Why isn’t my business growing fast enough?

What’s holding your business back from the kind of growth it deserves?
Ask 20 business owners and you might get 20 different answers.
“Lack of leads. Sales team not motivated. Competition undercutting us. PPC is too expensive. Landing pages don’t convert. Don’t have a growth culture. Poor retention.”

Some of those answers might be right. However in my experience, growth is a complex thing and there’s no single reason your business isn’t growing as fast as it should. But there are some growth problems common to many businesses and they are pretty fundamental:

1. You’re failing to identify growth problems accurately
   It’s easy to assume you know the reason you’re not growing fast enough. The problem with assumptions in business is they quickly become dogma. That can lead to focusing on the wrong thing and when it doesn’t work, doubling down on that wrong thing. Assumptions have to be challenged and tested with data.

   It takes skill and experience to analyse the full range of reasons your business isn’t growing fast enough.
   Often the problem you identify isn’t the real problem.
   For example, you’re not converting enough PPC traffic online. The problem could be the landing page and you could iterate hundreds of design and wording tests to see only a marginal improvement. The chances are, it’s the traffic itself which is the problem, not the landing page.

   Sometimes it needs a step back and a really deep look at the whole of your sales, marketing and retention function.
   It requires a deep understanding of all your growth levers, what their potential impact is and what the required effort (or budget) is.

2. You don’t understand the value of your product
   Surely you know the value of your product?
   You know this product inside-out. You may have even built it yourself. You sweated over this product, it kept you up at night. You know every feature (and every bug).
   But that’s where the problem often lies – time and again I see start-ups selling on two things: price and product.

   Here’s a harsh truth:
   Nobody wants your product.
   What people want is the value your product could bring them.
   – I don’t want a pension; I want an income when I retire.
   – I don’t want accounting software; I want my accounts done quickly and hassle free.
   – I don’t want a toaster; I want toast.

   Until you can really communicate and demonstrate the value you can give your customer, you’ll never unlock growth.
   Communicating that value isn’t a product feature dump. It takes real skill and experience. It will probably take some research and definitely some testing to get it right.

3. You’re not delivering lifetime value for your customer
   If you don’t provide value beyond the initial purchase, you’ll lose customers, you won’t benefit from repeat purchases and you won’t grow by referrals.
   It’s simple. And it doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in.
   Imagine if that bricklayer who built a wall in your garden last year dropped in to check on it after its first winter. You’d be impressed, and there’s every chance you’ll think of another job for them, or certainly recommend them to a neighbour.

   It doesn’t matter how good your acquisition marketing is, if you don’t retain customers someone else will take them. If you don’t go above-and-beyond in delivering value, the customer won’t buy from you again.
   Remember when people stayed in the same job all their life? When they stayed with the same car insurance company forever? When businesses kept their auditor forever?
   It doesn’t happen anymore. It’s easier than ever to be a customer, to switch, to move. And that’s exactly what your customers will do if you’re not delivering value – and being seen to deliver value.

If you’d like help identifying and addressing your growth problems, or in understanding your value or how to deliver that for your customer, drop me an email.
Calls cost nothing. Slow growth could cost you your business.