Everyone wants a growth hack. Hire an insanely great marketer…get a rainmaker salesperson …figure out that next perfect product idea… and growth will take care of itself. This might be hard to hear for some, but it just doesn’t work that way. Sure, windfall growth happens, but so do lottery jackpot wins. I just wouldn’t plan on it.
The key to sustained growth is to build it into your work. Growth should not be an initiative; it should be a way of doing things on an everyday basis. To make that happen, you’ll have to address some of the most common challenges business face, including:
- Prioritization that focuses teams on high impact work
- Alignment that creates shared ownership among growth functions
- Go-to-market strategy with shared goals and joint execution
- Team ownership of outcomes and improvement steps
I’ve specialized in this approach for most of my career, so I know firsthand that creating such internal growth harmony isn’t easy to do. And that’s exactly why the companies that do it create a sustained advantage over competitors that don’t!
Here’s an overview of how to truly drive growth vs. how companies often want to approach it:
