Times are tough for many of us now. What do you do, if half your customers have just gone out of business? If your growth has gone from 60% to 0% overnight?
Well you can’t fix everything. And maybe — you can’t even grow your ARR. Some of you won’t be able to grow revenue at all for now.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t still grow. Grow something that matters, so that when we pull out of this, you’ll grow revenue again, and maybe even faster than before.
What can you grow besides revenue?
- Grow one segment of customers. This is a tactic a lot of you should be using. OK, maybe growth overall is at 10% this year. But many of you will have one segment that is still seeing faster growth, e.g. healthcare. Or esports. Or SaaS customers. You can still set ambitious targets for a segment of your customers that are growing, even if others aren’t. Segment growth goals now per vertical / industry, not just deal size. And set say 3 different goals for 3 different customer segments based on macro impacts to their industries (Green, Yellow and Red impacts on end-customers’ business).
- Grow your users. Happy users, even free users, are your brand ambassadors. You may be able to grow them a lot faster right now, even if the revenue lags.
- Grow sign-ups. At least get more folks to try your product. To do a free trial. To see they might just love it. If not now, later.
- Grow pipeline. No one needs more crummy, unqualified pipeline. But a lot of SaaS vendors are seeing discovery calls are way up. Maybe they can’t close right now. But that’s OK. If the pipeline is high quality, and scored, and qualified — some of it will close later. Grow your high-quality pipeline and opportunities even if sales cycles are crazy long now.
- Grow traffic. We don’t talk that much about “traffic” to our websites in B2B, but awareness matters. What can you do to 5x your traffic?
- Grow presence. How can you double the organic searches for your startup?
- Grow brand. Be everywhere that matters. Sponsor digital events. Do more with your partners’ partner programs. 2x the leads from digital and partners. You can do this, even if they don’t close now.
- Grow NPS. Grow CSAT. This always works. Set an ambitious goal here for Q2 and Q3 and just go meet it.
- Grow referrals. Your customers that love you will still be happy to provide you referrals. If they love you. How can you 2x this now?
- Grow how much you help. Do a weekly webinar on how to help your community and customers. Add more value to your customer base, even if you don’t make $1 more. Start measuring how much you help. And drive that up.
You can grow some metric in your pipeline or at least your pre-pipeline 2x right now. Pick 1 or 2 of the best ones and make them a Top 3 goal and watch it happen.
Even if revenue will lag.
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The post Grow Something That Matters. Even If It Isn’t Revenue. appeared first on SaaStr.
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