How to Drive “Front Engine” Growth
Here’s one thing that many companies have in common: They want to grow more and they want to increase their top line revenue growth. But, many companies have trouble achieving their goals and can’t pinpoint why.
I hear this from companies often and I work with their leadership to assess their companies from all sides and identify the obstacles to their “front engine” growth, as well as their opportunities to achieve “front engine” growth.
The 5 components of "front engine" growth
“Front engine” growth is a term I coined while trying to explain what moves a company forward and drives its growth. In my work with one client, we began with a focus on marketing and then realized we had to look across multiple functions to create synergies that would drive growth, and align human capital to strengthen each function. The main functions built in were strategy, customer experience, product, marketing, and sales. Thus, the term “front engine” was born.
As in any engine, all components need to function effectively for the whole engine to reach its destination efficiently. I have applied this technique to many client challenges, starting with a high-level view. The questions I ask may seem pretty basic, but when they are reviewed regularly, issues and opportunities beyond regular changes in the business surface.
During one such client relationship, I helped a company develop marketing strategies and a sales pipeline to drive growth. In the initial assessment, we found that the organization needed more internal alignment. Buy-in from the CEO and communication with the team were critical to achieving the goals as a cohesive team.
Let’s break it down.
1. Strategy
In our disrupted world, business strategies need to be continually sharpened to address updated and evolving needs. What is the company’s one-year strategy? What is the company’s five-year strategy? Is the business strategy still aligned with the company’s goals? Does it address current challenges?
2. Customer experience
The first step to assessing the customer experience is understanding your customers’ needs and ensuring you’re providing an experience that will retain those customers. What are the target market needs? How does the company’s product or service meet those needs?
3. Product
Sometimes a product or service isn’t meeting customer needs and it has to be evolved. Other times, the product is good, but marketing is not doing the best it could to sell it. What is the product’s value proposition? What makes customers want to buy it? How does it compare to competitors’ products?
4. Marketing
Acquisition is critical and so is cross-selling and up-selling. It’s important to understand the buyer’s journey and to find ways to engage with prospects early and turn them into customers. What are the marketing strategies to reach the customer segment(s)? Is marketing applying techniques to improve the quality of the lead before the sales team follows up?
5. Sales
It’s key that sales and marketing teams are aligned and working together to leverage marketing, generate demand, and create a full pipeline. Does a lead generation pipeline exist that connects marketing-driven leads to the sales team? Are communication, training, and incentives in place?
With each of these functions working together, human capital is the key that makes the engine run. It’s important to have the right people in the right positions – and even a handful of “C” players can turn down that engine. Assessing the five functions and the team helps you identify the key levers to focus on in order to drive top line revenue growth.
“Front engine” growth in motion
In my work with B2B, B2C, and B2B2C companies, I’ve seen this attention to the “front engine” drive quick and sustainable growth. For example, after an assessment with a tech-driven company, the team came to understand that their own marketing infrastructure was generating a strong lead pipeline, but they realized they needed to align the sales team in order to turn the leads into real business.
From the assessment with a financial services company, although we were focused on marketing, we determined that human capital was the main issue. Several individuals on the company's marketing team weren’t in the right roles as the roles had outgrown the individuals, halting progress. The marketing leader dealt with these important talent issues and made key changes that quickly enabled the marketing function and the company to grow.
Getting started to achieving “front engine” growth
The first step to achieving “front engine” growth is gaining a full view of your industry and your company, and it starts with a few simple questions. Get started today by taking a step back and answering these three questions:
1. What is changing in your industry that you need to react to?
2. What is working well and driving growth in your company? Share 2-3 examples.
3. What is not working well, that if fixed, could lead to to growth? Share 2-3 examples.
Answering a few questions like these can help focus your efforts on a few key levers. I’d love to hear your findings and help you identify your “front engine” growth opportunities.