Does Your Company’s Growth Engine Need a Tune-Up?

A summer drive with the sunroof open and the music turned up high—what a feeling! Unless your engine starts losing power…then that feeling is gone right out the window.

When our customers are happy, the sales team is crushing it, and everything is humming along, business growth can feel just like that summer drive, like we’re on top of the world. But when things stutter and lurch, and growth starts to slow, it might just have something to do with your firm’s Growth Engine.

Here’s the good news! You can now quickly look “under the hood” and zero in on just how to improve your engine’s performance.

In this post, we’ll give you a brief overview of what a firm’s Growth Engine actually is and then apply that model to a use case. We’ll also provide you with a link to our free Growth Machine Diagnostics tool, so you can pop the hood and check out whether your firm’s Growth Engine might need a tune-up.

The Growth Engine: Create, Convey, and Capture Value

The Growth Engine framework (as part of our larger Growth Machine model) helps leaders diagnose precisely which parts of a business contribute to growth, which parts hinder it, and how they’re connected.

But what exactly is the Growth Engine? 

Like any engine, it’s a combination of key functions that work together to generate power. Or in the case of a company’s Growth Engine, it generates growth. If a business falters, something is usually going on with its engine. Maybe the firm is selling into stagnant markets or too often delivering too late, or its offerings could be underperforming—or perhaps all of these.

To grow a business is to grow value.

To grow value, a business has to successfully execute the key functions that create, convey, and capture value. When we apply the Growth Engine framework, we can:

• understand how a company generates more value, 

• pinpoint key value factors that really drive growth, and

• zero in on elements that aren’t working smoothly.

Let’s break these three drivers (to create, convey, and capture value) down into their individual functions.

10 Key Functions of the Growth Engine

The Growth Engine is a sequence of 10 key functions that work together to create value, convey value to the market, and capture value from customers:

In the Growth Engine framework, the three key functions that create value are:

(1) a clear VISION of success, 

(2) a FIRM structure that is well organized for growth, and 

(3) attractive OFFERS that customers are eager to purchase.

The key Growth Engine functions that work to convey value to the marketplace are: 

(4) a focus on the right MARKETS, 

(5) a positive competitive POSITION in those markets, and 

(6) the clear identification of ideal TARGETS.

Finally, the key functions that capture value are:

(7) LEAD GENERATION right customers in the right way at the right time, 

(8) effective SALES systems that yield above-average conversion and close rates, 

(9) on-time and on-budget DELIVERY, and 

(10) positive CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE fostering loyalty, referrals, and growth.

When we assess a firm’s Growth Engine, what we’re really looking for are the elements that get in the way of these 10 functions working well both independently and together. By identifying what frustrates and hinders growth, we can remove those obstacles that are keeping a company from creating, conveying, and capturing value.

Use Case: Manufacturer Wants to Double Growth But Faces Stagnation

A manufacturer, aiming to double revenues and profits, is struggling because its revenue growth has stalled. To get a clearer idea of what’s going on, let’s apply our Growth Machine Diagnostics tool to see how well the firm’s Growth Engine is running.

Here’s a look at their readout.

The assessment reveals areas of strength (green), concern (yellow), and real challenge (red). Thanks to the Growth Machine Diagnostics tool, we can now zero in on which elements are working and, more importantly, identify several key “tune-up” opportunities.

The Good News and Not-So-Good News

For starters, the firm has important positives to build on. Customers like and even champion the company and its offerings. One key reason why? The business consistently delivers what it’s promised on budget and on time.

But it also faces significant Growth Engine challenges.

The firm has been selling into problematic markets and its competitive position in those markets is weak. Together with a lack of effective targeting and lead generation, it’s structurally harder for the sales team to hit—let alone increase—sales targets.

Digging deeper, the team is hindered by a fuzzy vision of what success looks like. Lacking clarity around a vision of success translates, for the firm, into:

• wasted time and resources chasing the wrong markets,

• losing ground to competitors with clearer positioning,

• struggling to attract and convert quality prospects, and

• missing out on revenue growth by failing to consistently hit sales targets.

And for the team, all this adds up to wasted energy, frustration, discouragement, and the stress of repeatedly missing growth and revenue goals.

The Next Steps

In brief, this company is doing a very good job delivering much-appreciated solutions to its customers. But its ability to grow is limited by its struggles to find, get in front of, cultivate, and close new customers. Thanks to the Growth Machine Diagnostics, the firm now has a roadmap to rebuild growth and it can tackle exactly what is holding back growth.

In this particular case, as the firm gets clearer about its vision of success, it will be able to

• better prioritize its market opportunities and

• make the necessary changes to strengthen its market positioning, which will

• more closely align lead gen and sales.

One final thing to keep in mind. Assessing the health of this—or any—firm’s Growth Engine isn’t about judgment. It’s about identifying underperforming functions that hold back growth. The goal of the Growth Assessment Diagnostics tool is clarity, which requires candor. That’s how we foster the constructive conversations and focused actions needed to accelerate performance and create more wins—for your company and its future.

Ready to tune up your Growth Engine?

We created the Growth Engine framework for one simple reason: so we could have an integrated way to better understand why companies generate more value—or not. Do you want to uncover what’s really fueling—and slowing—growth in your business? 

If you have 5–10 minutes, take our free Growth Machine Diagnostics and let’s zero in on the problem areas that are hindering your ability to grow more quickly.