Practical growth strategies for startups and high-growth companies
I’ve rounded up a few growth strategies here. Some have a direct impact on your bottom line while others have an indirect compounding effect. Some show up in a few months while others can take longer to show results. Seek help in building and executing these growth strategies for your business.
Practical growth strategies for startups and high-growth companies
I’ve rounded up a few strategies here. Some have a direct impact on your bottom-line while others have an indirect compounding effect. Some show up in a few months while others can take longer to show results. Seek help to implement these for your company.
Marketing is a battle of perception. Perception once formed is very difficult to change. To get into the minds of your audience first, marketing and innovation should go hand-in-hand. IBM, Gillette, Xerox, FedEx are synonymous with the category they dominate. They were fast to get there and had a strong marketing plan to stay on top. Do you have a plan to get there first?
Not everyone can be first in the market. In 1984, Dell started in an already crowded personal computer space. It was the only company to sell over the phone – something revolutionary in those days. Today, Dell is a US$90 billion company. To still make space for your brand, find a category (or create one) and dominate that niche. A unique marketing program is only a part of the whole puzzle. Researching and coming up with a category is a make/break strategic activity.
Mercedes – engineering, Apple – smartphone, Microsoft – collaboration, Cisco – networking…are these correlations fair? Does it matter? It’s what the company focused on to “rent” a word in the minds of the audience. That’s why Xerox became a synonym for photocopying. What synonym are you planning to own?
Sure your competitor commands the top position in your category. But when trying to be everything to everyone, there still are cohorts of people left out that do not like your competitors’ products but for the lack of an alternative. Positioning yourself as an alternative (almost an opposite) attracts an audience who want to try something different. When they zig, you zag!
You already know the formula:
# of SQL’s X Win Rate X Avg. Deal Size
Current Sales Cycle (in days)
One way you can quickly improve your velocity is by increasing the number of SQL’s in your pipeline while keeping the rest of the variables unchanged. Better qualification of the leads coupled with good marketing practices like optimizing outreach programs, creating valuable content, improving the overall user experience is all part of the deal.
Speed of execution is equally important in marketing, as is a great idea. Treat your marketing function as you would your Engineering / Ops. Implement Agile frameworks like Lean, Kanban and Scrum in marketing to speed up campaign delivery.
Opening up new geography is a great adventure and a whole new experience for you and your team. But you will need a ‘map’. A well researched and thoughtfully built go-to-market (GTM) plan will set you on the right course.
You sell online, try offline. Sell on Facebook, try email. Great at conferences and tradeshows, try webinars. And it goes the other way too. Add a new channel as an experiment. Put the same amount of effort and attention like you do for the most successful channel. Analyze and decide. Try another.
If you are reading this, then there’s a strategy you are trying to implement that’s not on this list and that’s okay. A master-list of growth strategies, this is not. But if you think that I can help you,
Not ready yet? Here are a few reasons to work with me.