Introducing Growth 5.0

Today's organizations are at a crossroads of change as it relates to how they invest, manage and monitor their efforts to find new customers. From the marketing, sales and customer service requirements to managing the culture of the business, growth-oriented organizations need to integrate, iterate and innovate the entire experience they offer their audiences. That is the new business model in the Age of the Post-modern Buyer, where customer expectations continue to increase.

In the past, marketing, sales and customer service units operated as silos, independent of one another, in such a manner that the left hand never knew what the right hand was doing. The common glue was supposed to be the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to keep track of contacts and "relationships". Unfortunately, sales resources operated on their own, plowing the fields while marketing was sprinkling their own fields with branding seeds and content rain. When the prospect became an actual customer, all the acquired intelligence, digital conversations, trails of information and customer knowledge were either in someones head or on a laptop, never shared, aggregated or leveraged to continue a quality customer experience. That will all change when you become a digital first growth business.

Revenue growth strategies for success mandate that every business must operate as a singular unified service, designed to integrate the entire fabric of marketing, sales and customer service, such that the "experience" is an investment that is measured by customer revenue growth and retention.

While this may appear to be logical and evolutionary in advancing any business, in the Post-modern world, the greatest impediment to growth is not being committed to being digital about everything. Digital is the underlying mesh and your services become fabric of performance for every organization that wants to achieve greater outcomes and exponential growth.

Digital is the equation that separates a business from its competitors and when digital is operating in harmony, it makes the experience significantly more attractive to new buyers and trusted customers alike. The question is, where should you start first? Who on your team needs to own it? What will the investment cost? How will you know with certainty it will work? You probably have many other questions and we're here to help you get the answers.

It is a bold statement to suggest that the lack of being digital is what holds back an organizations' success and sustainability, however, it is a frank observation that only a few brands embrace. Progressive brands have recognized that they must increase their investments in digital as the means to deliver an impactful experience. When considering how best to allocate growth investments, we believe that organizations should divide their budgeting into three streams; digital marketing service, internal sales & service and external sales resources. 

At least 50% - 70% of funds should be invested in all things that relates to digital, including branding, website, inbound and outbound market website, content development and publishing, marketing automation, customer relevancy management (CRM) and loyalty programming. These are needed to generate brand equity, awareness, followers, advocates and most important, weed out prospective buyers, influencers and external stakeholders who will influence the consideration of your brand. 

On the human side of the business, organizations should invest at least 20% - 30% of their funds to employ inside resources, qualified individuals who are focused on getting buyers to cross the chasm of trust. Those resources include pre-sales engineering, pre-sales qualifiers and telesales people whose sole job is to get traction with a prospective buyer. These costs will be considerably less expense than hiring external customer facing sales professionals, who today command high compensation to pull the deal through to closing. 

In the age of the post modern buyer, organizations cannot afford to assign customer growth to sales individuals who lack a comprehensive business acumen and the understanding of each buyers criteria for vendor selection. Installing a novice rep will do more harm as their lack of expertise and focus on doing a lot of counter-productive activities may contribute to pipeline performance.  Today, buyers seek the assistance of qualified experts and anything less will cause friction, buyer anxiety and a lack of trust that the company has the chops to the job.  

Your field sales resources, i.e. Business Development, Account Managers, Product Directors or Professional Consultants represent the final 10% to 20% of your growth investments. Depending on your products' complexity, the buyers knowledge and the maturity of your industry adoption, the 70/20/10 model would be adjusted depending on several important characteristics that include; the complexity of the product or service you are offering, the dollar amount of the transaction, the number of stakeholders in the buyers' committee and the overall sales development lifecycle. If the cycle is long and requires heavy lifting by the sales resource, then the weighting of the sales compensation should align to the dimension of business investment risk.  

Of course, there are no guarantees. Do not hire someone just because you think they might fit.  Get a third party professional firm to conduct a comprehensive human behaviour (psychometric) assessment that identifies the primary behaviours and characteristics of the individual being considered. That investment will go a long way when you hire the right person versus hiring someone on a gut chance, only to be drained by their need for constant attention, turnover risk and loss of opportunities.  

Many are familiar with Disney's guest experience culture that manifests from the inside out.  Their culture is entirely based on a  genuine purpose to serve guests in the most exquisite manner possible.  While it is not an easy take to execute globally across multiple channels, properties and product offerings, it is born in their human culture as an organization that has made them a post-modern enterprise.  That thinking has been expanded to include the new focus on being a digital culture and a digital-first brand. 

Companies like Amazon have figured out that the digital formula for success lies in being digital-first to achieve exponential growth. Disney's magic band is an example of their pivot to perfecting the buyer experience. This has more recently been replicated by Princess Cruises invention of the Medallion Class Service, a digital and immersive experience providing guests with convenience and delight by providing every guest with their MedallionClass™ lanyard that helps guest navigate the ship, transact purchases and access to their cabin.

So, what does culture have to do with revenue and digital? In the age of the post-modern buyer, it is everything. Buyers are no longer an old shirt you can put on to be comfortable in. What matters is knowing that post-modern buyers are younger in their thinking. They act on purpose and they know what they want when it is presented to them in a manner that is transparent, honest and trustworthy. Buyers' actions mirror the culture of digital first companies and the brands they choose to do business with, the ones they continue to business with and the ones they will abandon.

Your business must think digital from the start as a means to maximize the quality of the experience to your audiences. Doing it the old "manual" way is no longer sustainable. It places your business and brand equity at risk. Digital First brands must always put quality experiences first with customers, partners, employees and prospects alike. They must embrace and embed digital as an integral process to support the culture of the business and ultimately, the experience they provide customers, both human and digital.

If you haven't had the opportunity, read Simon Sinek's book "Start with Why" - The purpose, cause, or belief that inspires you to do what you do is about defining the culture of business. In our proclamation, the next decade will be about being digital and Growth 5.0™ is the catalyst for the next digitization to leapfrog Industry 4.0, which is the subset of the fourth industrial revolution. Growth 5.0 is about the mixture of digital and human cultures coming together to form a strategically compelling experience.

Our experiences prove that the manner to best transition your business for future growth lies in having a firm understanding of the harmony of your people, process and technology. By conducting a Straedgy Insight™ assessment, as a foundational discovery, you will rediscover your key business attributes and gain greater insight into those investments that are generating maximum returns and those that are stealing profit. We will help you navigate the land mines of change and identify the optimal path for accelerating revenue growth that sets you on a course to achieve exponential growth.

Our team will help you to execute a flawless programmatic initiative, designed to engage your teams and bring marked harmony to their conversations internally with peers and externally with your digital audiences. Contact us to arrange for a Straedgy Insight™.