How to drive faster, predictable growth, through Value to Customer and Impact in Business

A good marketing strategy or an effective sales process doesn’t always mean predictable and sustainable company growth.

It may sound strange, but this is usually happening because nobody considers the Value to Customer and the Impact in Business when building and executing those strategies.

Value to Customer and Impact in Business are in a strong connection with each other.

Value to Customer refers to the value a customer of yours is getting from your services.

Impact in Business refers to the “growth impact” a customer of yours is making after working with your company.

The point is that these could be Low or High no matter the effort and/or the quality of your services.

I’ll give you 2 examples:

1. Ideation-stage startup in need of 40 hours of development services

Value to Customer:

The Value to the Customer is Low-Medium because regarding the quality of the services and the effort, the work could translate into nothing.

That startup might not get anything tangible from those services because of several reasons (bad idea, timing, lack of team, etc).

Is it the service provider’s fault? Not at all. But in one way or another the goal of every service is to create value.

This is not really happening here and the Value to the Customer is Low, or let’s say Medium in a good scenario.

Impact in Business:

The Impact in Business is Low because the chances of this being a one-time project are high.

That startup may shut down in a couple of months because of the reasons mentioned above (or another 1,000).

This means a low customer lifetime value and a Low Impact in Business.

2. Series A startup in need of 40 hours of development services

Value to Customer:

The Value to the Customer is High because the work could translate into millions of dollars for that company.

The effort could be exactly the same as in the previous example, but the value delivered to the customer is different.

Impact in Business:

The Impact in Business is Medium-High because the chances of getting more revenue for the same client are higher.

Higher customer lifetime value means faster and more predictable growth.

If two identical companies had 10 customers from one specific category, their growth wouldn’t be the same.

The company with a higher Value to the Customer and a higher Impact in Business will grow faster and more predictable.

All of these assuming it would be the same amount of work and quality.

Now, these 2 were some “extremist” examples, just for you to understand the concept behind it.

But in reality, it can be “softer differences” but still influence the overall growth of the company.

The idea is not necessarily to always chase bigger companies, but more to understand the Value to Customer and Impact in Business based on your ICP.

And of course craft and execute your growth and sales strategy accordingly.

P.S.: If you want a simpler explanation of this concept, just think about a demanding client with a low budget → a lot of work, mediocre results, and minimum impact for the company.