Why Most Growth Efforts Fail. And How to Improve Your Odds.
The odds are not in your favor. Forbes reports that 8 out of 10 businesses fail. Booz & Company found that 66 percent of new products fail within two years of launch. The Ansoff matrix puts the failure rate for transformative initiatives at 95 percent.
Those numbers give leaders pause. They are also why so many hesitate. Resources, and human capital most of all, are precious. The instinct is to protect them. So teams hold back investment for fear of spending good money after bad. Waiting carries its own cost. Do nothing long enough and decline sets in.
Fear is the real obstacle. Understanding is the way past it. Once you know why failure rates run so high, you can build a practical plan to beat them.
Start with the end in mind. The goal is growth. Growth depends on stronger success rates. Stronger success rates depend on understanding why so many efforts fall short in the first place.
Funding shortfalls top most lists. After that, the reasons share a common root. They come down to a lack of marketing science.
The Root Causes of Failure
Most failures trace back to four causes:
Not in close enough touch with customers through deep dialogue
No unique value proposition and no clear differentiation
A value proposition that is never communicated well
A business model that cannot turn the offer into profitable, repeatable revenue
If any of these sound familiar, it is time to course-correct. Every one of them is solvable. None of them requires guesswork.
Where to Start
Get back into close contact with your customers. Listen for the problems worth solving. Validate your assumptions before you invest. Build a value proposition that is genuinely different, and make sure the market hears it. Then prove the business model with real revenue, not projections.
That is marketing science. It is how strong teams move the odds in their favor.
Lawrence Innovation helps B2B leaders do exactly this. Contact us for a conversation about where your growth will come from.