How to Make Your Business Growth Engine (Step-by-Step)

Summary

This video outlines a systematic approach to optimizing business processes through visualizing and refining customer journey stages. It focuses on creating and documenting growth engines—strategies designed to drive customer acquisition—while also emphasizing the importance of fulfillment engines to cover post-sale processes. Key steps include identifying gaps in workflows, simplifying complex tasks, and ensuring alignment between different stages of the customer experience. The video encourages businesses to streamline operations, resist unnecessary complexity, and optimize both growth and fulfillment to create a seamless customer journey.

Takeaways

• 😀 Identify your growth engine by focusing on your flagship product or service.
• 😀 🔄 Map out the customer journey by defining both the triggering and ending events.
• 😀 🧠 Brainstorm all tasks and activities between the start and end of the customer process.
• 😀 🔀 Use decision diamonds (yes/no) to capture critical decision points in the journey.
• 😀 👥 Hold a stakeholder review meeting to identify orphan activities and gaps in your flowchart.
• 😀 🚫 Avoid unnecessary complexity by focusing on a simplified and scalable process.
• 😀 💡 Shift from focusing on individual drivers to mastering the value chain for business growth.
• 😀 📊 Visualize your growth engine to identify areas for optimization and improvement.
• 😀 🔁 Utilize retargeting strategies and follow-up actions to engage leads and prevent missed opportunities.
• 😀 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Provide clarity to your team by documenting the customer journey, allowing them to perform at their best.
• 😀 💼 Ensure the fulfillment engine is integrated seamlessly after the growth engine to cover the entire customer journey.

Q & A

What is the first step in developing a growth engine for your business?

The first step is identifying your flagship product or service, which will be the key driver of growth for your business.

Why is it important to define both the triggering and ending events in a growth engine?

Defining these events helps clarify when the process starts and ends, ensuring a clear understanding of the customer journey and business flow.

What role does brainstorming tasks and activities play in the process?

Brainstorming tasks and activities helps identify the steps that occur between the start and end of the growth engine, including customer interactions and internal operations.

What are gateways or decision diamonds in the context of a growth engine?

Gateways or decision diamonds are decision points where the process can take different paths based on customer behavior or business actions, optimizing the flow.

What is the purpose of a stakeholder review meeting in this process?

The purpose is to get feedback from the team on processes or activities that are missing or redundant, helping to optimize and clarify the growth engine.

Why is it important to use a flowchart to visualize the growth engine?

Visualizing the growth engine using a flowchart helps clarify the process, provides a clear overview for the team, and highlights areas for optimization.

How should businesses handle complexity in their growth engines?

Businesses should resist complexity by simplifying processes, as complexity naturally occurs over time, but simplicity scales better and enables growth.

What is the difference between growth mode and scale mode for a business?

In growth mode, businesses focus on mastering a particular value driver. In scale mode, the focus shifts to managing the entire value chain, which includes all interrelated processes that contribute to sustained business growth.

How can a fulfillment engine complement a growth engine?

A fulfillment engine begins after the growth engine ends. It focuses on customer retention, post-sale activities, and ensuring a smooth experience for customers after a purchase is made.

What is the key to continuous improvement in a business’s operations?

The key is constant visualization and optimization. Once you map out your processes, you can identify inefficiencies, make adjustments, and continuously refine the operations to scale effectively.