The Problem
A core management team has taken the company from idea to a solid, sustainable business. Revenue covers costs with headroom, customers are served, operations work well enough and the market knows who you are. Then growth starts to flatten.
The playbook that built the business delivers less each quarter. Extra spend on sales, marketing or new hires does not shift the curve in the way it once did. The company is stable, yet the trajectory has levelled off and everyone can feel it.
Common symptoms:
- Senior leaders talk more about the past than the future
- Tension creeps into previously tight management relationships
- High performers leave or disengage
- Strategy days repeat the same themes without real follow through
The organisation feels busy, yet the numbers barely move
It is tempting to blame market conditions, competition or macro factors. Those are real, yet they do not explain everything. In practice, stagnation is usually a signal that the business is ready for its next phase of maturity, while still operating with structures, habits and assumptions that belong to the previous phase.
The organisation has outgrown parts of its commercial architecture, operating model and culture. Until those elements catch up, effort and investment keep leaking away.
Overcoming critical barriers to growth, at critical times in growth.
Solution
Commercial Outcomes works with leadership teams in this situation to diagnose the growth mechanics of the business and design the step change needed to move from plateau back to controlled upward movement.
The Step-Up engagement focuses on the engines that drive commercial performance:
- Propositions and pricing
- Routes to market, sales and customer success
- Marketing, narrative and IP
- Operational capacity and delivery
- Leadership, structure and decision making
Typical components:
-
Growth maturity and dynamics review
Assess how the business really grows today, where profit is created, where effort is wasted and where the system is fighting itself. -
Barrier and bottleneck diagnosis
Identify structural, behavioural and capability constraints that hold growth at its current level. -
System-level design
Rework roles, scorecards, governance, commercial processes and enabling technology so the organisation can support a higher level of activity. -
Focused execution programme
Define a practical portfolio of initiatives across sales, marketing, operations and customer service, then support leadership to deliver them in a coordinated way.
Applied AI supports the work where it adds advantage, for example in pattern finding across data, scenario modelling or content and outreach scale. The judgement about what to change and how to change it sits firmly with leadership.
Overcoming critical barriers to growth, at critical times in growth.
Benefit
Each company’s diagnosis and programme of work is different. The typical outcomes from Step-Up engagements include:
- Leadership teams with renewed energy, a shared view of reality and a clear growth thesis.
- A commercial architecture that matches the current scale and ambition of the business.
- Defined roles, performance measures and governance that reduce friction and confusion.
- Sales, marketing and customer functions that act as one system, not separate silos.
- Better retention and engagement among key people as work becomes more focused and purposeful.
- Stronger use of data, tooling and AI where it improves effectiveness and decision making.
- A credible, evidence backed growth story for boards, investors and employees
Beating stagnation in this way allows the company to punch through into its next phase of growth as a mature, scalable enterprise.
Overcoming critical barriers to growth, at critical times in growth.
How we work
A typical Step-Up engagement follows this pattern, with scope and depth adjusted to the size and complexity of the organisation.
Joint session with the core management team to understand context, objectives, constraints and working styles.
Structured interviews with key leaders and selected managers, alongside collection of relevant commercial, financial and operational data.
Internal review of findings, formation of an initial view on growth dynamics, barriers and opportunities, and definition of service criteria and expectations.
Presentation of the assessment to the leadership team, including: A clear statement of the growth problem A map of the current commercial system A first cut view of leverage points and risks
Agreement on a high level mission for the engagement and a focused workplan that sets out what needs to change, in what order and over what timeframe.
Formal approval of scope and approach, with clear ownership on both sides.
Hands on support to design and implement agreed initiatives across functions, with regular checkpoints to adjust as the system starts to move.
Capture of new operating rhythms, scorecards and responsibilities so the organisation can sustain and build on the gains without ongoing external support.
Get in touch
Please fill out the form below and we will reply to you within 24 hours