If you’ve ever been tired just hearing about “BHAGs” as a growth strategy – “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals” – then keep reading.

A BHAG can be a great motivator or rallying cry. But it’s also, more often than not, unproductive in the world of B2B customer success.

Why? Because your job isn’t to be a dream factory — it’s to be a success delivery service. You don’t need to tell someone else what their version of success is, you need to understand what your customer needs from you… then help them achieve it.

(Anna Shvets / pexels)

You might have a big goal in mind for yourself, and that’s fantastic. But your business growth goals should be a little more practical. After all, two of the biggest reasons startups fail are “no market need” or “out competed,” two things that can easily happen when you take your eye off the practical in search of the fantastical.

Instead of focusing on the big, shiny (or hairy) object, focus on staying grounded. Build a solid foundation to grow from rather than wondering if your stilts will hold.

Four strategies for business growth

Businesses of all shapes and sizes face familiar challenges like stiff market competition, financial hardships and changing consumer demands. Proper planning helps you focus on your goals, find your target market and grow sustainably. Failure to do so puts you at risk of stagnation or decline.

By breaking challenges down to their most essential parts, it’s easier to assess them and plan for future growth. This idea isn’t new; it comes from the Ansoff Matrix. The matrix defines four strategies for growing a business based on two factors: products and markets. The rows of the matrix are labeled “new markets” and “existing markets.” “New products” and “existing products” head up the columns. The intersection of these terms define four unique business growth strategies with different goals, risks, and outcomes.

Market penetration = Existing products in existing markets

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The key to this strategy is “more” — in the world of customer success, that means upsells and retention. It’s also the lowest-risk strategy, since it relies primarily on customer retention solutions rather than aggressively seeking new business.

A huge part of this strategy is the day-to-day work of CS: customer journey mapping, creating action plans, encouraging onboarding and usage, and renewal reminder processes.

However, a big part that is often overlooked comes from one level higher: aligning pricing to customer value moments.

A customer will only spend more if they are getting value from your platform and spending more money correlates to getting more value. That means you need pricing that directly connects to how your platform delivers customer impact. When that happens, you build upsell opportunities into the fabric of your business.

Market development = Existing products in new markets

This strategy, from a CS perspective, is about landing and expanding—for example, selling a platform into the legal department and building internal championship to get the marketing department to buy seats as well.

From a CS perspective, you’ll need to focus on embedding the voice of the customer (VOC) throughout your entire growth strategy.

It’s not simply about creating new marketing materials; those materials need to reflect what customers actually care about and use language that’s familiar to them.

This requires a two-way flow:

1. Build trust with your customer so they are honest about their internal politics and language.
2. Float that insight up to your marketing department (and within CS leadership) so you can create relevant materials and plan your expansion strategy.

Product development = New products for existing customers

This strategy is all about the customer cross-sell. If you’ve got a happy customer of one feature or platform, how can you introduce the next platform or opportunity to work with you?

The key is to focus on solving additional—or higher-value—problems for your customers through a Customer Success Qualified Lead (CSQL) process.

At a base level, the CSQL process formalizes what is often a hunch in a CS person’s mind:

• Some trigger (e.g. usage or a customer comment during a call) suggests they might get value from an additional offering you have.
• Sales is notified of the opportunity and connects with CS to see what might be done.
• CS and Sales collaborate (in whatever way your organization plans) to get in touch with the customer to introduce the cross-sell opportunity.

Diversification = New products in new markets

All businesses will need to seek new customers. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from existing customers first.

Since expanding with both new products and into new markets is the riskiest strategy in the Ansoff Matrix, you’ll need to orient growth plans toward your ideal customer.

This involves asking two questions:

1. What value do your best customers get from your platform?
2. Is your ICP present in the new market you want to enter?
3. Are your product offerings catered to your ICP, both from a global (general needs) and local (that specific market) perspective?

You might consider a launch partner, for instance a channel or affiliate model, to help you open up new business in that new market. But after that, all your growth comes back to the other three options in the Matrix.

Not growth at all costs

Just like Customer Success is ongoing, approach growth with the same mindset. You’ll see some of your efforts bear more fruit than others. Invest additional time, research and money into what’s working well for even better results.

Pursuing growth at all costs can be tempting for a SaaS company hoping to find its footing in a competitive market. However, staying grounded and growing purposefully and prudently is the best way to remain sustainable when so many businesses fail within the first ten years. Utilizing the four growth strategies from Ansoff’s Matrix will help you sustainably grow your business—a business started to help real people solve a real-world problem.

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