified prospects and convinces them we are only logical choice?

The best way to get answers to these questions is to interact with your market. Get out of the building, either figuratively or literally, and talk with your prospective buyers.

Next Steps…

Your answers to the 5W/1H questions above is a great starting point for creating a new growth strategy.

This vital work should be sponsored by the CEO and/or board of directors and is most often led by the Chief Marketing Officer (or an experienced fractional CMO!) in partnership with the head of Sales.

Even though the structure is simple, it provides a great framework to build out a solid growth strategy. With more time and analysis, it can help you define your targeting, messaging, optimal marketing and sales structure, go-to-market programs, and the team to get it done.

-Onward

Is Your Organization Ready for Growth?

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“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

It is a safe bet that almost any leader you ask will say they want to grow their business.

That makes sense, right? Of course it does. Everyone wants to have a role in a thriving and growing business.

However, once you get past the desire for growth, I have noticed things tend to get a lot more challenging.

Not every leader is prepared for the hard work of developing a growth strategy, and not every organization is ready or equipped to execute. While there are a number of detailed tactical questions one could ask to help diagnose an organization’s readiness for growth, I have found it useful to start with some big picture, strategic questions first.

Change is the Only Constant

We can summarize the underlying challenge in this discussion with one word: change. High-end management consultants would use two words to describe the process: business transformation!

No matter your word choice, accelerating business growth inevitably requires change. This is the crux of the problem for many organizations. Not every leader, or organization, is prepared to disrupt themselves. To drive new growth they will have to change their old approach to the market. They cannot continue doing only what they have always done. They have to change their activities. Sometimes they may even have to change people, process, structure, or systems. This kind of change can be painful.

Change is the only constant in our disrupted VUCA world. Despite that fact, embracing change is hard work. The natural state of most people is to resist difficult or uncertain things. Many will choose to dig in and resist change, or run from it instead of running towards it.

Yet, business history teaches us that the only way to survive and thrive is to adapt. In fact, adaptability is a key ingredient for effectively dealing with change. The willingness and ability to pivot as new circumstances present themselves and embrace something different is vital for creating business growth and success. We also know that great teams are the ones that will show up and do the hard work required to adapt.

Fundamental Growth Strategy Questions

Once leaders have embraced change, they can begin to ask fundamental questions to assess the readiness of their organization for growth. Here are a few that I have been using:

  • Is the value proposition of the organization’s product/service sound? In other words, is your product or service any good, or is it crap? If it needs work (and it is okay to admit that it does) then do that before you invest in growth. Your customers, and your team, will thank you!
  • Is the leadership team, the board, and ownership aligned around the desire and need to grow the business? If not, then clearly this needs to be a priority conversation.
  • Are you prepared to invest time and money in growth?
  • Is there a growth leader who is able to rally the team and prepared lead the charge?
  • Is there a cultural willingness and ability to confront reality? In strategic planning exercises, it is a requirement to put everything on the table: the good…the bad…and the ugly. This can sometimes get very personal for leaders and their teams who take great pride in the business they have built. Are you willing to call your baby ugly?
  • Related to the questions around confronting reality – is there a willingness to challenge all assumptions? Are you willing to admit the old ways of doing things may be outdated? Are you willing to consider new approaches? To challenge sacred cows?
  • Asking questions like these can often quickly lead to difficult discussions around making structural changes to the business. Are you prepared to revisit and possibly make changes to the people, process, and technology that will help drive business growth?

Where Do You Go From Here?

Business growth is great to have, but never easy to deliver. It requires leadership, change, investment, and a lot of hard work. The questions in this article should provide some insight to the readiness of your organization for growth.

Now the hard work begins…

Strategic leaders who decide to proceed with a growth initiative should first focus on getting situational awareness about their marketplace. They will gain valuable insights by getting out of the building and making sure their teams do this important learning exercise. Some of these insights might lead to developing alternative strategies or plans to address other scenarios.

Casting a wide net of inquiry, asking questions, listening, challenging, and learning provides great perspective and becomes a critical foundation for creating a VUCA Strategic Plan for growth.

With growth strategy and plan in hand, it is time to execute. The most successful leaders will inspire their teams with a bias to action. In the growth mode, leaders need to quickly triage issues, make aligned decisions, and push forward.

Being a leader in times of transformation is challenging and difficult, but driving growth for the organization is a great reward.

-Onward