The Nettlebed Digest

The development of products that can scale need to sit within the Strategic Business Framework. The focal point being the market needs of the Core Customer persona and the size of that market. However, there needs to be a consistent approach to the evaluation of new product ideas. Without this, it is too easy to get excited with the latest unique customer need being the next great product. This can result in the burning of valuable time without any true test on whether it can scale.

Go/No Go Product Evaluation

There is a need for a fast pragmatic approach to the decision making on whether to turn an idea into a scalable product. It needs to be simple and accessible to any members of your team generating product ideas. Creating a culture in the business where no idea is necessarily a bad idea, or a good idea is valuable. What is also key is that the person generating the idea is empowered to evaluate their product idea in a structured way. Let’s call this person the Idea Generator.

A Go/No Go methodology provides a two-stage consistent process on how a product idea aligns to the business strategy.

Go/No Go stage 1 is a very simple evaluation of the idea based on three criteria:

1. Understand the customer

2. Have a vision

3. Love the offering

The objective is that within each criteria the idea is evaluated by responding to a series of questions. Based on the Idea Generator’s ability to answer those questions positively it begins to inform the Idea Generator whether their idea is great, or not so great in the context of the business strategic framework. Empowering your team at this first stage:

1. Ensures that all product ideas are equitable from whatever source they came from.

2. Enables the Idea Generator to answer for themselves whether their idea has potential to deliver scalable growth from this first stage evaluation.

Go/No Go Stage 2 takes place once the Leadership team has acknowledged and approved the Stage 1 positive results. Stage 2 generally requires a wider team with a more diverse skill set. It is a deeper dive into three areas:

1. Size of the opportunity.

2. Be clear on the who, why, what.

3. Knowing how the product will deliver a return.

This stage requires the investment of time. Time to collect the market insight. Time to build out the ‘straw man’ of the product. Time to build the commercials to show the return potential.  

By the end of Stage 2 the leadership team will have the business insight to make a call as to whether to invest in the launch of this scalable product, the GO. The alternative could be to delay or abort all together, the No Go.  After all the effort put in, No Go could be seen as a big call.  However, the whole process is to ensure new products align to the North Star aspiration for the business. If the product does not align, then it is important not to burn energy on it.  

Product Storytelling

The process of Go/No Go provides the foundation for the story telling of the Product.

1. Which Core Customer persona is the product targeted at.

2. The features, advantages, benefits, and customer value the product will deliver.

The importance of having a consistent method for creating the product story cannot be understated. A product story is not just for sales and marketing. Delivery teams and Support & Governance teams all need to be able to understand and relate to the product story. The commercial returns of a scalable product impact the business as a whole.

A product story should be highly focused on the needs and drivers of the core customer persona. A compelling and unique story that can be told in four key messages:

1. What problem the product solves.

2. What is the product.

3. What outcome does the product deliver.

4. How much does it cost.

These key messages provide the content to support a consistent message for the demand engine and the collateral for sales teams.

Clarity

The value to the business of having a Go-to-Market Product Strategy is clarity. The clarity that any product idea that could support the scalable growth of the business can be assessed against the Strategic Business Framework. The clarity for individuals and teams within the business that they are empowered to look at how the business can meet the needs of the market and see growth with products that scale.

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For me, and for discussions with many other Founders of businesses we are a great descriptor for ‘Unique Humans’.  

What is a Unique Human?

We have the business idea, we have the passion, and we can work with the everyday ambiguity of what the business does and how it gets delivered. We make those quick business decisions based on intuition or ‘gut feel’ which moves the business forward. All this information inside our head makes us a ‘Unique Human’ within the business, somebody who cannot be replicated.

As the business begins to grow, early employees also follow the same path, they learn on the job, acquire knowledge, and become unique in their role. Our businesses become highly dependent on these ‘Unique Humans’ to operate.

The positive is that this generally delivers a great experience for our customer. They get to engage with employees competent in their role and the ability to deal with ambiguity. The employee experience is also generally positive. They are engaged, feel highly valued, and have a direct influence on the business.

But here’s the challenge… Unique Humans do not scale.

Why don’t Unique Humans scale?

At some point the businesses will plateau. There must be a reset on how the business is going to scale.

I have been through some painful learning and concluded scaling a business requires a proactive approach to strategy. Scaling will generally require more employees, let’s call them ‘New Humans’. New Humans have not got the time luxury of the foundations years to acquire the ‘tribal knowledge’ in the business. The New Humans need to be able to have clarity in what is expected of them to be successful. The business needs them to be successful in a very short time frame.  

The design of a Scaling Strategy needs to include two significant 'Human' changes. Without addressing these changes, growth out of the plateau will be inhibited. So, it’s key to consider the Human’s impact to the core business and the organ rejection of New Humans.  

Impact to the current Core business  

You need to plan the impact on the employee experience of Unique Humans in a Scaling Strategy. The business is not broken in their eyes, ‘this is the way we do things around here and it works, I am happy, and the customer is happy, I do not want to change’. To enable the business to scale you may be needing them to let go of some of the things that they value the most in working for you. Your risk is this group turning from being the enablers in the business to becoming the disrupters.

Organ rejection of New Humans

The expectation is that scaling generally means you need more employees. These New Humans need to hit the ground running. There are two common problems that occur within the first six months and these problems may mean you remain on the Plateau for longer than expected:

1. The existing Unique Humans reject the New Humans as they “cannot do the job as they do not understand what is needed in the role”. The business accepts this and exits the New Humans and starts the process again looking for other New Humans who may, but will unlikely, do better.
   

2. The New Humans quickly realise for themselves there is no clear path for them to succeed. They do not possess the ‘tribal knowledge’, so leave for a more rewarding employee experience elsewhere.  

It is possible to prevent the failing on both outcomes by the leadership proactively focussing on a strategy that addresses how to scale. Rather than a generic mantra about the need to grow, without a concrete strategy on how.

A strategy to scale

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to move from a reactive environment. This is where the humans in the business today are expected to work with ambiguity and agility. The move is to a proactive environment. This is where humans know the Scaling strategy i.e. the destination of the train and the points of change on the way that will get them to the destination.

The most important aspect is the inclusion of the hugely valuable Unique Humans in the Scaling Strategy process. They can see where their value is now, and importantly where their value will be in the future, they remain engaged. But also, if the destination is not where they want to go, they can get off the train in a controlled way without being a disrupter in the business.

Our New Humans also know the destination when they choose to join. They may also bring additional knowledge and experience that can support the scaling process. Whilst all the processes to scale may not be in place, the engaged New Humans understand what the business is trying to achieve.

If your business is in that plateau, there is a path to achieve scalable growth. However, it needs to be done with a business change mindset. Remember, it is unlikely to be achieved by following the same path that got your business to that current plateau in the first place.

I can recall numerous times as CEO being told by sales teams “Look, this is what the customer needs”. Translated, this means we need to offer services that meet that need so we can close the opportunity. All too often, the leadership team would go with the customer need to close the deal. The rationale being we will somehow find available resource, and we are smart enough to work out what the deliverable is and make the customer happy. If there was resistance to approving the deal, the argument ‘if we get it right, we can add it to the product portfolio as I know plenty of other customers that will have this need’ came into play.

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The self-limiting factor  

Many businesses operate quite successfully and happily in this manner, but one thing these businesses will not be able to do is scale. There is a natural self-limiting factor in being driven by a customer’s need and not the needs of the market. That self-limiting factor is:

1. Those selling must be involved in delivery as they are designers and implementers.  

2. Those selling need ‘unique human’ industry skills and knowledge to turn a customer need into a solution that drives an outcome to meet that need.

3. The portfolio of products in the business gets too wide meaning:

1. Problems articulating to potential customers where we really excel.

2. Fail to invest wisely as any investment cost is spread too thinly.

3. Unable to identify the right additional sales and delivery resource that is aligned to the products that could drive growth.

However, from my experience whilst all the above were true, my key learning was that the core limiting factor was that it was reactionary.  

My leadership team and I were reacting to events rather than being proactive. I realised to truly scale and drive growth, I needed to have a proactive scaling strategy.

A proactive strategy

A proactive scaling strategy is to understand the needs of the market. Understanding how many customers would have that need. Furthermore, how many customers do I need to satisfy our growth expectations.    

To be clear, this was not about throwing away what we had. It was about being very focussed in identifying the products we felt:

1. Could clearly see solve a problem in the market.

2. Could be differentiated from our competition.

3. Met the needs of our Core Customer.

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Who is the Core Customer

The Core Customer then becomes an interesting definition. The most important being that this is a real person buying who was buying our product, not a company.  

Once you have identified there is a market need for your product then there has to be a buying persona who is actually buying. The buying persona for each product has; a description, needs, and drivers.

We identified two groups and four personas that would become our key focus for growth:

1. Planners

1. Marketing Planner

2. Sales Planner

2. Fixers

1. Marketing Fixers

2. Sales Fixers

Planners are the people who decide what the business is going to do (strategy). Fixers are the implementers of the what the Planners decided (tactical).  

What became clear to us was that most purchase orders for our products was with the Fixers. This meant products targeted at this persona needed to be highly outcome focused. However, the influence on what products should be used to solve a market problem was with the Planners. Products targeted at this persona, whilst showing an outcome, also needed to show how they supported a wider strategy.

Each product had messaging developed that addressed:

1. What problem the product solved for the persona.  

2. How we delivered the product as it related to each persona.

3. The outcomes based on the persona’s key drivers.

From these three elements within the frame of the market need, the self-limiting factors began to quickly erode.

1. Our marketing and sales outreach was focussed on communicating our differentiated offer.

2. Our delivery teams were trained to deliver on that offer.

3. We knew the skills and experience needed in sales and delivery people to scale the offer.

4. We knew the customer needs to be able to deliver a great CX.

A strategy to scale  

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to move from a reactive environment. This is where the business today responds to the customer’s need of the day.

The move is to a proactive environment. This is where the problem the products solve in the market is predefined. The core customer persona is known and proactively targeted.  

An important aspect in a scaling strategy process is the inclusion of the leadership team and, where possible, customer facing managers in defining the core customer persona. Understanding the needs and drivers is not something gathered only from the sales teams. Anybody who is involved in delivering a great customer experience to this persona has valuable insight.  

If you recognise these self-limiting factors in your business, there is a methodology that can be applied. It can identify the right products to scale and deliver core customers a path to achieve scalable growth.

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I am sure as business leaders we have all looked at Excel spreadsheets and wished for delivery of a forecast. Especially when the business revenues have plateaued, the reality is that each quarter we continue a step forward and then a step back with regards to growth.

I often fell into the easy trap of the internal dialogue with:

• Sales teams on the sales funnel. How could be sell more in our current customer base as that was quicker than finding and onboarding new customers?
• Delivery teams on what we could do more of based on the skills and resource at our disposal.  
• Finance to maintain control on costs. Ensure we continue to stay profitable on the current revenues.

The common theme here is all this energy is internal focussed and was not focused on the external market and how we make money in that market.

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Competitors in the market

When I was challenged on who were our competitors, an easy response was to say we had none. However, this response was based on a very simplistic measure, does anybody deliver the same product portfolio as us? Whilst the technical answer is no. The reality was that when we actually mapped the market we came back with a very different answer.

As we looked at our competitors in the market, not one offered the same portfolio of products. But that measurement of competitors is very different to what the market is buying. Typically, the phrase ‘follow the money’ is used when investigating criminality, it is a useful phase to apply to a Market Map. The Core Customer has problems that need solving. Our competitors were servicing that customer need with different products to us.

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Follow the money

Using a Market Map allowed us to see that from our current position, there were some real strengths in the amount of money our core customers spent with us each quarter. I could see which customer type loved us based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Unfortunately, I could see those types who were not in love with us and the spend diminishing. Which competitors were we competing with and what type of products were now beneficiaries of this spend?

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Spending Money

It is obvious that from a finance perspective there is a cost to deliver a service. However, until the Market Map exercise I had never tried at a strategic level to align the aggregated pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from our customer types.

This exercise showed the level of spend with certain suppliers when aggregated was very high. In fact, the dependency on them became a significant discussion for the leadership team on how we scale. Do the products we have identified to scale:

1. Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?

2. Give us greater buying power?

3. Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service ourselves?

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Market Map

Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allowed us to see all the players on the field. We clearly had many competitors. The Market Map gave us a good view of all these players. Players that are chasing the same customer budgets, but with different product propositions. The Market Map also for the first time showed us the spend with our suppliers who support our delivery of services, directly correlated to our income.

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A strategy to scale

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to be market focussed.  

A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace. It focusses on the 6 market characteristics:

1. Customers

2. Channel

3. Competitors

4. Suppliers

5. Partners

6. Money Flows

A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market Map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.

If you recognise the internal naval gazing in your business, there is a methodology that can be applied. It can identify the right products to scale in the market with a path to achieve scalable growth.

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Many business leaders that have hit a revenue plateau are caught in the whirlwind that is day-to-day business. Whilst they have looked at a long-term strategy, maybe even have a growth revenue number written down for where they would like to be in 3 to 5 years, few have clarity on where they are aspiring to be as a business.

This train analogy works well. If you are in New York today and your aspiration is to make it to San Francisco, there is a purpose to all your endeavours and challenges you will face along the way. The challenges faced may make you deviate for a period, but once you overcome them, you get back on the train to the destination you aspire to.

As you think broader, this translates to your team. If they understand what the business is aspiring to be, then they also willingly get on the train, and most importantly provide the support needed to overcome challenges on the journey. As the team expands, the story to new hires becomes about the destination of the business, what you are aspiring to be. This adding greater value to the new hire, being aware where they could offer that additional value.

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How to define the North Star

Few businesses are created with absolutely clarity on what they will be in five years’ time and what the exit for the business is. The reality is that the founder or the business leaders will be testing new ideas each time their business hits a revenue plateau. This makes defining a North Star aspiration quite difficult. How do you make it more tangible?  

A starting point may well be to get the absolute basics in place, which is to know how you are going to achieve scalable growth. Completing a Market Attribution Framework identifies the products that can scale and that there is a market need. Importantly, it sets you on the path for differentiation in your market.

Market Differentiation

Once you have clarity on your market differentiation you have the basis of what you aspire to be in your market. By completing a Market Map exercise, you can see how big your growth potential is and who will be your key competitors. The creation of the story to your Core Customer on why you are different from your competitors is a similar story as to where you plan the business to be in three to five years. Using the train analogy, we now have the train to get us to San Francisco, but what is in San Francisco, why do we aspire to go there?

Aspiration

In most cases for business leaders, the San Francisco destination is a crystallisation of the business. Whether that be an exit or a round of funding. It is a clear milestone where the business needs to change to get to the next level of growth. Who knows there may be external funding needed at one of the stations en-route. The aspiration on where the business is intending to go is a critical component in the sourcing of funds.

Working backwards

If your timeline for your San Francisco arrival is five years, you need to start working back from that timeline. If each milestone is a station on your journey, what would you need to have achieved in three years, then two years, then 12 months, then three months. The shorter the timeline, the more granular you need to be on what you need to have achieved.

Outcome

The outcome is a Strategic Framework that defines your North Star aspiration and focus on a single page. The single page is important as it needs to provide clarity to your internal teams in a form they can easily consume. It also provides clarity to an external investor that the business has a clear strategy to achieve scalable growth. An exit maybe set at five years, but business needs to be ready if an opportunity arises earlier.  

A Single Page Framework would feature:

• One phrase strategy
• In three years, we will be…

• In five years, we aspire to be…
• Core competencies
• Four differentiators of focus
• Core market
• Core Customer persona

A North Star exploration should be combined with the insights gathered from the Market Map, Core Customer, and Market Attribution Framework.  

• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model.  How big a business change is this going to be?
  
• Core Customer – Who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.
  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.

A business that is trapped in a revenue plateau quite often is looking for that silver bullet that will fire them to the next level of growth. Growth fundamentally is an outcome of many different activities.  The challenge for any business is what combination of activities need to be done to achieve that growth outcome.  

A focus on products that can scale is an approach to achieve growth.  If you are to concede that a business where revenues have plateaued has not easily found that silver bullet, then the approach to identifying how to scale needs to be more methodology driven.

A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace, it focusses on the six market characteristics:

• Customers
• Channel

• Competitors
• Suppliers
• Partners
• Money Flows

Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allows you to see all the players on the field. The goal of the market map is to get a good view of all these players, where your business fits in, and what actions you may need to take as a result to move from the plateau that you are currently trapped in.  

A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.

Money Flows

The strategic importance of a Market Map is to understand how the money flows – the incomes and outgoings.

You will be able to see, from your current position, where your strengths are in the amount of money your core customers spend with you each quarter. You will see:

Which customer type love you based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Which customer type that are not in love with you and the spend diminishing.  

Which competitors you are competing with and the opportunity to understand what type of products are now beneficiaries of this spend.

The Market Map methodology also looks at the outgoing spend to deliver a product. At a strategic level it will aggregate pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from customer types.

In a world where ecosystems are required to deliver a quality customer experience, very few businesses can deliver a full portfolio of product in-house. This Market Map methodology will identify the level of spend. It will identify the level of dependency with certain suppliers, which may impact how the business can scale. Do the products that have been identified to scale:

1. Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?

2. Give you greater buying power?

3. Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service yourselves?

Outcome

The outcome of a Market Map exercise needs to co-exist with identification of your Core Customer and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework.  The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:  

1. What type of customer buys your product and service today and are they the same customer type to achieve scalable growth.

2. What are your supplier costs and how does this change to achieve scalable growth.

3. Who are you competitors and which customer type are they also working with.

4. How big a business change will be required to achieve scalable growth in this market.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Market Map typically occurs after the Market Attribution Framework and Core Customer methodologies, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.  

• Core Customer - is a methodology to identify to identify who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.

When a business stops growing there is a natural tendency to start looking at new products and services from the most recent client meetings that will stimulate the immediate growth needed. ‘If we add this to the portfolio it could drive more revenue’ or ‘If we respond to this current customer’s unique need other customers will want it’. This is defined as a reaction to a unique customer need.

What should happen more often, and unfortunately does not due to the whirlwind of everyday business, is for the business to look pro-actively at the external market and identify how they can generate a market differentiation for their business in areas of the market where there are clear areas for potential growth. This is defined as a reaction to a market need.

A Market Attribution Framework is a methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth.

There are three generally accepted ways to create a differentiated strategic position:  

1. Serve the broad needs of a few customers.  

2. Serve some needs of many customers.  

3. Serve many needs for many customers in a super-specific market.

A Market Attribution Framework may sound like a heavy lift, but there is a pragmatic way to achieve this and provide the business with a growth structure that can be fully integrated into everyday decision making.

The starting point is being clear that the strategic intent of a Market Attribution Framework is not a methodology to focus on competing against your competitors, it is about competing to be unique in the marketplace. The framework provides the foundation to define:

• Where you really want to be, what is your real passion.
• What core customer you will serve and where you will not.  

• Setting your aspirations for your unique and valuable position in the market.

The Framework should pull together the:

1. Key attributes of the market you play in.

2. Rank how well your business serves each of these attributes.

3. Identify and rank the key competitors for each attribute.  

The outcome of this exercise provides a structured discussion on which attributes are important to the business. One of the key things in defining importance is which attributes generate the passion in the business. Passion from leadership and those delivering the products or services is such a key component to success. It is unlikely that a single attribute will create differentiation in the market. What will generally create the market differentiation is the combination of number of attributes that a business has. Rating these combinations against competitors identifies who are fulfilling the market needs well today and the gaps where those market needs are not be fulfilled. The latter is what creates the white space, the space where the business can focus energies knowing a market already exists.    

There are only two possible outcomes from a Market Attribution Framework exercise:

1. We are in the right position with the right products, let’s keep momentum going.

2. We look like everybody else but look at that white space we could be attacking.

In most cases the outcome will be the ‘aha’ moment driven by outcome two. A Market Attribution Framework now provides the guide rails for the Leadership Team to focus on the next two critical steps:

1. The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model.  How big a business change is this going to be?

2. Core Customer – Who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.

Importantly, the Market Attribution Framework is not a one-time exercise. The leadership team in the business must be and continue to be market experts. The market and the players in the market will continue to evolve, whilst the business may identify a unique place in the marketplace today, that position needs to be under constant review.    

The graphic below shows an output of a Market Attribution Framework. It is the result of identifying on the X axis the key attributes the business wanted to play in.  The Y axis is the 1-5 scoring of the business and each competitor.  What this shows is that when you combine a number of attributes a unique place in the market can be created, in this case when you combine attributes A and B with E and F, nobody is in competition with the business.

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A core customer is an individual person. They are not a population segment or a market segment or even a company. They are a person who will buy products from your business for optimal profit.  

The problem many businesses face as their revenues plateau is that they have lost sight, or in many cases not defined which customers are their core. It is quite possibly 60% of their customers are core customers who are generating profit, the rest actually cost the business more money than they are worth, their lack of profitability could actually be suppressing any growth potential.

In my other blog, The Market Attribution Framework, I wrote about the methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position. A position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth. The identification of the Core Customer is the next step in that process.

The scaling principle is that for the business to scale its primary revenue model needs to move from reacting to a unique customer’s individual need. It must become proactive to the needs of the market.  

To be clear, this is not about throwing away what a business has. It is about being very focussed in identifying the scalable products that:

1. Solve a problem in the market.

2. Can be differentiated from the competition.

3. Meet the needs of the Core Customer.

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Core Customer

The core customer within a market is a defined persona. Dependent on your Market Map you may have more than one persona to target. For every persona added you will need to identify:  

1. What are their roles?  

2. What are their core needs?  

3. What are their drivers?

This strategic exercise is important with regard to investment and outreach.  

Investment

The alignment or gap between your products of today and the Core Customer persona needs of tomorrow will give you the insight on the level of investment required to achieve scalable growth. Investing in the gap comes primarily in two forms:

• Emotional - The requirement for business change and the people in your business to want to change. This could mean changing the products within the business and the skills required to deliver these products. These products now need to be focussed on meeting the needs of the new core customer persona.

• Financial - The cost to create or reconfigure existing products. The resource costs to ensure the skills are in the business to deliver products.  The sales and marketing costs to proactively outreach to address the needs of the new core customer persona.

Proactively Outreach

The identification of the Core customer persona sets the rules on who you proactively target in the market. All existing and new products that are to be promoted through marketing and sales outreach need to clearly align to the needs of these personas.  

This product messaging developed for the Core Customer will need to address:

1. What problem the product solves for the Persona.  

2. How the product will be delivered as it relates to each Persona.

3. The outcomes of the product based on the Persona’s key drivers.

Outcome

The outcome of a Core Customer exercise needs to co-exist with the identification of your Market map and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework. The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:

• What customer persona buys your products today and are they the same customer persona to achieve scalable growth.
• The market needs of the customer persona.

• The alignment or gap between the Customer Persona needs and your products.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Core Customer identification exercise typically occurs together with the Market Attribution Framework, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.
  
• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model. How big a business change is this going to be?

The development of products that can scale need to sit within the Strategic Business Framework. The focal point being the market needs of the Core Customer persona and the size of that market. However, there needs to be a consistent approach to the evaluation of new product ideas. Without this, it is too easy to get excited with the latest unique customer need being the next great product. This can result in the burning of valuable time without any true test on whether it can scale.

Go/No Go Product Evaluation

There is a need for a fast pragmatic approach to the decision making on whether to turn an idea into a scalable product. It needs to be simple and accessible to any members of your team generating product ideas. Creating a culture in the business where no idea is necessarily a bad idea, or a good idea is valuable. What is also key is that the person generating the idea is empowered to evaluate their product idea in a structured way. Let’s call this person the Idea Generator.

A Go/No Go methodology provides a two-stage consistent process on how a product idea aligns to the business strategy.

Go/No Go stage 1 is a very simple evaluation of the idea based on three criteria:

1. Understand the customer

2. Have a vision

3. Love the offering

The objective is that within each criteria the idea is evaluated by responding to a series of questions. Based on the Idea Generator’s ability to answer those questions positively it begins to inform the Idea Generator whether their idea is great, or not so great in the context of the business strategic framework. Empowering your team at this first stage:

1. Ensures that all product ideas are equitable from whatever source they came from.

2. Enables the Idea Generator to answer for themselves whether their idea has potential to deliver scalable growth from this first stage evaluation.

Go/No Go Stage 2 takes place once the Leadership team has acknowledged and approved the Stage 1 positive results. Stage 2 generally requires a wider team with a more diverse skill set. It is a deeper dive into three areas:

1. Size of the opportunity.

2. Be clear on the who, why, what.

3. Knowing how the product will deliver a return.

This stage requires the investment of time. Time to collect the market insight. Time to build out the ‘straw man’ of the product. Time to build the commercials to show the return potential.  

By the end of Stage 2 the leadership team will have the business insight to make a call as to whether to invest in the launch of this scalable product, the GO. The alternative could be to delay or abort all together, the No Go.  After all the effort put in, No Go could be seen as a big call.  However, the whole process is to ensure new products align to the North Star aspiration for the business. If the product does not align, then it is important not to burn energy on it.  

Product Storytelling

The process of Go/No Go provides the foundation for the story telling of the Product.

1. Which Core Customer persona is the product targeted at.

2. The features, advantages, benefits, and customer value the product will deliver.

The importance of having a consistent method for creating the product story cannot be understated. A product story is not just for sales and marketing. Delivery teams and Support & Governance teams all need to be able to understand and relate to the product story. The commercial returns of a scalable product impact the business as a whole.

A product story should be highly focused on the needs and drivers of the core customer persona. A compelling and unique story that can be told in four key messages:

1. What problem the product solves.

2. What is the product.

3. What outcome does the product deliver.

4. How much does it cost.

These key messages provide the content to support a consistent message for the demand engine and the collateral for sales teams.

Clarity

The value to the business of having a Go-to-Market Product Strategy is clarity. The clarity that any product idea that could support the scalable growth of the business can be assessed against the Strategic Business Framework. The clarity for individuals and teams within the business that they are empowered to look at how the business can meet the needs of the market and see growth with products that scale.

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For me, and for discussions with many other Founders of businesses we are a great descriptor for ‘Unique Humans’.  

What is a Unique Human?

We have the business idea, we have the passion, and we can work with the everyday ambiguity of what the business does and how it gets delivered. We make those quick business decisions based on intuition or ‘gut feel’ which moves the business forward. All this information inside our head makes us a ‘Unique Human’ within the business, somebody who cannot be replicated.

As the business begins to grow, early employees also follow the same path, they learn on the job, acquire knowledge, and become unique in their role. Our businesses become highly dependent on these ‘Unique Humans’ to operate.

The positive is that this generally delivers a great experience for our customer. They get to engage with employees competent in their role and the ability to deal with ambiguity. The employee experience is also generally positive. They are engaged, feel highly valued, and have a direct influence on the business.

But here’s the challenge… Unique Humans do not scale.

Why don’t Unique Humans scale?

At some point the businesses will plateau. There must be a reset on how the business is going to scale.

I have been through some painful learning and concluded scaling a business requires a proactive approach to strategy. Scaling will generally require more employees, let’s call them ‘New Humans’. New Humans have not got the time luxury of the foundations years to acquire the ‘tribal knowledge’ in the business. The New Humans need to be able to have clarity in what is expected of them to be successful. The business needs them to be successful in a very short time frame.  

The design of a Scaling Strategy needs to include two significant 'Human' changes. Without addressing these changes, growth out of the plateau will be inhibited. So, it’s key to consider the Human’s impact to the core business and the organ rejection of New Humans.  

Impact to the current Core business  

You need to plan the impact on the employee experience of Unique Humans in a Scaling Strategy. The business is not broken in their eyes, ‘this is the way we do things around here and it works, I am happy, and the customer is happy, I do not want to change’. To enable the business to scale you may be needing them to let go of some of the things that they value the most in working for you. Your risk is this group turning from being the enablers in the business to becoming the disrupters.

Organ rejection of New Humans

The expectation is that scaling generally means you need more employees. These New Humans need to hit the ground running. There are two common problems that occur within the first six months and these problems may mean you remain on the Plateau for longer than expected:

1. The existing Unique Humans reject the New Humans as they “cannot do the job as they do not understand what is needed in the role”. The business accepts this and exits the New Humans and starts the process again looking for other New Humans who may, but will unlikely, do better.
   

2. The New Humans quickly realise for themselves there is no clear path for them to succeed. They do not possess the ‘tribal knowledge’, so leave for a more rewarding employee experience elsewhere.  

It is possible to prevent the failing on both outcomes by the leadership proactively focussing on a strategy that addresses how to scale. Rather than a generic mantra about the need to grow, without a concrete strategy on how.

A strategy to scale

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to move from a reactive environment. This is where the humans in the business today are expected to work with ambiguity and agility. The move is to a proactive environment. This is where humans know the Scaling strategy i.e. the destination of the train and the points of change on the way that will get them to the destination.

The most important aspect is the inclusion of the hugely valuable Unique Humans in the Scaling Strategy process. They can see where their value is now, and importantly where their value will be in the future, they remain engaged. But also, if the destination is not where they want to go, they can get off the train in a controlled way without being a disrupter in the business.

Our New Humans also know the destination when they choose to join. They may also bring additional knowledge and experience that can support the scaling process. Whilst all the processes to scale may not be in place, the engaged New Humans understand what the business is trying to achieve.

If your business is in that plateau, there is a path to achieve scalable growth. However, it needs to be done with a business change mindset. Remember, it is unlikely to be achieved by following the same path that got your business to that current plateau in the first place.

I can recall numerous times as CEO being told by sales teams “Look, this is what the customer needs”. Translated, this means we need to offer services that meet that need so we can close the opportunity. All too often, the leadership team would go with the customer need to close the deal. The rationale being we will somehow find available resource, and we are smart enough to work out what the deliverable is and make the customer happy. If there was resistance to approving the deal, the argument ‘if we get it right, we can add it to the product portfolio as I know plenty of other customers that will have this need’ came into play.

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The self-limiting factor  

Many businesses operate quite successfully and happily in this manner, but one thing these businesses will not be able to do is scale. There is a natural self-limiting factor in being driven by a customer’s need and not the needs of the market. That self-limiting factor is:

1. Those selling must be involved in delivery as they are designers and implementers.  

2. Those selling need ‘unique human’ industry skills and knowledge to turn a customer need into a solution that drives an outcome to meet that need.

3. The portfolio of products in the business gets too wide meaning:

1. Problems articulating to potential customers where we really excel.

2. Fail to invest wisely as any investment cost is spread too thinly.

3. Unable to identify the right additional sales and delivery resource that is aligned to the products that could drive growth.

However, from my experience whilst all the above were true, my key learning was that the core limiting factor was that it was reactionary.  

My leadership team and I were reacting to events rather than being proactive. I realised to truly scale and drive growth, I needed to have a proactive scaling strategy.

A proactive strategy

A proactive scaling strategy is to understand the needs of the market. Understanding how many customers would have that need. Furthermore, how many customers do I need to satisfy our growth expectations.    

To be clear, this was not about throwing away what we had. It was about being very focussed in identifying the products we felt:

1. Could clearly see solve a problem in the market.

2. Could be differentiated from our competition.

3. Met the needs of our Core Customer.

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Who is the Core Customer

The Core Customer then becomes an interesting definition. The most important being that this is a real person buying who was buying our product, not a company.  

Once you have identified there is a market need for your product then there has to be a buying persona who is actually buying. The buying persona for each product has; a description, needs, and drivers.

We identified two groups and four personas that would become our key focus for growth:

1. Planners

1. Marketing Planner

2. Sales Planner

2. Fixers

1. Marketing Fixers

2. Sales Fixers

Planners are the people who decide what the business is going to do (strategy). Fixers are the implementers of the what the Planners decided (tactical).  

What became clear to us was that most purchase orders for our products was with the Fixers. This meant products targeted at this persona needed to be highly outcome focused. However, the influence on what products should be used to solve a market problem was with the Planners. Products targeted at this persona, whilst showing an outcome, also needed to show how they supported a wider strategy.

Each product had messaging developed that addressed:

1. What problem the product solved for the persona.  

2. How we delivered the product as it related to each persona.

3. The outcomes based on the persona’s key drivers.

From these three elements within the frame of the market need, the self-limiting factors began to quickly erode.

1. Our marketing and sales outreach was focussed on communicating our differentiated offer.

2. Our delivery teams were trained to deliver on that offer.

3. We knew the skills and experience needed in sales and delivery people to scale the offer.

4. We knew the customer needs to be able to deliver a great CX.

A strategy to scale  

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to move from a reactive environment. This is where the business today responds to the customer’s need of the day.

The move is to a proactive environment. This is where the problem the products solve in the market is predefined. The core customer persona is known and proactively targeted.  

An important aspect in a scaling strategy process is the inclusion of the leadership team and, where possible, customer facing managers in defining the core customer persona. Understanding the needs and drivers is not something gathered only from the sales teams. Anybody who is involved in delivering a great customer experience to this persona has valuable insight.  

If you recognise these self-limiting factors in your business, there is a methodology that can be applied. It can identify the right products to scale and deliver core customers a path to achieve scalable growth.

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I am sure as business leaders we have all looked at Excel spreadsheets and wished for delivery of a forecast. Especially when the business revenues have plateaued, the reality is that each quarter we continue a step forward and then a step back with regards to growth.

I often fell into the easy trap of the internal dialogue with:

• Sales teams on the sales funnel. How could be sell more in our current customer base as that was quicker than finding and onboarding new customers?
• Delivery teams on what we could do more of based on the skills and resource at our disposal.  
• Finance to maintain control on costs. Ensure we continue to stay profitable on the current revenues.

The common theme here is all this energy is internal focussed and was not focused on the external market and how we make money in that market.

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Competitors in the market

When I was challenged on who were our competitors, an easy response was to say we had none. However, this response was based on a very simplistic measure, does anybody deliver the same product portfolio as us? Whilst the technical answer is no. The reality was that when we actually mapped the market we came back with a very different answer.

As we looked at our competitors in the market, not one offered the same portfolio of products. But that measurement of competitors is very different to what the market is buying. Typically, the phrase ‘follow the money’ is used when investigating criminality, it is a useful phase to apply to a Market Map. The Core Customer has problems that need solving. Our competitors were servicing that customer need with different products to us.

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Follow the money

Using a Market Map allowed us to see that from our current position, there were some real strengths in the amount of money our core customers spent with us each quarter. I could see which customer type loved us based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Unfortunately, I could see those types who were not in love with us and the spend diminishing. Which competitors were we competing with and what type of products were now beneficiaries of this spend?

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Spending Money

It is obvious that from a finance perspective there is a cost to deliver a service. However, until the Market Map exercise I had never tried at a strategic level to align the aggregated pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from our customer types.

This exercise showed the level of spend with certain suppliers when aggregated was very high. In fact, the dependency on them became a significant discussion for the leadership team on how we scale. Do the products we have identified to scale:

1. Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?

2. Give us greater buying power?

3. Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service ourselves?

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Market Map

Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allowed us to see all the players on the field. We clearly had many competitors. The Market Map gave us a good view of all these players. Players that are chasing the same customer budgets, but with different product propositions. The Market Map also for the first time showed us the spend with our suppliers who support our delivery of services, directly correlated to our income.

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A strategy to scale

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to be market focussed.  

A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace. It focusses on the 6 market characteristics:

1. Customers

2. Channel

3. Competitors

4. Suppliers

5. Partners

6. Money Flows

A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market Map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.

If you recognise the internal naval gazing in your business, there is a methodology that can be applied. It can identify the right products to scale in the market with a path to achieve scalable growth.

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Many business leaders that have hit a revenue plateau are caught in the whirlwind that is day-to-day business. Whilst they have looked at a long-term strategy, maybe even have a growth revenue number written down for where they would like to be in 3 to 5 years, few have clarity on where they are aspiring to be as a business.

This train analogy works well. If you are in New York today and your aspiration is to make it to San Francisco, there is a purpose to all your endeavours and challenges you will face along the way. The challenges faced may make you deviate for a period, but once you overcome them, you get back on the train to the destination you aspire to.

As you think broader, this translates to your team. If they understand what the business is aspiring to be, then they also willingly get on the train, and most importantly provide the support needed to overcome challenges on the journey. As the team expands, the story to new hires becomes about the destination of the business, what you are aspiring to be. This adding greater value to the new hire, being aware where they could offer that additional value.

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How to define the North Star

Few businesses are created with absolutely clarity on what they will be in five years’ time and what the exit for the business is. The reality is that the founder or the business leaders will be testing new ideas each time their business hits a revenue plateau. This makes defining a North Star aspiration quite difficult. How do you make it more tangible?  

A starting point may well be to get the absolute basics in place, which is to know how you are going to achieve scalable growth. Completing a Market Attribution Framework identifies the products that can scale and that there is a market need. Importantly, it sets you on the path for differentiation in your market.

Market Differentiation

Once you have clarity on your market differentiation you have the basis of what you aspire to be in your market. By completing a Market Map exercise, you can see how big your growth potential is and who will be your key competitors. The creation of the story to your Core Customer on why you are different from your competitors is a similar story as to where you plan the business to be in three to five years. Using the train analogy, we now have the train to get us to San Francisco, but what is in San Francisco, why do we aspire to go there?

Aspiration

In most cases for business leaders, the San Francisco destination is a crystallisation of the business. Whether that be an exit or a round of funding. It is a clear milestone where the business needs to change to get to the next level of growth. Who knows there may be external funding needed at one of the stations en-route. The aspiration on where the business is intending to go is a critical component in the sourcing of funds.

Working backwards

If your timeline for your San Francisco arrival is five years, you need to start working back from that timeline. If each milestone is a station on your journey, what would you need to have achieved in three years, then two years, then 12 months, then three months. The shorter the timeline, the more granular you need to be on what you need to have achieved.

Outcome

The outcome is a Strategic Framework that defines your North Star aspiration and focus on a single page. The single page is important as it needs to provide clarity to your internal teams in a form they can easily consume. It also provides clarity to an external investor that the business has a clear strategy to achieve scalable growth. An exit maybe set at five years, but business needs to be ready if an opportunity arises earlier.  

A Single Page Framework would feature:

• One phrase strategy
• In three years, we will be…

• In five years, we aspire to be…
• Core competencies
• Four differentiators of focus
• Core market
• Core Customer persona

A North Star exploration should be combined with the insights gathered from the Market Map, Core Customer, and Market Attribution Framework.  

• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model.  How big a business change is this going to be?
  
• Core Customer – Who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.
  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.

A business that is trapped in a revenue plateau quite often is looking for that silver bullet that will fire them to the next level of growth. Growth fundamentally is an outcome of many different activities.  The challenge for any business is what combination of activities need to be done to achieve that growth outcome.  

A focus on products that can scale is an approach to achieve growth.  If you are to concede that a business where revenues have plateaued has not easily found that silver bullet, then the approach to identifying how to scale needs to be more methodology driven.

A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace, it focusses on the six market characteristics:

• Customers
• Channel

• Competitors
• Suppliers
• Partners
• Money Flows

Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allows you to see all the players on the field. The goal of the market map is to get a good view of all these players, where your business fits in, and what actions you may need to take as a result to move from the plateau that you are currently trapped in.  

A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.

Money Flows

The strategic importance of a Market Map is to understand how the money flows – the incomes and outgoings.

You will be able to see, from your current position, where your strengths are in the amount of money your core customers spend with you each quarter. You will see:

Which customer type love you based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Which customer type that are not in love with you and the spend diminishing.  

Which competitors you are competing with and the opportunity to understand what type of products are now beneficiaries of this spend.

The Market Map methodology also looks at the outgoing spend to deliver a product. At a strategic level it will aggregate pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from customer types.

In a world where ecosystems are required to deliver a quality customer experience, very few businesses can deliver a full portfolio of product in-house. This Market Map methodology will identify the level of spend. It will identify the level of dependency with certain suppliers, which may impact how the business can scale. Do the products that have been identified to scale:

1. Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?

2. Give you greater buying power?

3. Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service yourselves?

Outcome

The outcome of a Market Map exercise needs to co-exist with identification of your Core Customer and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework.  The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:  

1. What type of customer buys your product and service today and are they the same customer type to achieve scalable growth.

2. What are your supplier costs and how does this change to achieve scalable growth.

3. Who are you competitors and which customer type are they also working with.

4. How big a business change will be required to achieve scalable growth in this market.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Market Map typically occurs after the Market Attribution Framework and Core Customer methodologies, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.  

• Core Customer - is a methodology to identify to identify who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.

When a business stops growing there is a natural tendency to start looking at new products and services from the most recent client meetings that will stimulate the immediate growth needed. ‘If we add this to the portfolio it could drive more revenue’ or ‘If we respond to this current customer’s unique need other customers will want it’. This is defined as a reaction to a unique customer need.

What should happen more often, and unfortunately does not due to the whirlwind of everyday business, is for the business to look pro-actively at the external market and identify how they can generate a market differentiation for their business in areas of the market where there are clear areas for potential growth. This is defined as a reaction to a market need.

A Market Attribution Framework is a methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth.

There are three generally accepted ways to create a differentiated strategic position:  

1. Serve the broad needs of a few customers.  

2. Serve some needs of many customers.  

3. Serve many needs for many customers in a super-specific market.

A Market Attribution Framework may sound like a heavy lift, but there is a pragmatic way to achieve this and provide the business with a growth structure that can be fully integrated into everyday decision making.

The starting point is being clear that the strategic intent of a Market Attribution Framework is not a methodology to focus on competing against your competitors, it is about competing to be unique in the marketplace. The framework provides the foundation to define:

• Where you really want to be, what is your real passion.
• What core customer you will serve and where you will not.  

• Setting your aspirations for your unique and valuable position in the market.

The Framework should pull together the:

1. Key attributes of the market you play in.

2. Rank how well your business serves each of these attributes.

3. Identify and rank the key competitors for each attribute.  

The outcome of this exercise provides a structured discussion on which attributes are important to the business. One of the key things in defining importance is which attributes generate the passion in the business. Passion from leadership and those delivering the products or services is such a key component to success. It is unlikely that a single attribute will create differentiation in the market. What will generally create the market differentiation is the combination of number of attributes that a business has. Rating these combinations against competitors identifies who are fulfilling the market needs well today and the gaps where those market needs are not be fulfilled. The latter is what creates the white space, the space where the business can focus energies knowing a market already exists.    

There are only two possible outcomes from a Market Attribution Framework exercise:

1. We are in the right position with the right products, let’s keep momentum going.

2. We look like everybody else but look at that white space we could be attacking.

In most cases the outcome will be the ‘aha’ moment driven by outcome two. A Market Attribution Framework now provides the guide rails for the Leadership Team to focus on the next two critical steps:

1. The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model.  How big a business change is this going to be?

2. Core Customer – Who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.

Importantly, the Market Attribution Framework is not a one-time exercise. The leadership team in the business must be and continue to be market experts. The market and the players in the market will continue to evolve, whilst the business may identify a unique place in the marketplace today, that position needs to be under constant review.    

The graphic below shows an output of a Market Attribution Framework. It is the result of identifying on the X axis the key attributes the business wanted to play in.  The Y axis is the 1-5 scoring of the business and each competitor.  What this shows is that when you combine a number of attributes a unique place in the market can be created, in this case when you combine attributes A and B with E and F, nobody is in competition with the business.

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A core customer is an individual person. They are not a population segment or a market segment or even a company. They are a person who will buy products from your business for optimal profit.  

The problem many businesses face as their revenues plateau is that they have lost sight, or in many cases not defined which customers are their core. It is quite possibly 60% of their customers are core customers who are generating profit, the rest actually cost the business more money than they are worth, their lack of profitability could actually be suppressing any growth potential.

In my other blog, The Market Attribution Framework, I wrote about the methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position. A position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth. The identification of the Core Customer is the next step in that process.

The scaling principle is that for the business to scale its primary revenue model needs to move from reacting to a unique customer’s individual need. It must become proactive to the needs of the market.  

To be clear, this is not about throwing away what a business has. It is about being very focussed in identifying the scalable products that:

1. Solve a problem in the market.

2. Can be differentiated from the competition.

3. Meet the needs of the Core Customer.

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Core Customer

The core customer within a market is a defined persona. Dependent on your Market Map you may have more than one persona to target. For every persona added you will need to identify:  

1. What are their roles?  

2. What are their core needs?  

3. What are their drivers?

This strategic exercise is important with regard to investment and outreach.  

Investment

The alignment or gap between your products of today and the Core Customer persona needs of tomorrow will give you the insight on the level of investment required to achieve scalable growth. Investing in the gap comes primarily in two forms:

• Emotional - The requirement for business change and the people in your business to want to change. This could mean changing the products within the business and the skills required to deliver these products. These products now need to be focussed on meeting the needs of the new core customer persona.

• Financial - The cost to create or reconfigure existing products. The resource costs to ensure the skills are in the business to deliver products.  The sales and marketing costs to proactively outreach to address the needs of the new core customer persona.

Proactively Outreach

The identification of the Core customer persona sets the rules on who you proactively target in the market. All existing and new products that are to be promoted through marketing and sales outreach need to clearly align to the needs of these personas.  

This product messaging developed for the Core Customer will need to address:

1. What problem the product solves for the Persona.  

2. How the product will be delivered as it relates to each Persona.

3. The outcomes of the product based on the Persona’s key drivers.

Outcome

The outcome of a Core Customer exercise needs to co-exist with the identification of your Market map and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework. The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:

• What customer persona buys your products today and are they the same customer persona to achieve scalable growth.
• The market needs of the customer persona.

• The alignment or gap between the Customer Persona needs and your products.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Core Customer identification exercise typically occurs together with the Market Attribution Framework, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.
  
• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model. How big a business change is this going to be?

The development of products that can scale need to sit within the Strategic Business Framework. The focal point being the market needs of the Core Customer persona and the size of that market. However, there needs to be a consistent approach to the evaluation of new product ideas. Without this, it is too easy to get excited with the latest unique customer need being the next great product. This can result in the burning of valuable time without any true test on whether it can scale.

Go/No Go Product Evaluation

There is a need for a fast pragmatic approach to the decision making on whether to turn an idea into a scalable product. It needs to be simple and accessible to any members of your team generating product ideas. Creating a culture in the business where no idea is necessarily a bad idea, or a good idea is valuable. What is also key is that the person generating the idea is empowered to evaluate their product idea in a structured way. Let’s call this person the Idea Generator.

A Go/No Go methodology provides a two-stage consistent process on how a product idea aligns to the business strategy.

Go/No Go stage 1 is a very simple evaluation of the idea based on three criteria:

1. Understand the customer

2. Have a vision

3. Love the offering

The objective is that within each criteria the idea is evaluated by responding to a series of questions. Based on the Idea Generator’s ability to answer those questions positively it begins to inform the Idea Generator whether their idea is great, or not so great in the context of the business strategic framework. Empowering your team at this first stage:

1. Ensures that all product ideas are equitable from whatever source they came from.

2. Enables the Idea Generator to answer for themselves whether their idea has potential to deliver scalable growth from this first stage evaluation.

Go/No Go Stage 2 takes place once the Leadership team has acknowledged and approved the Stage 1 positive results. Stage 2 generally requires a wider team with a more diverse skill set. It is a deeper dive into three areas:

1. Size of the opportunity.

2. Be clear on the who, why, what.

3. Knowing how the product will deliver a return.

This stage requires the investment of time. Time to collect the market insight. Time to build out the ‘straw man’ of the product. Time to build the commercials to show the return potential.  

By the end of Stage 2 the leadership team will have the business insight to make a call as to whether to invest in the launch of this scalable product, the GO. The alternative could be to delay or abort all together, the No Go.  After all the effort put in, No Go could be seen as a big call.  However, the whole process is to ensure new products align to the North Star aspiration for the business. If the product does not align, then it is important not to burn energy on it.  

Product Storytelling

The process of Go/No Go provides the foundation for the story telling of the Product.

1. Which Core Customer persona is the product targeted at.

2. The features, advantages, benefits, and customer value the product will deliver.

The importance of having a consistent method for creating the product story cannot be understated. A product story is not just for sales and marketing. Delivery teams and Support & Governance teams all need to be able to understand and relate to the product story. The commercial returns of a scalable product impact the business as a whole.

A product story should be highly focused on the needs and drivers of the core customer persona. A compelling and unique story that can be told in four key messages:

1. What problem the product solves.

2. What is the product.

3. What outcome does the product deliver.

4. How much does it cost.

These key messages provide the content to support a consistent message for the demand engine and the collateral for sales teams.

Clarity

The value to the business of having a Go-to-Market Product Strategy is clarity. The clarity that any product idea that could support the scalable growth of the business can be assessed against the Strategic Business Framework. The clarity for individuals and teams within the business that they are empowered to look at how the business can meet the needs of the market and see growth with products that scale.

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For me, and for discussions with many other Founders of businesses we are a great descriptor for ‘Unique Humans’.  

What is a Unique Human?

We have the business idea, we have the passion, and we can work with the everyday ambiguity of what the business does and how it gets delivered. We make those quick business decisions based on intuition or ‘gut feel’ which moves the business forward. All this information inside our head makes us a ‘Unique Human’ within the business, somebody who cannot be replicated.

As the business begins to grow, early employees also follow the same path, they learn on the job, acquire knowledge, and become unique in their role. Our businesses become highly dependent on these ‘Unique Humans’ to operate.

The positive is that this generally delivers a great experience for our customer. They get to engage with employees competent in their role and the ability to deal with ambiguity. The employee experience is also generally positive. They are engaged, feel highly valued, and have a direct influence on the business.

But here’s the challenge… Unique Humans do not scale.

Why don’t Unique Humans scale?

At some point the businesses will plateau. There must be a reset on how the business is going to scale.

I have been through some painful learning and concluded scaling a business requires a proactive approach to strategy. Scaling will generally require more employees, let’s call them ‘New Humans’. New Humans have not got the time luxury of the foundations years to acquire the ‘tribal knowledge’ in the business. The New Humans need to be able to have clarity in what is expected of them to be successful. The business needs them to be successful in a very short time frame.  

The design of a Scaling Strategy needs to include two significant 'Human' changes. Without addressing these changes, growth out of the plateau will be inhibited. So, it’s key to consider the Human’s impact to the core business and the organ rejection of New Humans.  

Impact to the current Core business  

You need to plan the impact on the employee experience of Unique Humans in a Scaling Strategy. The business is not broken in their eyes, ‘this is the way we do things around here and it works, I am happy, and the customer is happy, I do not want to change’. To enable the business to scale you may be needing them to let go of some of the things that they value the most in working for you. Your risk is this group turning from being the enablers in the business to becoming the disrupters.

Organ rejection of New Humans

The expectation is that scaling generally means you need more employees. These New Humans need to hit the ground running. There are two common problems that occur within the first six months and these problems may mean you remain on the Plateau for longer than expected:

1. The existing Unique Humans reject the New Humans as they “cannot do the job as they do not understand what is needed in the role”. The business accepts this and exits the New Humans and starts the process again looking for other New Humans who may, but will unlikely, do better.
   

2. The New Humans quickly realise for themselves there is no clear path for them to succeed. They do not possess the ‘tribal knowledge’, so leave for a more rewarding employee experience elsewhere.  

It is possible to prevent the failing on both outcomes by the leadership proactively focussing on a strategy that addresses how to scale. Rather than a generic mantra about the need to grow, without a concrete strategy on how.

A strategy to scale

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to move from a reactive environment. This is where the humans in the business today are expected to work with ambiguity and agility. The move is to a proactive environment. This is where humans know the Scaling strategy i.e. the destination of the train and the points of change on the way that will get them to the destination.

The most important aspect is the inclusion of the hugely valuable Unique Humans in the Scaling Strategy process. They can see where their value is now, and importantly where their value will be in the future, they remain engaged. But also, if the destination is not where they want to go, they can get off the train in a controlled way without being a disrupter in the business.

Our New Humans also know the destination when they choose to join. They may also bring additional knowledge and experience that can support the scaling process. Whilst all the processes to scale may not be in place, the engaged New Humans understand what the business is trying to achieve.

If your business is in that plateau, there is a path to achieve scalable growth. However, it needs to be done with a business change mindset. Remember, it is unlikely to be achieved by following the same path that got your business to that current plateau in the first place.

I can recall numerous times as CEO being told by sales teams “Look, this is what the customer needs”. Translated, this means we need to offer services that meet that need so we can close the opportunity. All too often, the leadership team would go with the customer need to close the deal. The rationale being we will somehow find available resource, and we are smart enough to work out what the deliverable is and make the customer happy. If there was resistance to approving the deal, the argument ‘if we get it right, we can add it to the product portfolio as I know plenty of other customers that will have this need’ came into play.

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The self-limiting factor  

Many businesses operate quite successfully and happily in this manner, but one thing these businesses will not be able to do is scale. There is a natural self-limiting factor in being driven by a customer’s need and not the needs of the market. That self-limiting factor is:

1. Those selling must be involved in delivery as they are designers and implementers.  

2. Those selling need ‘unique human’ industry skills and knowledge to turn a customer need into a solution that drives an outcome to meet that need.

3. The portfolio of products in the business gets too wide meaning:

1. Problems articulating to potential customers where we really excel.

2. Fail to invest wisely as any investment cost is spread too thinly.

3. Unable to identify the right additional sales and delivery resource that is aligned to the products that could drive growth.

However, from my experience whilst all the above were true, my key learning was that the core limiting factor was that it was reactionary.  

My leadership team and I were reacting to events rather than being proactive. I realised to truly scale and drive growth, I needed to have a proactive scaling strategy.

A proactive strategy

A proactive scaling strategy is to understand the needs of the market. Understanding how many customers would have that need. Furthermore, how many customers do I need to satisfy our growth expectations.    

To be clear, this was not about throwing away what we had. It was about being very focussed in identifying the products we felt:

1. Could clearly see solve a problem in the market.

2. Could be differentiated from our competition.

3. Met the needs of our Core Customer.

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Who is the Core Customer

The Core Customer then becomes an interesting definition. The most important being that this is a real person buying who was buying our product, not a company.  

Once you have identified there is a market need for your product then there has to be a buying persona who is actually buying. The buying persona for each product has; a description, needs, and drivers.

We identified two groups and four personas that would become our key focus for growth:

1. Planners

1. Marketing Planner

2. Sales Planner

2. Fixers

1. Marketing Fixers

2. Sales Fixers

Planners are the people who decide what the business is going to do (strategy). Fixers are the implementers of the what the Planners decided (tactical).  

What became clear to us was that most purchase orders for our products was with the Fixers. This meant products targeted at this persona needed to be highly outcome focused. However, the influence on what products should be used to solve a market problem was with the Planners. Products targeted at this persona, whilst showing an outcome, also needed to show how they supported a wider strategy.

Each product had messaging developed that addressed:

1. What problem the product solved for the persona.  

2. How we delivered the product as it related to each persona.

3. The outcomes based on the persona’s key drivers.

From these three elements within the frame of the market need, the self-limiting factors began to quickly erode.

1. Our marketing and sales outreach was focussed on communicating our differentiated offer.

2. Our delivery teams were trained to deliver on that offer.

3. We knew the skills and experience needed in sales and delivery people to scale the offer.

4. We knew the customer needs to be able to deliver a great CX.

A strategy to scale  

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to move from a reactive environment. This is where the business today responds to the customer’s need of the day.

The move is to a proactive environment. This is where the problem the products solve in the market is predefined. The core customer persona is known and proactively targeted.  

An important aspect in a scaling strategy process is the inclusion of the leadership team and, where possible, customer facing managers in defining the core customer persona. Understanding the needs and drivers is not something gathered only from the sales teams. Anybody who is involved in delivering a great customer experience to this persona has valuable insight.  

If you recognise these self-limiting factors in your business, there is a methodology that can be applied. It can identify the right products to scale and deliver core customers a path to achieve scalable growth.

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I am sure as business leaders we have all looked at Excel spreadsheets and wished for delivery of a forecast. Especially when the business revenues have plateaued, the reality is that each quarter we continue a step forward and then a step back with regards to growth.

I often fell into the easy trap of the internal dialogue with:

• Sales teams on the sales funnel. How could be sell more in our current customer base as that was quicker than finding and onboarding new customers?
• Delivery teams on what we could do more of based on the skills and resource at our disposal.  
• Finance to maintain control on costs. Ensure we continue to stay profitable on the current revenues.

The common theme here is all this energy is internal focussed and was not focused on the external market and how we make money in that market.

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Competitors in the market

When I was challenged on who were our competitors, an easy response was to say we had none. However, this response was based on a very simplistic measure, does anybody deliver the same product portfolio as us? Whilst the technical answer is no. The reality was that when we actually mapped the market we came back with a very different answer.

As we looked at our competitors in the market, not one offered the same portfolio of products. But that measurement of competitors is very different to what the market is buying. Typically, the phrase ‘follow the money’ is used when investigating criminality, it is a useful phase to apply to a Market Map. The Core Customer has problems that need solving. Our competitors were servicing that customer need with different products to us.

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Follow the money

Using a Market Map allowed us to see that from our current position, there were some real strengths in the amount of money our core customers spent with us each quarter. I could see which customer type loved us based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Unfortunately, I could see those types who were not in love with us and the spend diminishing. Which competitors were we competing with and what type of products were now beneficiaries of this spend?

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Spending Money

It is obvious that from a finance perspective there is a cost to deliver a service. However, until the Market Map exercise I had never tried at a strategic level to align the aggregated pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from our customer types.

This exercise showed the level of spend with certain suppliers when aggregated was very high. In fact, the dependency on them became a significant discussion for the leadership team on how we scale. Do the products we have identified to scale:

1. Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?

2. Give us greater buying power?

3. Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service ourselves?

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Market Map

Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allowed us to see all the players on the field. We clearly had many competitors. The Market Map gave us a good view of all these players. Players that are chasing the same customer budgets, but with different product propositions. The Market Map also for the first time showed us the spend with our suppliers who support our delivery of services, directly correlated to our income.

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A strategy to scale

A strategy to address scaling requires effort. It requires a business to be market focussed.  

A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace. It focusses on the 6 market characteristics:

1. Customers

2. Channel

3. Competitors

4. Suppliers

5. Partners

6. Money Flows

A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market Map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.

If you recognise the internal naval gazing in your business, there is a methodology that can be applied. It can identify the right products to scale in the market with a path to achieve scalable growth.

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Many business leaders that have hit a revenue plateau are caught in the whirlwind that is day-to-day business. Whilst they have looked at a long-term strategy, maybe even have a growth revenue number written down for where they would like to be in 3 to 5 years, few have clarity on where they are aspiring to be as a business.

This train analogy works well. If you are in New York today and your aspiration is to make it to San Francisco, there is a purpose to all your endeavours and challenges you will face along the way. The challenges faced may make you deviate for a period, but once you overcome them, you get back on the train to the destination you aspire to.

As you think broader, this translates to your team. If they understand what the business is aspiring to be, then they also willingly get on the train, and most importantly provide the support needed to overcome challenges on the journey. As the team expands, the story to new hires becomes about the destination of the business, what you are aspiring to be. This adding greater value to the new hire, being aware where they could offer that additional value.

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How to define the North Star

Few businesses are created with absolutely clarity on what they will be in five years’ time and what the exit for the business is. The reality is that the founder or the business leaders will be testing new ideas each time their business hits a revenue plateau. This makes defining a North Star aspiration quite difficult. How do you make it more tangible?  

A starting point may well be to get the absolute basics in place, which is to know how you are going to achieve scalable growth. Completing a Market Attribution Framework identifies the products that can scale and that there is a market need. Importantly, it sets you on the path for differentiation in your market.

Market Differentiation

Once you have clarity on your market differentiation you have the basis of what you aspire to be in your market. By completing a Market Map exercise, you can see how big your growth potential is and who will be your key competitors. The creation of the story to your Core Customer on why you are different from your competitors is a similar story as to where you plan the business to be in three to five years. Using the train analogy, we now have the train to get us to San Francisco, but what is in San Francisco, why do we aspire to go there?

Aspiration

In most cases for business leaders, the San Francisco destination is a crystallisation of the business. Whether that be an exit or a round of funding. It is a clear milestone where the business needs to change to get to the next level of growth. Who knows there may be external funding needed at one of the stations en-route. The aspiration on where the business is intending to go is a critical component in the sourcing of funds.

Working backwards

If your timeline for your San Francisco arrival is five years, you need to start working back from that timeline. If each milestone is a station on your journey, what would you need to have achieved in three years, then two years, then 12 months, then three months. The shorter the timeline, the more granular you need to be on what you need to have achieved.

Outcome

The outcome is a Strategic Framework that defines your North Star aspiration and focus on a single page. The single page is important as it needs to provide clarity to your internal teams in a form they can easily consume. It also provides clarity to an external investor that the business has a clear strategy to achieve scalable growth. An exit maybe set at five years, but business needs to be ready if an opportunity arises earlier.  

A Single Page Framework would feature:

• One phrase strategy
• In three years, we will be…

• In five years, we aspire to be…
• Core competencies
• Four differentiators of focus
• Core market
• Core Customer persona

A North Star exploration should be combined with the insights gathered from the Market Map, Core Customer, and Market Attribution Framework.  

• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model.  How big a business change is this going to be?
  
• Core Customer – Who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.
  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.

A business that is trapped in a revenue plateau quite often is looking for that silver bullet that will fire them to the next level of growth. Growth fundamentally is an outcome of many different activities.  The challenge for any business is what combination of activities need to be done to achieve that growth outcome.  

A focus on products that can scale is an approach to achieve growth.  If you are to concede that a business where revenues have plateaued has not easily found that silver bullet, then the approach to identifying how to scale needs to be more methodology driven.

A Market Map is a methodology that enables you to see who loves you, who are your biggest competitors, and who is holding the most power in the marketplace, it focusses on the six market characteristics:

• Customers
• Channel

• Competitors
• Suppliers
• Partners
• Money Flows

Drawing out the marketplace in the market map allows you to see all the players on the field. The goal of the market map is to get a good view of all these players, where your business fits in, and what actions you may need to take as a result to move from the plateau that you are currently trapped in.  

A market map is a pragmatic methodology that is key in the decision making as to which products you choose to scale from a Marketing Attribution Framework methodology. Why, because the Market map shows you at a strategic level the possibilities for scaling and making money from this product.

Money Flows

The strategic importance of a Market Map is to understand how the money flows – the incomes and outgoings.

You will be able to see, from your current position, where your strengths are in the amount of money your core customers spend with you each quarter. You will see:

Which customer type love you based on the spend levels and whether that spend was growing. Which customer type that are not in love with you and the spend diminishing.  

Which competitors you are competing with and the opportunity to understand what type of products are now beneficiaries of this spend.

The Market Map methodology also looks at the outgoing spend to deliver a product. At a strategic level it will aggregate pass through revenues to suppliers with a correlation to the incomes from customer types.

In a world where ecosystems are required to deliver a quality customer experience, very few businesses can deliver a full portfolio of product in-house. This Market Map methodology will identify the level of spend. It will identify the level of dependency with certain suppliers, which may impact how the business can scale. Do the products that have been identified to scale:

1. Create even higher dependencies on these suppliers?

2. Give you greater buying power?

3. Open the possibility to invest and deliver the service yourselves?

Outcome

The outcome of a Market Map exercise needs to co-exist with identification of your Core Customer and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework.  The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:  

1. What type of customer buys your product and service today and are they the same customer type to achieve scalable growth.

2. What are your supplier costs and how does this change to achieve scalable growth.

3. Who are you competitors and which customer type are they also working with.

4. How big a business change will be required to achieve scalable growth in this market.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Market Map typically occurs after the Market Attribution Framework and Core Customer methodologies, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.  

• Core Customer - is a methodology to identify to identify who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.

When a business stops growing there is a natural tendency to start looking at new products and services from the most recent client meetings that will stimulate the immediate growth needed. ‘If we add this to the portfolio it could drive more revenue’ or ‘If we respond to this current customer’s unique need other customers will want it’. This is defined as a reaction to a unique customer need.

What should happen more often, and unfortunately does not due to the whirlwind of everyday business, is for the business to look pro-actively at the external market and identify how they can generate a market differentiation for their business in areas of the market where there are clear areas for potential growth. This is defined as a reaction to a market need.

A Market Attribution Framework is a methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth.

There are three generally accepted ways to create a differentiated strategic position:  

1. Serve the broad needs of a few customers.  

2. Serve some needs of many customers.  

3. Serve many needs for many customers in a super-specific market.

A Market Attribution Framework may sound like a heavy lift, but there is a pragmatic way to achieve this and provide the business with a growth structure that can be fully integrated into everyday decision making.

The starting point is being clear that the strategic intent of a Market Attribution Framework is not a methodology to focus on competing against your competitors, it is about competing to be unique in the marketplace. The framework provides the foundation to define:

• Where you really want to be, what is your real passion.
• What core customer you will serve and where you will not.  

• Setting your aspirations for your unique and valuable position in the market.

The Framework should pull together the:

1. Key attributes of the market you play in.

2. Rank how well your business serves each of these attributes.

3. Identify and rank the key competitors for each attribute.  

The outcome of this exercise provides a structured discussion on which attributes are important to the business. One of the key things in defining importance is which attributes generate the passion in the business. Passion from leadership and those delivering the products or services is such a key component to success. It is unlikely that a single attribute will create differentiation in the market. What will generally create the market differentiation is the combination of number of attributes that a business has. Rating these combinations against competitors identifies who are fulfilling the market needs well today and the gaps where those market needs are not be fulfilled. The latter is what creates the white space, the space where the business can focus energies knowing a market already exists.    

There are only two possible outcomes from a Market Attribution Framework exercise:

1. We are in the right position with the right products, let’s keep momentum going.

2. We look like everybody else but look at that white space we could be attacking.

In most cases the outcome will be the ‘aha’ moment driven by outcome two. A Market Attribution Framework now provides the guide rails for the Leadership Team to focus on the next two critical steps:

1. The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model.  How big a business change is this going to be?

2. Core Customer – Who is the target audience for these products and services, what are their roles, what are their core needs, what are their drivers.  This targeted strategic insight establishes the foundation for the development of a unique position for the business in serving the needs of this market.

Importantly, the Market Attribution Framework is not a one-time exercise. The leadership team in the business must be and continue to be market experts. The market and the players in the market will continue to evolve, whilst the business may identify a unique place in the marketplace today, that position needs to be under constant review.    

The graphic below shows an output of a Market Attribution Framework. It is the result of identifying on the X axis the key attributes the business wanted to play in.  The Y axis is the 1-5 scoring of the business and each competitor.  What this shows is that when you combine a number of attributes a unique place in the market can be created, in this case when you combine attributes A and B with E and F, nobody is in competition with the business.

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A core customer is an individual person. They are not a population segment or a market segment or even a company. They are a person who will buy products from your business for optimal profit.  

The problem many businesses face as their revenues plateau is that they have lost sight, or in many cases not defined which customers are their core. It is quite possibly 60% of their customers are core customers who are generating profit, the rest actually cost the business more money than they are worth, their lack of profitability could actually be suppressing any growth potential.

In my other blog, The Market Attribution Framework, I wrote about the methodology to identify a market need and to create a differentiated strategic position. A position in that market from which to achieve revenue growth. The identification of the Core Customer is the next step in that process.

The scaling principle is that for the business to scale its primary revenue model needs to move from reacting to a unique customer’s individual need. It must become proactive to the needs of the market.  

To be clear, this is not about throwing away what a business has. It is about being very focussed in identifying the scalable products that:

1. Solve a problem in the market.

2. Can be differentiated from the competition.

3. Meet the needs of the Core Customer.

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Core Customer

The core customer within a market is a defined persona. Dependent on your Market Map you may have more than one persona to target. For every persona added you will need to identify:  

1. What are their roles?  

2. What are their core needs?  

3. What are their drivers?

This strategic exercise is important with regard to investment and outreach.  

Investment

The alignment or gap between your products of today and the Core Customer persona needs of tomorrow will give you the insight on the level of investment required to achieve scalable growth. Investing in the gap comes primarily in two forms:

• Emotional - The requirement for business change and the people in your business to want to change. This could mean changing the products within the business and the skills required to deliver these products. These products now need to be focussed on meeting the needs of the new core customer persona.

• Financial - The cost to create or reconfigure existing products. The resource costs to ensure the skills are in the business to deliver products.  The sales and marketing costs to proactively outreach to address the needs of the new core customer persona.

Proactively Outreach

The identification of the Core customer persona sets the rules on who you proactively target in the market. All existing and new products that are to be promoted through marketing and sales outreach need to clearly align to the needs of these personas.  

This product messaging developed for the Core Customer will need to address:

1. What problem the product solves for the Persona.  

2. How the product will be delivered as it relates to each Persona.

3. The outcomes of the product based on the Persona’s key drivers.

Outcome

The outcome of a Core Customer exercise needs to co-exist with the identification of your Market map and the scalable products you have identified to deliver growth from a Market Attribution Framework. The outcomes will provide a strategic insight on:

• What customer persona buys your products today and are they the same customer persona to achieve scalable growth.
• The market needs of the customer persona.

• The alignment or gap between the Customer Persona needs and your products.

Every business that has plateaued has different characteristics and positions in the market right now. A Core Customer identification exercise typically occurs together with the Market Attribution Framework, but that does not need to be the case if the scalable product has already been defined.  

• Market Attribution Framework - is a methodology to identify products where there is a Market need and to create a differentiated strategic position in the market from which to achieve revenue growth.
  
• The Market Map – What type of customer buys this product and service, and how does this align to the current go-to-market model. How big a business change is this going to be?