Growth iq get smarter about building your company's future

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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

GROWTH IQ “This book captures the essence of how to consistently grow an enterprise through relentless customer focus . . . Tiffani Bova is the quintessential storyteller . . . leading us through a framework that gives structure to our growth strategy. As a founder, some of these things are innate . . . but this book is a valuable tool to inspire my leaders throughout each of our businesses. It made me giggle, too. I remember my CFO asking as we hit our growth stride, “What is it that worked?” The answer, of course, is everything. We are in the 1 percent game now, looking and seeking growth of 1 percent from each of our initiatives—combined they deliver double digit growth annually. Thanks, Tiffani, for writing this down . . . a guide book for all leaders to inspire those around them.”

—Naomi Simson, shark on Shark Tank Australia, founder of RedBalloon, cofounder of Big Red Group

“Whether you’re planning to disrupt an industry or protect your company from competitors, Growth IQ shows how urgent it is to choose the right path. This choice can be overwhelming but Tiffani simplifies your options into ten proven paths and empowers you to embark upon the right one for you with confidence . . . and results. Our love affair with comfort zones can be our downfall; Tiffani reminds us that almost all the good stuff happens when we venture off the well-trodden trail into uncharted—and therefore uncertain—territory. With her guidance, we discover that the uncertainty need not be so daunting—through examples, savvy, deeply- experienced analysis and synthesis, and valuable checklists, Tiffani will provide a bump to anyone’s Growth IQ.”

—Whitney Johnson, Thinkers50 management thinker, author of Build an A-Team and Disrupt Yourself

“A worthy successor to Michael Porter, Bova’s book is that rare gift: It opens doors for new ideas and new actions. No glib answers here, simply hard-won wisdom that will provoke big changes for organizations large and small.”

—Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

“Too many companies foster cultures of burnout in the pursuit of short-term growth as an end in itself. Smart growth is sustainable growth and Tiffani Bova shows us how to maintain it by building a purpose-led culture and leveraging, instead of sacrificing, the dedication of your people.”

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—Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and founder of The Huffington Post

“We all want our business to grow, but how can we make that happen? Fortunately, Tiffani Bova is here with answers. In this smart book, she reveals ten growth paths —from creating an inspiring customer experience to disrupting business as usual. And she backs her findings with solid data and examples from thriving companies. You’ve got a choice: Tread the old paths or follow Bova into the future.”

—Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive

“Tiffani Bova has a knack for rendering complex insights in clear, elegant prose. Growth IQ tackles the biggest question in business.”

—Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology and Small Data

“Look, I LOVE this book. PERIOD. Growth IQ has a crisp, clean, and invaluable superstructure. And it is well written. Those things are great, but not the basis for my love affair. The love comes from: Stories. Stories. Stories. Ten sound strategies, thirty compelling, memorable stories—from Starbucks and McDonald’s to Under Armour and Red Bull. If these stories don’t inspire you and add a ton to your stockpile of personal intellectual capital, I don’t know what will. Bravo, Tiffani Bova!”

—Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence

“Growth is top of mind for every company, but the path to achieving sustained growth can be elusive. In Growth IQ, Tiffani applies her deep expertise from working with the world’s top brands to light a path to growth in this era of rapid digital transformation.”

—Keith Block, vice chairman, president, and COO of Salesforce

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Portfolio/Penguin An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2018 by Tiffani Bova Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bova, Tiffani, author. Title: Growth IQ : get smarter about building your company's future / Tiffani Bova. Description: New York, New York : Portfolio/Penguin, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018018219 (print) | LCCN 2018035210 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525534419 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525534402(hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Business planning. | Strategic planning. | Corporations--Growth. | Success in business. Classification: LCC HD30.28 (ebook) | LCC HD30.28 .B6845 2018 (print) | DDC 658.4/06--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018018219

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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This book is dedicated to my tribe, my Ohana, who have been on this journey with me since day one. Without your support, none of

this would have been possible. I am forever grateful to each of you.

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CONTENTS

Advance Praise for Growth IQ Title Page Copyright Dedication Foreword by Geoffrey A. Moore

The One Thing Is—It’s Never Just One Thing

PATH 1 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

STORY 1 Sephora: A Beautiful Experience

STORY 2 Shake Shack: Radical Hospitality

STORY 3 Starbucks: Losing the Soul of the Past

Putting It All Together

PATH 2 CUSTOMER BASE PENETRATION

STORY 1 Red Bull: A Thai Pharmacist and an Austrian Entrepreneur Walk into a Bar

STORY 2 McDonald’s: Ready, Set, Breakfast

STORY 3 Sears: Uprooting Retail

Putting It All Together

PATH 3 MARKET ACCELERATION

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STORY 1 Under Armour: Sweaty T-Shirts

STORY 2 The Honest Company: Better Living Through Chemistry

STORY 3 Mattel: Toys Will Be Toys

Putting It All Together

PATH 4 PRODUCT EXPANSION

STORY 1 Kylie Cosmetics: Keeping Up with Kylie Jenner (#KUWKJ)

STORY 2 John Deere: And the “Beet” Goes On

STORY 3 Blockbuster: “Be Kind, Please Don’t Unwind Our Business”

Putting It All Together

PATH 5 CUSTOMER AND PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION

STORY 1 Marvel: Superhero Saves the Day

STORY 2 PayPal: Banking on the Future

STORY 3 LEGO: Coming Apart, Brick by Brick

Putting It All Together

PATH 6 OPTIMIZE SALES

STORY 1 Salesforce: Four Men and Two Dogs

STORY 2 Walmart: The Ultimate Retail Matchup

STORY 3 Wells Fargo: A Rhyme Is Not a Reason

Putting It All Together

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PATH 7 CHURN

STORY 1 Spotify: Winning Playlist

STORY 2 Netflix: Twenty Years Old (and Counting)

STORY 3 Blue Apron: Too Much on the Plate

Putting It All Together

PATH 8 PARTNERSHIPS

STORY 1 GoPro: Adrenaline Junkies

STORY 2 Airlines: The Friendly Skies

STORY 3 Apple: Killing Me Swiftly

Putting It All Together

PATH 9 CO-OPETITION

STORY 1 Fiat Chrysler, BMW, and Intel: Joining Forces

STORY 2 Wintel: Attack of the Clones

STORY 3 Cisco-VMware-EMC: Better Together?

Putting It All Together

PATH 10 UNCONVENTIONAL STRATEGIES

STORY 1 TOMS Shoes: Heart and Sole

STORY 2 Lemonade Insurance: When Life Gives You Lemons

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STORY 3 Grameen Bank in Bangladesh: On Purpose

Putting It All Together

KNOWING WHEN TO JUMP AMAZON CASE STUDY: STAYING IN DAY ONE

Acknowledgments Notes

Index About the Author

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FOREWORD Geoffrey A. Moore

HAVE HAD THE PLEASURE OF working with Tiffani Bova over the past few years. I remember when she told me she was in the midst of writing her debut book and asked for any advice. I paused for a moment to reflect on

how much the world had changed over the past three decades since I wrote Crossing the Chasm in 1991. Despite the changes, were there still some universal, fundamental ideas and wisdom—“the Force,” if you will—that continue to be relevant? And if so, how would they apply to meeting the growth challenges of today?

Growth IQ provides great answers to these questions. As a former distinguished analyst and research fellow for Gartner, and now as the growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, a company on the cutting edge, reshaping the way the world does business, Tiffani has had numerous inside looks at successful growth strategies from a wide variety of companies. She has seen what has worked and what has not, and in Growth IQ, she shares a wealth of valuable lessons learned.

The book is organized around ten growth paths—each presented through a wealth of stories of both successes and failures, each making clear what things to focus on and what factors are critical for future success. She illuminates her core concepts with insightful stories and distills theoretical models with real- world examples that are relatable, accessible, and applicable. While a number of these growth paths may be familiar, Bova’s conceptual model of applying market context, the combination of initiatives, and the sequence in which various paths are deployed goes above and beyond to establish a new paradigm for strategic business thinking.

It is true that every business must grow to stay healthy and relevant, and all the successful ones have proven formulas for so doing. Some of these strategic playbooks have become so powerful that executives are recruited away specifically to help another company re-create a similar growth trajectory. How does Amazon do what they do? How does Salesforce? Red Bull? Starbucks? Sephora? What can these companies teach you that you can apply to your business? Being able to draw on insights like these can be truly game changing.

Growth is good for everyone in the value chain, and it should always be top of mind for business leaders. However, the truth is that finding sustainable and repeatable growth is getting harder. Sometimes we hold on to our old growth

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“playbook” for too long, or our world is disrupted by a more agile start-up in ways we could have never imagined.

Either way, if you are looking to accelerate growth, recover from a slowdown in top-line sales, or expand to new markets or customer segments, I recommend that you read Growth IQ. It will reveal the landscape of opportunities you may not even realize you have at your fingertips. It will empower you and your team to navigate the realities of business today. And it will give you a framework that you can revisit over and over again.

GEOFFREY MOORE a.k.a. “The Chasm Guy”

Author of Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win

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O

THE ONE THING IS—IT’S NEVER JUST ONE THING

How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There’s no single way to do it—it’s a combination of many things.

—JEFF BEZOS

VER THE THOUSANDS OF INTERACTIONS I’ve had with some of the world’s biggest companies, I’ve found that one of the most persistent and vexing challenges faced by executives is determining how best to grow

their business. Unless you’re a small family business determined to stay small, or you are unable to take on more financial risk and workload along with their associated hiring demands, the quest for growth is never ending. While there is always a balance of high-sales and low-sales periods, an extended stall or slowdown in growth is often a cause for great concern among investors and employees.

Why? Because every company faces the same pressures—to keep the lights on, pay its people, get products out the door, and support its customers even when experiencing a low-sales period. There is no way to reduce those pressures and keep the business going without top-line growth and bottom-line profitability. Finding ways to grow the business, the top line, can become all consuming, especially for start-ups, small businesses, or even a new division of a Fortune 500 company. Every business has room for improvement, but not every business leader knows where to look for that improvement or how to course- correct and rally the company to change when times get tough.

Repeatable and reliable growth for established companies and new ventures alike is hard and seems to be getting harder. That’s true even for one of the largest and most celebrated brands in the world. In its third quarter in 2017, IBM found itself with twenty-two straight quarters of declining revenue. Ginni Rometty, chairman and CEO of IBM, noted: “Be prepared to spot growth opportunities when they present themselves—because they are the key learning opportunities. You’ll know because they make you uncomfortable, and your

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Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

—BILL GATES

initial impulse may be that you’re not ready. But remember: Growth and comfort never co-exist.”

So, what can executives do? Where do they go looking for that next 10 percent of growth—in revenue, in market share, in active users, or all of the above?

I have found that most executives—armed with reams of data, consultant white papers, and market trend reports—are looking for the one new product offering, new market, or sales and marketing tactic to fix their problems quickly. They may say: “We should try to sell more [product name] to our existing customers,” or, “We should expand our distribution/sales overseas,” or, “We should increase our marketing spend”—and they may be right. But that is only part of the story.

After years of watching companies make the same mistakes over and over again, or miss golden opportunities to accelerate growth, I realized that too many companies seek the one right move—which, by the way, rarely exists—in order to improve or sustain their performance, respond to a competitive threat, or recover from a growth stall. The reality is, when it comes to growth . . . the one thing is it’s never just one thing.

RESPONDING TO CHANGE

Why do companies look for the one right move? Maybe it’s because they do what seems doable: look for the one problem area to fix, the one big initiative they can take to boost the numbers quickly, or even repeat the one growth strategy that worked in the past. This last tactic is particularly insidious. Companies often rely on strategies that worked for them once but may have outlived their purpose and no longer have the desired impact in current market conditions and context. Companies that reach into a bag of old tricks without careful consideration of the changing market dynamics risk getting trapped in a vicious downward cycle, repeating the same actions and yielding ever worse results over time.

The cost of misalignment between perception and reality can be enormous, and keeping a business-as- usual attitude under such circumstances is bound to only make responding to change more difficult. The perception may be: “We got this . . . it’s just a temporary setback,” when the reality is that customers change, industries change, technology changes—heck, the world changes—and companies that don’t constantly evolve, sometimes in the smallest ways, risk being left behind. Let this bring you comfort—you are not alone.

While it is true that many companies struggle to keep up with the pace of change or the rate of disruption caused by innovative technology and new

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business models, these are not the only reasons why companies struggle to find and maintain growth and revenue streams. Sometimes, the biggest threat to a company can be its own success or, worse, complacency.

Why? Because for companies that are currently growing, and not yet aware of an impending growth stall, it reinforces the status quo, it rewards (at least for a time) resistance to change, and ultimately it makes company leaders terrified to pursue a new direction for fear they will mess up a good thing that it’s got going. What had been, in the early days, an entrepreneurial spirit that embraced new opportunities (and risks) often shifts to one that fends them off . . . especially when things start to go wrong. The fact is, 87 percent of all companies go through a growth stall at some point, and only a small percentage of them ever recover.

FOR THE PURPOSES OF GROWTH IQ

Growth refers to top-line sales organic growth, not cost cutting, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), or other means to grow profitability or the bottom line.

Growth strategy is defined as “a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.”

Growth path is HOW—initiatives that can focus the company on the task at hand and achieve the strategic growth goal.

When asked what slows growth, it might surprise you to learn that most executives actually cite internal factors. In a Bain & Company study, 85 percent of the executives surveyed, and a full 94 percent of those running companies with more than $5 billion in revenue, said that internal, not external, obstacles keep their companies from growing profitably. What a shame; after all, it is the internal factors over which you are supposed to have control—as opposed to moves by your competitors, market shifts, and even “Black Swan” events.

TEN PATHS TO GROWTH The more conversations I had on the subject and the more deeply I studied the ways in which companies have grown successfully, the more I came to realize that:

1. It wasn’t just about what growth strategies companies chose to pursue that determined the likelihood of success but rather the context in which a strategy was deployed and the combination and sequence of initiatives.

2. Growth is far less complicated than most people make it out to be. You might be surprised to learn that you can categorize most growth efforts taken by a business into one of ten growth paths. Deciding

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which path(s) are liable to have the greatest (positive) consequence will—and in fact should—change over time. No growth path should be written in stone.

These ten paths are established routes that have been used by countless companies to successfully grow top-line revenues. They can help guide huge multinationals, small start-ups, and medium-size businesses, regardless of product, region, or industry.

THE TEN GROWTH PATHS

1. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: Inspire additional purchases and advocacy

2. CUSTOMER BASE PENETRATION: Sell more existing products to existing customers

3. MARKET ACCELERATION: Expand into new markets with existing products

4. PRODUCT EXPANSION: Sell new products to existing markets 5. CUSTOMER AND PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION: Sell new products to

new customers 6. OPTIMIZE SALES: Streamline sales efforts to increase productivity 7. CHURN (MINIMIZE DEFECTION): Retain more customers 8. PARTNERSHIPS: Leverage third-party alliances, channels, and

ecosystems (Sales, Go-to-Market) 9. CO-OPETITION: Cooperate with market or industry competitor

(Product Development, IP Sharing) 10. UNCONVENTIONAL STRATEGIES: Disrupt current thinking

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WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN

We’ll soon look at each of these ten paths in depth—for now, just take a step back and look at them as a whole. Some of them may seem familiar, or somewhat obvious, and they should. This list is built on the back of long- standing management thinking and frameworks, including the Ansoff Matrix (a practical framework developed in 1957 by Igor Ansoff for thinking about how growth can be achieved through a product strategy), plus newer sales and marketing concepts used by companies today to stimulate growth.

Let me be clear: these ten growth paths recognize that many of the classics haven’t gone away; paths like Product Expansion and Customer Base Penetration remain as valid as ever; but as the business world has become more complicated, with the rise of e-commerce, software-as-a-service, and other technological and business-model innovations, and the consumer has become more empowered and educated, the application of these requires a more modernized approach.

These various technological advances have provided companies new means to pursue growth alongside tried-and-true classics. Until recently the absence of detailed consumer, product, and market data meant that companies left a lot to chance, gut instinct, and previous experience. What worked in the past, such as increased marketing spends and price reductions/promotions, would simply be

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Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.

—JAMES CASH PENNEY, founder of JCPenney

repeated. It isn’t that companies didn’t know anything about what was driving growth in the past; it’s more the fact that today companies, in real time, can gain meaningful insights to make the right decisions, at the right time, with the right growth path.

CONTEXT + COMBINATION + SEQUENCE

It isn’t enough to have the “right” new growth strategy. You must fully understand what the current market context is prior to making any moves; otherwise, even the right decision, or the right growth path, can put you in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let me be clear—choosing the right growth path for your company should always start with context, the circumstances or events that form the environment within which your company competes. When companies base growth decisions upon an intelligent appraisal of the product, market, and customer context, and the threat or opportunity those contexts bring, along with the combination and sequence necessary to support the chosen growth paths, it can make the difference between success and failure.

CONTEXT includes current social and economic conditions, existing product portfolio, competitive landscape, and corporate culture.

COMBINATION is the act of selecting key actions that can positively influence outcomes, when done together.

SEQUENCE is the act of establishing a priority, order, and timing to those actions.

Growth IQ is a holistic approach to finding the right path, in the right market context, in the right combination and sequence—creating a multiplier effect that is far more powerful than just focusing on one or two efforts in isolation.

A key thing to remember as you set out to reenergize your growth efforts: a company can attempt to duplicate a growth strategy from an industry rival, but rarely is it able to re-create a particular growth path (how a company grew), along with the exact same combination or sequence of efforts, within a particular market context, that led to that rival’s success:

Don’t try to copy what you think your competitors are doing. Imitation is not the path to success, especially in the overcrowded industries most companies confront today. Don’t get distracted by what landed you in this current situation—good or bad.

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Follow effective action with quiet reflection.

From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

—PETER DRUCKER, author of The Effective Executive

Don’t make the common mistake of believing that what you’ve always done will continue to deliver. Keep your mind—and your options—open.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU

While merely duplicating the efforts of other companies is unlikely to work for you, it’s crucial to understand what decisions other companies made when they faced a fork in the road, and which growth paths, combinations, and sequences they chose. By reading the case studies of companies such as Under Armour, Sephora, Shake Shack, The Honest Company, Walmart, Mattel, Marvel, and others I cover in Growth IQ, you’ll learn how some of the most successful companies were able to achieve growth, providing you with perspective on how to apply the Growth IQ framework to your own business as you push to increase top-line revenue. You’ll also read notable examples of growth strategies that failed or backfired and learn how to avoid those pitfalls as you navigate the pursuit of growth for your business. While all of the companies in this book followed their own decision-making process to take the steps they did, Growth IQ gives us a framework to deconstruct and understand their growth efforts within a single model.

Each chapter of Growth IQ looks in depth at one of the ten Growth IQ paths, initially defining the path itself, what it is, and why it was chosen. We Set the Scene, highlighting the overall market context impacting a particular growth path, and then feature stories of a number of companies, spanning various industries and sizes—showcasing how they were able to leverage a particular growth path successfully over time or combine certain growth paths in just the right sequence to maximize their return on investment.

Each Story highlights companies that followed a particular growth path (or paths) to accelerate their current (growth) success or to recover from a growth stall or an unexpected slowdown after multiple quarters of strong performance. You will also see stories of “How It Can Go Wrong,” because failures can be one of the greatest teachers. Chapters conclude with: Putting It All Together, What Works—and Potential Pitfalls, and Suggested Next Steps—how to apply the lessons learned to your own business.

My goal is to help you Get Smarter About the Choices That Will Make or Break Your Business—to develop a keen understanding of the ten growth paths and the importance of context, combination, and sequence, so you can deconstruct your own growth initiatives and become a “Growth Navigator”—

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capable of steering your company, your division, your sales team through even the harshest of market conditions with ease.

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PATH 1 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

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CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards for the technology. . . . What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? . . . Not starting with “Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have.”

—STEVE JOBS

WHY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MATTERS Three-fourths of three thousand business-to-business (B2B) companies surveyed ranked customer experience as a major factor in supplier choice. Sixty-eight percent of C-suite executives expect organizations to emphasize customer experience over products in the future. Eighty-six percent of customers are willing to spend more for a better customer experience. Seventy percent of buying experiences are based on how customers feel they are being treated. Analysis shows that companies that excel in the customer experience grow revenues 4–8 percent above their market. Seven in ten Americans (70 percent) are willing to spend an average of 13 percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service. The promise of better customer service is a draw for shoppers: three in five Americans (59 percent) would try a new brand or company for a better service experience.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS THE NEW BLACK How much did your last Uber ride, hotel room, airline ticket, or Starbucks coffee cost? (No cheating—if you had to submit it on an expense report, that doesn’t count.) Now, what company have you recently engaged with that left

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The reputation of a thousand years may be undermined by the conduct of one hour.

—JAPANESE PROVERB

you sitting on hold for customer service, or didn’t get back to you quickly, or shipped the wrong product and the return process was a nightmare?

I’m betting you remember the brand names of the later ones, those “experiences,” much more vividly than the previous—and you aren’t afraid to share them, either.

Recent snafus caused by subpar customer experience (CX) have made national, and in some cases international, news, including, for example, United Airlines (which dragged a passenger off one of its airplanes) and Wells Fargo (which signed up people for additional accounts without their consent), which erased, quite quickly, I might add, much of the goodwill that these well-respected brands and their CX efforts had built up over many decades.

Current research shows that more than 70 percent of customers look to (customer) “reviews” as the number one source when they are deciding among different brands and products. That is why this growth path can be so unforgiving. We will forever have those “negative” (customer experience) images burned in our memory and our conversations and memorialized on the Web—which means that those companies have to spend much more to “win” us back than they did to acquire us in the first place.