How to Adapt Strategies for Ongoing Growth

When launching growth initiatives, we often aim for their Total Addressable Market (TAM)—the largest potential market we can reach. However, this can lead to spreading our efforts too thin and disappointing results. Instead, focusing on the Service Obtainable Market (SOM)—the segment we can realistically serve with current capabilities—provides a more achievable target and smarter resource allocation. Concentrating on SOM allows us to create strategies tailored to the specific needs of the customers we are prepared to serve right now. This approach aligns better with current market demands and increases the potential for sustainable growth. Starting strong in a smaller area can pave the way for broader success later. Examples: • 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: A dessert brand focuses on introducing its new frozen treat in warmer temp regional markets with a known appreciation for frozen desserts before planning a nationwide launch. • 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲: A beverage company launches a new line of organic juices in cities known for health-conscious consumers to test market reaction before rolling it out to broader markets. • 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹: A gourmet snack company begins selling its new artisanal chocolates in upscale grocery stores, aiming to establish a premium brand image before expanding to more general supermarkets. To do this... 1. We have to say 'NO' to the allure of being opportunistic 2. We have to say "YES' to winning where we've already got strength 3. We have to niche down into our SOM until it hurts (especially for visionaries) Last year, we were winning new clients at Schaefer in many categories. Sidnee and I were saying "yes" a lot. We saw opportunities everywhere, and we doubled our revenue year over year. That sounds like a win, right? Wrong. Not all growth is healthy. In the process, we discovered that our win rates were far lower outside of our niche (food & beverage). We were expending far more energy into these other deals than when we showed up to a new opportunity with the deep experience we have in food and beverage brands. The difference was stark! By conserving more energy and resources during the sales and operations process, we've found that we win more work, have better output across all clients, and are carving out a leadership position as a boutique research and marketing strategy firm helping food, beverage, and nutrition brands nail their next expansion. How can being more focused on the customers you currently serve help you find more success? --------------------------------------------------------------- 🤔 Poor strategy kills even the greatest effort --------------------------------------------------------------- Need help entering a new market? Geography | Verticals | Product | M&A We can help you make the right decisions. Backed by strategy.

Top-line growth through expansion areas is often the go-to but prioritising assortment optimisation can yield far greater benefits for long-term success. Attaining new top-line growth may seem simple—launching new categories or stores can quickly boost year-over-year revenue. However, without focusing on your business's current inventory health, such actions can lead to long-term complications and a less sustainable business. True merchandisers 🤓 find great satisfaction in revitalising and optimising struggling categories, locking in reliable and sustainable growth in a dynamic retail landscape. To safeguard profits, drive revenue, and enhance sell-through rates, all while maximising your product's potential, consider the following strategies: 💡 Leverage Inventory Health Check Metrics Gain a deep understanding and competitive edge when you have clarity on both driving factors and hindrances to business performance. Favourites include: Newness %, Sizing Availability, Core Line Out-of-Stock Rate, Markdown: Velocity & Depth of Discount, GMROI at all levels. 💡 Ensure Comprehensive Product Attribution Enrich product data with great attribution to accurately gauge customer demand by any product facet. This is invaluable insights for decision-making. 💡 Optimise Price Points Identify and capitalise on the pricing sweet spot, not only the sweet spot that’s acquiring you customers but also the sweet spot which is upselling and retaining customers for you. Invest and build on these and adapt as the market or customer base changes. 💡 Identify Core and NOOS Lines Prioritise Core and Never Out of Stock items to maintain consistency and meet ongoing demand. These items usually have higher margins and should have great stock turn due to predictable demand. 💡 Focus on Top-Performing Products Apply the 80/20 rule, concentrating efforts on the top 20% of products contributing to 80% of sales, while streamlining the long tail. The goal is to continually adapt and meet the customer where they’re at in terms of their demand for product. Focusing on key metrics that matter empowers teams to drive sustainable growth and adapt to the evolving market dynamics effectively.

Everyone wants the revenue to rise, market share to climb, and sales to surge. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: revenue is a lagging indicator. It only tells you what has already happened. If you’re measuring success purely by outcomes, you’re diagnosing too late, like treating a fever without asking what caused it. Behavior must change before any sales team can grow revenue or capture market share. And behavior doesn’t shift because you asked it to. It shifts when you identify the root cause of what’s holding it back. Is it a Skill issue? A Will issue? Or a Way issue? * Skill is about capability—do they know how to do it? * Will is about motivation—do they want to do it? * Way is about systems—are you enabling them to do it? If you don’t know which one is broken, no amount of incentives or training is going to fix it. It’s not guesswork. It’s a diagnosis. Once the root cause is clear, the part most organizations skip is defining both leading and lagging indicators. Here’s the difference: - Leading indicators are behaviors and activities that predict success. Examples include the number of quality discovery calls, the adoption of a new process, and the frequency of manager coaching. - Lagging indicators are the results that show up after those behaviors take root. Think: revenue growth, deal velocity, customer retention. If you’re only measuring revenue, you’re reacting. If you’re measuring behaviors, you’re leading. In other words: don’t wait for the numbers to tell you something went wrong. Observe the signals that show what’s going right—or what’s missing. You can’t scale what you don’t track, and you can’t track what you haven’t defined. So, where do you start? 1. Diagnose the root: skill, will, or way? 2. Define observable behaviors tied to success. 3. Establish qualitative and quantitative measures for those behaviors. 4. Reinforce, coach, and track—before you forecast. Sustainable growth isn’t magic. It’s a process, and the teams that treat behavior as the leading performance metric are the ones that stop chasing results and start creating them.

Here's a crucial piece of advice for fashion brands experiencing their first wave of growth 👇 Imagine this... Your fashion brand is riding a wave of success. Sales are booming, and your brand is gaining traction. VCs offer you money to amplify that success by significantly increasing your advertising spend. The appeal is undeniable-you're on a high and you want to keep the momentum going. Plus, you'll have the money to invest. So, why not go all in? Here's what often unfolds over the next 6 months: Initially, everything seems great. Your ads are performing well because your brand is trending, and customer acquisition costs (CAC) are low. However, this honeymoon phase doesn't last forever. Organic growth begins to wane, as it inevitably does in any growth cycle. As a result, the once impressive performance of your ads starts to fade. The actual value these ads were adding becomes questionable, likely overstated by optimistic weekly reports. Before long, your CAC increases dramatically. What once took a few months to see a return on investment now stretches to 12 months or more. As a consequence, your cash reserves dwindle rapidly, putting your business in a precarious position. I think a lot of fashion brands can relate to that. DO THIS👇 → Sustain Organic Growth 1) During the initial growth phase, focus on maintaining a healthy profit margin on the first order from new customers. 2) Continue to invest in organic growth strategies such as SEO, content marketing, and social media engagement. These methods build a sustainable foundation that doesn't rely solely on paid advertising. → Monitor CAC & LTV Cohorts Closely 1) Keep a close watch on your customer acquisition costs and be wary of rapid increases. 2) Consider diversifying your marketing spend to include a mix of organic and paid. 3) Make sure your customer quality doesn't suffer as you scale. Cohort analysis is a must (RetentionX). Your initial LTV assumptions must be sustainable. They must hold as you scale. → Avoid Over-Scaling Too Quickly 1) Don't rush to scale your advertising spend without understanding its true impact on your business. 2) Increase your advertising budget gradually while closely monitoring the results. Avoid sudden, unsustainable spending spikes. → Protect First-Order Profitability 1) Ensure that your first-order profitability remains robust as you scale. 2) Optimize your product pricing and cost structures to maintain healthy first-order margins. This ensures that your business remains profitable even as you invest in growth. → Plan for Long-Term Sustainability 1) Focus on building a business model that balances short-term profitability with long-term growth. 2) Develop a strategic plan that includes multiple revenue streams and continuous improvement of your products and services. This will help create a resilient business that can withstand market fluctuations.

I’m a #restructuring / #distressed growth executive in the #consumergoods and services, (#cpg), #b2bsaas, and #retail. Frequently I’m called upon by #privateequity, #venturecapital, and family businesses to accelerate growth quickly across #marketing, #merchandising, and #technology. Identified one major theme across the 156 companies-plus have reviewed. Allocating more than 46.8% of your total marketing budget to #paidadvertising can lead to detrimental consequences for your business. Here’s why: Diminishing Returns and Lack of Diversification 1. Diminishing Returns: Overemphasis on paid advertising can result in diminishing returns as the market becomes saturated with ads, leading to reduced effectiveness and higher costs per acquisition. 2. Lack of Diversification: Relying heavily on paid ads neglects other valuable marketing channels like #contentmarketing, #SEO, #socialmedia, and #influencerpartnerships, limiting your reach and potential customer engagement. Risk of Resource Exhaustion without Growth 3. Resource Drain: Pouring a disproportionate amount of resources into paid advertising without commensurate growth in #customeracquisition can deplete your budget rapidly. 4. Stagnant Growth: This imbalance can hinder sustainable growth by failing to attract and retain #customers through diverse marketing strategies. Undermining Organic #CustomerRelationships and #BrandCredibility 5. Organic Relationships: Neglecting #organic marketing efforts can undermine the development of #genuine customer relationships built on trust and value. 6. Brand Credibility: Over-reliance on #paidads may erode brand credibility as customers seek authenticity and meaningful interactions beyond promotional content. To avoid the pitfalls associated with excessive reliance on paid advertising, consider these actionable steps to restructure your marketing budget: - #Diversify Your #MarketingMix: Allocate resources across a mix of channels to reach a broader audience and engage customers through various touchpoints. - Invest in Organic Strategies: Prioritize organic marketing efforts such as #content creation, #SEO optimization, #socialmedia engagement, and #communitybuilding to foster lasting customer relationships. - Measure Performance Metrics: Monitor #keyperformanceindicators across different marketing channels to assess effectiveness and optimize resource allocation for maximum #ROI. - Experiment and Iterate: Test new strategies, analyze results, and iterate based on data-driven insights to refine your marketing approach continuously. - Seek Professional Guidance: Consider consulting with marketing experts or agencies to develop a comprehensive strategy that aligns with your business #goals and #budget. By diversifying your marketing investments and rebalancing your budget towards a more holistic approach, you can mitigate the risks associated with excessive reliance on paid advertising and steer your business towards sustainable growth and success.

Since my posting on growth garnered lots of positive feedback, here’s the second set of growth insights since I literally couldn't fit all of them into one LinkedIn post... (As I said, I think too much about growth.) This set is focused on the operational aspects of making growth work in organizations: # Growth Portfolio management - Effective growth requires a balanced approach to resource allocation between “known” levers (which tend to be smaller but more reliable impact) versus “bets” (which tend to have higher growth potential) - Examples of "known" levers could include optimizing existing acquisition channels, reducing churn, or optimizing an existing retention channel. "Bets" might include exploring new entry points, launching new products, or testing innovative growth strategies. - Prioritize and fund proven growth levers before exploring unknown or experimental initiatives to ensure more predictable and reliable growth. - Regularly review and adjust the growth portfolio based on performance and changing circumstances to stay ahead of the curve - invest in the ideas that work, drop ideas that don’t work quickly. # There is no silver bullet – you grow by getting many things right  - Sustained growth is the result of consistently executing well across multiple areas of the growth funnel. - While there may be a few larger growth levers that can have a significant impact, focusing solely on these levers is not enough. Successful growth requires a holistic approach that addresses every stage of the funnel. - Growth is a war of attrition, where you must systematically optimize and improve each piece of the growth funnel over time. This requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to experiment and iterate. - Getting many things right requires a long-term perspective. Sustainable growth is not achieved overnight but through consistent effort and optimization over time. # Logistics wins growth - "Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars." - John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War I - “Logistics wins growth too.” - Yew Jin Lim - In the context of growth, "logistics" refers to the data infrastructure, experimentation platforms, analytics, and even the organizational set up, including cross-functional collaborations. - Growth is a team sport, and organizations need to break down silos and foster strong partnerships between teams such as product, engineering, data science, UX, and more. - Does your organization track growth?  - Does it measure itself against growth? - How does the team learn about progress towards growth? It’s not just the leads, it’s everyone on the team should be thinking and tracking towards what works, and what doesn’t. - Are you involving cross-functional partners such as data science, program management, UX design, UX research, and others? Share your experiences and insights in the comments below! Remember, logistics wins growth!

You need to mix your performance marketing with long-term brand building. Here's why: Most marketers are really good when it comes to performance marketing - think paid ads, instant conversions and measurable ROI. It works great in terms of short-term gains. But sometimes marketers opt for this strategy to get quicker results and give the illusion that the needle is moving faster. While it does play a part in growth, if you were to blend this with consistent brand building, you’d see the company grow to new heights. Why? Because performance marketing brings in traffic, but brand building builds a place for you in the consumer's heart. I know when I say brand building, many people will start to think of brand colors or logos. But that’s not all that it is. It’s more about the story you tell of your brand to form an emotional connection with your customer. A study suggests that customers loyal to a brand are worth up to 10x as much as their first purchase. But how can you build this? - Consistent messaging - Authenticity - Engaging with your audience on a personal level The first question that comes up in a marketer's mind is: how are we going to split the budget and focus? I would advise new businesses to lean more on their performance marketing initially. You want to help get your name out there, capture leads and drive immediate sales. As the brand starts to gain more traction, you can slowly increase your investment in brand building. For established brands, the approach changes. You want to nurture and expand the brand equity you’ve built. You’re going to create content that reinforces why customers chose you to do business with in the first place and then you’re going to continue to validate that choice. Since your brand already has a degree of market penetration, you can afford to think long-term. This means: - New marketing channels and fresh content strategies - Creating a space for a community of your loyal customers - Investing in sustainable brand-building activities like whitepapers, industry reports and blogs. These aren’t going to bring in immediate ROI but will help you plant roots for your market position in the long run. It's two sides of the same coin, you can't just do performance marketing and burn through consumers. At some point, you need to start building a personal connection with your consumers. Because if you don't, you risk becoming just another business for customers to treat as an afterthought. If you can help your customers feel like they're a part of something bigger than just a transaction, you’ll find your product or service to be the first choice that comes to their mind when they have to buy. But this can only happen with a long-term brand-building strategy. The sooner you test and figure out the right balance between your performance marketing and brand building, the sooner you’ll be able to turn a first-time buyer into a lifelong customer. #brandbuilding #digitalmarketing

The first thing I’d fix in any marketing plan? It’s not what you think. I see brands jump to tactics. More ads. New funnels. Flashy creatives. But none of that matters if you miss the real problem. Here’s what I’ve learned after 15+ years in growth marketing: Hope isn’t a strategy. Marketing isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing it right. Every high-growth campaign I’ve led-startup or scale-up-started here: → Find the core problem your customer faces. Not your product. Not the latest trend. Not what you *wish* the problem was. The REAL pain. The one that keeps them up at night. How do you do this? I use the same 3 steps every time: 1. Conduct deep research • Ask real customers about their biggest headaches • Look at data and analytics (what are they struggling with?) • Listen more than you speak 2. Align your message with their problem • Speak their language (not your jargon) • Show you understand what hurts • Position your offer as the fix 3. Iterate with feedback • Test your message in the wild • Watch what gets a reaction (good or bad) • Adjust fast-market needs change all the time When you focus your marketing on the problem, you do more than sell. You build trust. You make people feel seen. Remember: - Problem-first beats solution-first every time. - You can’t fix what you don’t understand. - Hope is not a strategy. What’s one problem your audience faces that you need to dig deeper on? #MarketingStrategy #GrowthMarketing #LeadGeneration #DigitalStrategy #ProblemFirst

Looking back on what helped us get to the IPO the most important change was shifting our goals, focus, tracking and reporting to the right metrics. Here are the 4 goals that, when increased, fundamentally strengthened our biz more than any other change. It helped us transition from a complete focus on growing revenue (at all costs) to laying the foundation for sustainable profitable growth. Before we get to specific goals, the single most important change you can make, if you haven't already, is to ignore revenue and place all focus on contribution dollars and contribution margin. Announce the change to the team and to the board. Front and center. Four Goals to Focus on in 2024: 1. New customer contribution dollars from unpaid channels  (measured in trailing 3 & 12 month $ amount minus that number for the same period last year) 2. The percentage of new customer contribution dollars from unpaid channels as a percentage of total  (measured in trailing 3 & 12 month % number minus that number for the same period last year) 3. Total contribution dollars from all sales channels  (measured in trailing 3 & 12 month $ amount minus that number for the same period last year) 4. The total contribution margin across all sales channels (measured in trailing 3 & 12 month % number minus that number for the same period last year) Notes: 1. Why these 4? These goals, when increased, strengthen the fundamentals of the business. They will directly contribute to sustainable profit growth. If you don't break out contribution dollars, or paid vs unpaid, it becomes too easy to rely on driving revenue through paid means, which I learned is not sustainable. 2. You want to drive both dollars and margin. And, you want to ensure the source of the dollars are coming through unpaid channels. New customer acquisition will still be your biggest driver of sustainable repeat revenue growth. 3. You want the quality of your new customer acquisition to increase. The only way to do that is by making more and more of it come from unpaid channels. Definitions: Everyone knows revenue, but fewer people, especially individual contributors, understand contribution, variable costs, etc. Eessential to define terms so everyone is on the same page 1. Contribution dollars = revenue - variable costs 2. Variable Costs = Marketing costs, advertising costs, agency costs, discounts, product COGs (credit card fees, and per SKU shipping, returns and CX costs can also be included, but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good here) 3. Unpaid Channels = All sources of revenue we don’t directly pay for. Traffic sources include: organic, owned, and earned. Basically it’s our business NOT coming from our facebook, google or TikTok ads. Sweet - hope this helps. The url to the slide template is in the comments

Paid ads and churning content for the sake of it won't drive the growth you need to scale. I always see founders trapped in a cycle of increasing ad spend to maintain growth rates. While ads can undoubtedly spike your user engagement, it's simply not sustainable. As for content, I feel like the internet is saturated with what common knowledge. There's too much fluff that desensitizes the audience and makes it hard for valuable content to actually stand out. Instead, focus on driving organic growth. Do this by building a solid foundation: // Understand your customer's pain points and align this with every aspect of your startup. // Always be ready to pivot your strategies based on what's working and what's not. Quickly adapt to market changes, user feedback, and trends. // Your product must solve a significant problem for a well-defined market, and your strategy should seamlessly connect the two. Set clear, quantifiable goals – like revenue targets and active user numbers – this provides direction and a benchmark for measuring progress. // KPIs should reflect your business's health and growth trajectory, guiding your decisions and strategies towards reinforcing your PMF. Organic growth isn't something money can buy; it's earned through consistent value delivery, a clear understanding of your customers, and continuous product refinement to serve them better. This is the path to sustainable growth you need to scale. Check out the visual for actionable steps on organic growth for Micro SaaS. Skaling Ventures - Acquiring & operating Micro SaaS firms 🏴☠️ ⚡️ --- Follow me for helpful models, templates and frameworks 🚀 #MicroSaaS #Startups #SaaS #Growth #Ads #Content #Organic