Growth Matrix

Winning formula for long-term growth.

Have you asked yourself if your company should invest in Product-led Growth motion? Sales-led Growth motion? How about Marketing?

But that is the wrong question to ask.

Not IF, but WHEN

You must play across all growth notions and levers to create a predictable, sustainable, and competitively defensible growth model. The question you should ask is not IF, but WHEN. Because if you don’t invest across all growth motions available, you leave a window of opportunity for competition to enter and disrupt.

Introducing: Growth Matrix

Growth can be visualized via growth levers x growth motions.

Growth levers:

• Acquisition: How do you acquire?

• Monetization: How do you monetize?

• Retention: How do you activate and engage?

Growth motions:

• Product-led growth: The product is responsible for the growth lever.

• Marketing-led growth: Marketing is responsible for the growth lever.

• Sales-led growth: Sales responsible for the growth lever.

Playing across ALL squares is crucial to long-term growth strategy. But due to the scarcity of resources and focus, sequencing is key.

Matrix rules

1. You don’t have to fire across all levers to activate a motion.

   • Example: To PLG, you can be product-led with retention but not necessarily monetization and acquisition. In fact, most B2B PLG businesses are PLG with Retention, maybe Monetization (more likely Sales), rarely Acquisition.

2. Before you embark on the new motion, ensure you have predictability in your existing growth motion.

   • Adding new motions requires new skill sets, people, channels, and internal processes. If you are still shaky in your existing motion, sequencing another too soon will bring chaos and declining growth.

3. Not all growth motions may be viable options.

   • Example: PLG may not be a good fit for your business if the end-user:

     • Missing motivation to solve the problem

     • Does not have the ability to solve the problem (missing technical resources/knowledge)

     • Does not have permission to solve the problem from the organization (does not have access to needed systems)

     • Does not understand the reward of the solution (it is not easily communicated in the product, which will lead to activation drop-off)

4. Just because growth motion is not available right now, does not mean it will not be relevant in the future.

   • PLG was unavailable as a mainstream motion for most B2Bs 20 years ago due to the enterprise's top-down buying process. And now - it’s table stakes for most industries!

Summary

The long-term growth model has to play across all growth motion x growth lever combinations: Product-led, Marketing-led, and Sales-led. The question is not IF you should do it, but WHEN you can effectively add new growth motions to your growth model.