Forget the Funnel

FORGET THE FUNNEL: A CUSTOMER-LED APPROACH FOR DRIVING PREDICTABLE, RECURRING REVENUE Georgiana Laudi and Claire Suellentrop share the Customer-Led Growth Framework they've developed to help companies of all sizes solve their product marketing struggles and hit ambitious targets.

I went from obsessing over typical marketing metrics like traffic and leads, to centering my view of growth on measuring customer value. That experience paved the way for what I now refer to as “customer-led growth.

It’s how I stopped marketing in panic mode, and how our team at that growing SaaS company increased revenue by nearly 900% in the next two years—with only a seed round of funding and no reliance on paid acquisition channels.

Many marketing teams operate in a haphazard way, flinging ideas around like spaghetti, trying to see what sticks. But scrambling like this is no way to generate long-term growth. In fact, it prevents sustainable and predictable growth.

The information you actually need to fix inconsistent, unpredictable growth is found in one place: inside your best customers’ heads.

Working cross-functionally leverages each department's existing knowledge. Product, Sales, Marketing, and, of course, Customer Success all think about customers a lot. They all work directly with customers and have valuable insight about your customer's experience that they can bring to the table.

If you have fewer than 500 people in your best customer pool —or if you have time and resources for only one research method—choose interviews.

Interviews give you an opportunity to clarify and get data beyond just words. In interviews, you can feel the energy, hear the verbal cues and emotion, even pick up on body language if you're using video. Interviews provide a much richer understanding of your customer's story.

Audience research is learning from your target audience or potential customers out in the world experiencing the problem that you help solve.

Audience research helps you understand: what influences the people you're trying to reach; who they listen to and trust; where they go when they're looking for new solutions; and other solutions they're trying, and why those solutions are/ aren't working for them.

When we say "Jobs-to-be-Done," what we mean is: 1. The struggle… 2. That motivated customers… 3. To seek a desired outcome.

JTBD (Jobs-to-be-Done) put words to a concept that I understood but couldn't explain before: that people 'hire' a solution to improve their life in some way, and they 'fire' that solution when it no longer serves them.

Customer job statements are typically written in three parts: When…struggle, Help me… motivation, So I can…desired outcome.

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies make at this stage is trying to solve all of their customers' Jobs at once. But remember, Alistair's success came from focusing on one.

That's because each job statement can represent vastly different customer needs and priorities. Trying to optimize for all of them at the same time puts you right back where you started: chaos.

With your top-priority customer Job chosen, you'll have the most valuable guardrails money can buy.