In the early days of growing That Clean Life, I was the sole recipe developer and lived by Julia Child’s principle.
“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.”
Every recipe I developed, I considered a base.
A base recipe refers to a foundational recipe that outlines the essential ingredients and basic steps necessary to create a dish. It serves as a starting point that can be customized or built upon according to personal tastes or specific requirements.
Like it spicy? Add a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Dairy-free? Use coconut yogurt instead of Greek.
Want More Flavour? Add your choice of herbs and seasonings.
In other words, here is the base - but do what you need to do to make this recipe suit your needs. Get creative. Make it your own.
This same “base recipe” concept applies to business growth.
Growing a business requires a simple base recipe. From here, the growth recipe constantly needs to evolve to create fresh versions that align with the changing market, evolving customer needs, a growing team, and more.
A growth recipe doesn’t need to be complicated. In fact, it can be quite simple.
Here is what I believe is the base recipe for business growth—the essential ingredients that serve as a starting point. These ingredients can and should be adjusted, modified, or expanded upon to create new variations of the recipe as you go.
Ingredient #1: A great product that has product-market fit.
Without a great product, customers won’t stick around.
Without product-market fit, you’ll never have enough demand for your product.
Without a great product and product-market fit, your efforts won’t be effective or efficient.
In order to grow, you need these key ingredients.
Ingredient #2: An effective marketing strategy.
A great product is one thing, but if people don’t know about it, you won’t grow. Hence you need an effective marketing strategy that drives acquisition and activation.
I’ll be real. This is a super tricky ingredient to source. There are so many types of marketing to explore: social media, content, SEM, SEO, email, inbound, outbound, influencer, affiliate, event, PR, ABM – the list goes on and on. It can be hard to know what to focus your efforts on.
The truth is that there is no magic playbook. Every business needs to use a unique blend of marketing strategies to grow. Typically you start small with one or two marketing types, then build your strategy from there based on what’s working and what’s not.
Better head to your specialty food shop for this ingredient, just don’t go organic ;)
Ingredient #3: World-class customer service.
If you have one cup of high-quality marketing, you need to balance it with at least one cup of high-quality customer service.
Adding too much marketing can alienate your existing customer base and lead to a growth stall, as you miss opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, and growing loyalty programs. Just like balancing flavors in recipes, you have to balance marketing efforts with customer success efforts.
A great customer success strategy (that is paired with a great product) is also important to minimize churn - the rate at which customers stop doing business with you. Beware of the leaky bucket that will eat your growth for breakfast.
Remember: it costs far more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. World-class customer support is an essential ingredient for ensuring customers' success and engagement.
Ingredient #4: A team that accepts growth as a team sport.
Growth is truly a team sport, and the greatest growth teams possess distinct qualities.
A growth team is cross-functional. It involves every single department in the company. It never works in silos.
A growth team is focused and aligned. They know what they are working on and how it contributes to company goals. They understand each other’s priorities and who is working on what. They recognize distractions, practice ruthless prioritization and you can often hear them saying, “Not now. Maybe later.”
A growth team is creative. They don’t copy or get distracted by what their competitors are doing. They iterate and experiment, knowing that what they’ve always done won’t always continue to deliver.
A growth team not only strategizes but executes. They form their data-driven plan, roll up their sleeves, and get to work. They monitor carefully and double down on what’s working.
A growth team is open-minded. They know the competitive landscape is always evolving, and so are their customers' needs. Flexibility and adaptability are critical traits of an effective growth team.
And last but certainly not least, a growth team is happy and they genuinely enjoy their work. A happy team is more productive and committed to their work, leading to higher quality output and greater efficiency. A positive work environment fosters innovation and effective teamwork, which are essential for business growth.
Mise en place.
The journey to business growth, much like the art of cooking, begins with a solid base recipe that is both simple and adaptable. This foundational strategy, composed of great products, effective marketing, stellar customer service, and a unified, creative team, is just the starting point.
As you mix these essential ingredients, remember that the real magic happens when you tailor this recipe to the unique tastes and evolving demands of your market.