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The Growth Series Part 2: The Growth Playbook & How to Implement It

By Jessica Nash on Wed 17 May 2023 in Wholesale & Distribution

The Growth Series Part Two: The Growth Playbook and How to Implement It

You’ve been introduced to the Growth Formula and Growth Model concepts, but do you know how to achieve that growth and where to begin? The second part of our Growth Series includes a framework tool for maximising business growth, as well as a free assessment tool that tracks product business’ performance before, during, and after its application.

A quick recap of the Growth Formula & Model

If you haven’t already, check out Part 1 of this Growth Series, where we delve into the Growth Formula in more detail. To recap, it’s a simple blueprint for sales growth in B2B product businesses that equally weights the value of attracting more customers and maximising customer lifetime value (CLTV) in driving a profitable, growing business. 

The formula is given more context when broken down into the 7 key growth strategies for B2B sales growth: the Growth Model. For product sellers, maximising every single strategy from both the funnel and the flywheel is the only way to expect repeatable, reliable, profitable and predictable growth. 

From concept to reality

Like with any theory, equation or set of principles, the Growth Formula is easy to digest and holds a lot of promise. But how can product businesses turn that into something achievable and – crucially – successfully generate positive results long term? 

The Growth Playbook is a framework that turns the formula and Growth Model idea into a step-by-step, actionable plan for product businesses to implement through B2B CRM software. Formatted as a grid, the Growth Playbook is made up of tiles highlighting the various initiatives and actions your team can execute to increase the efficacy of all 7 strategies. Each initiative is associated with one of the 7 growth strategies from the Model: Attract, Sell, Close, Onboard, Order Value, Order Frequency, Retention.

 


 

From quicker wins that require less effort and investment, but provide early ROI (return on investment), to initiatives that require additional planning and configuration time but boast big results – the Growth Playbook helps product businesses focus efforts and drive a growth engine.

So, how does it work?

Low Investment & Early ROI

Tiles that feature along the bottom of the grid will generate more immediate results more quickly. They're also easier to execute and require very little configuration in your B2B CRM system to make a start.

More Planning & Configuration

Tiles towards the top of the grid have more complexity involved in either their setup and/or the execution. These solutions may require the help of an Onboarding team to complete specific configurations but, in turn, are more likely to pay off long term. 

The tile you choose depends upon a number of factors, including: 

Budget: Will this solution generate enough ROI?
Importance: Will this tackle your biggest pain points? 
Goals: Will this investment contribute towards your long-term goals?

Where to start

For many businesses, it can be tricky to know which of the 7 steps to prioritise first. Your team may have their own ideas on what should be tackled first or where the business is suffering the most, but going off gut feeling alone can lead you astray. Even with a good grasp of business performance, the real challenge is gauging how this compares against your peers. 

Introducing the Growth Playbook Scorecard – a benchmarking assessment tool for product businesses to better understand their performance compared to other B2B product sellers. Once the assessment is complete, the scorecard generates a percentage result against each of the 7 strategies, identifying where your efforts would be best deployed to maximise business growth and profitable success. 

Devin Becker, CEO at Becker First Responder Co. recently took the Growth Playbook Scorecard to analyse his business’s growth performance; “I recently took The Growth Playbook Scorecard, and through the questions that were asked, it opened my eyes to the gaps we have in our sales process. As a perfectionist, I received a score of 46% which to me is a failing grade. Even though I scored poorly on the assessment, it broke it out into segments on which areas I need specific focus on such as Attracting customers. With this helpful, free tool, I'm now able to sit down and work with ProspectSoft to hit specific areas of improvement to make our process that much better moving forward. I'd highly recommend taking this assessment because it gives you measurable, actionable steps to improve your company and processes."


Fill out your scorecard now to assess your business’s performance and get an instant result.