In my work with innovative small and medium size companies trying to scale -in particular as a Business Innovation Coach for the European Commission’s Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME) – many of the great teams I get to work with are looking to me to provide them with ideas and tactics that will somehow magically deliver the growth they are looking for.
When I explain to them that it’s fundamentally all about process, coming up with ideas and hypotheses, developing experiments to test them, learning from the results, and then to convert the learnings into methodically implemented actions, I sometimes get blank stares as a result. But to my mind that’s really what it comes down to. Every product and business model is different, customer journeys and routes to market vary, and the environment changes constantly. I don’t carry silver bullets, but this process works.
Here’s a great presentation on the subject by Brian Balfour (VP of Growth at Hubspot), a guy who’s proven that many times. Enjoy!