7 Secrets to Business Growth from Leading Global Brands

Whenever several people ask me to share my strategies for achieving business growth, it indicates that something significant is happening in the marketplace.

This is precisely what happened to me a few months ago. No less than two of my current clients and four new companies have asked me for support in growing their businesses in just the past month! In particular, they have all said that one or more of their brands is stable (to be polite) and that they want to reverse their (negative) trend.

Is this your situation, too? Did you also struggle to achieve growth this year? If so, I have a useful 7-step process that will bring you rapid change in 2024. (although if I were one of the self-proclaimed “gurus” we all see on social media these days, I probably would guarantee you results in days or weeks, shouldn’t I?!!)

I believe that one of the major issues in marketing these days is that companies are following an incomplete, outdated CX (customer experience) model.

The Need for a New CX Model

The CX Index states that 90% of businesses, regardless of the vertical they are operating in, have made CX their primary focus. And research by Gartner concluded that 80% of organizations expect to compete mainly based on CX.

This should be good news for customers, but there’s a problem.

Most discussions about customer experience only consider the interaction between the customer and the company. As a result, most effort goes into improving customer service departments and call centres.

Since these departments tend to be either smaller or even outsourced, their changes have little impact on how a business works. They are also of little interest to top management.

The customer journey is seen as linear and only impacts different departments at distinct points in time. Even if their emotions are considered at each touchpoint, which is already an improvement, it remains static.

In addition, information about the customer may be gathered, but it is rarely shared, let alone integrated, for deeper knowledge and understanding.

This has resulted in individual actions being taken without a holistic view of the customer or their experience. That is why so few succeed.

Quantum Customer Centricity (QC²) takes a multi-dimensional view of the four moving parts of a customer-first strategy. It boosts business by leveraging your strengths while identifying the biggest opportunities for growth. It finds the small, key changes that will maximise your company’s benefit.

And these smaller atomic transformations are far more likely to succeed than larger ones.

QC² is a breakthrough approach that integrates rather than replaces what you are already doing well, so progress is made faster and usually also considerably cheaper.

It creates greater agility, delivering more targeted and accelerated results than most of the traditional models typical to larger organizations.

If you’d like to learn more about QC² and what it can do for your business, you can download a free copy of the book “The Art and Science of QC²-Beyond CX”.

Let’s now take a look at a few examples of how QC² can help achieve business growth for a brand that is starting to plateau.

How to Achieve Business Growth for a Declining Brand

OK, let’s get straight to the point with the most painful of situations first, that of a declining brand.

Almost all brands use their own brand image data in a very basic way, but there is so much more that can be done with the information, even without harnessing AI to do it for you! (Did you see last week’s post on using AI for more authentic interactions with your customers? If not, check it out here. I also suggest reading the full article on brand image: Your Brand has an Image, but Does it Have a Great Personality too?

To summarise its content:

Source: C3Centricity

There are different kinds of attributes that should be measured as these cover the three aspects of customer benefits, namely:

Rational, functional benefits
Emotional, subjective benefits
Relational, cultural benefits

However, what is even more important to remember, is how you analyse the data once you have gathered it. I suggest starting by looking at the following:

Total and splits by demographics – gender, age, location etc
Segments as you have defined them – attitudes, values, motivations etc
Steps of the customer journey – aware, consider, try etc

Changes in your brand image metrics are just one of the small atomic steps you should consider when trying to understand why your business is flat, or, even worse, declining. It’s one of the best-kept secrets to brand growth! And in addition, can predict brand problems before they become evident in share decline!

Let’s now look at some of the others.

The Typical MBA Five Steps to Brand Building

Brand Building MBA example for business growth

Most MBA students are taught a five-step process for brand building:

Describe: A successful brand will describe what it is through a consistent look, feel, tone, colours, symbols and messaging.
Position: A brand needs to differentiate itself from its competition with some unique value.
Promote: Promotion can take numerous forms and channels, such as video, social media, TVCs (Television commercials – although cinema is usually included too), print ads or online advertising.
Personalise: With so many choices available, personalisation and individualisation have become essential characteristics in many categories.
Evaluate: This is, in fact, both the last and first step to successful brand building.

While these five steps aren’t wrong, I believe we can all do much better. I know you are an expert or at least a professional who already understands how much effort goes into brand building! Therefore, you know that there is far more than these five simple steps!

When I realised that there was a lot missing from this basic list, I decided to expand it. But not too much, so it remains manageable. However, my clients get a far more detailed process when applying QC².

If you’d like to learn more about brand building the QC² way, book a Review Session, and we’ll ensure you get some atomic steps to deliver quantum growth. Your organization’s success could be waiting at the end of that call.

The Secret to Business Growth

Let me start with a question for you.

Did you notice that the MBA list is all about the product or service and that nothing is mentioned about the customer or consumer? Big mistake! Every successful growth strategy starts with the customer. So, every process should start with customer understanding.

Here is my process for brand building for increased business growth, a much-shortened summary of the one I use when working with my clients.

It succeeds whether your brand is a product or service, new or established, local or global.

My 7 Secrets to Business Growth

I’ve spent decades working with organisations large and small and have come to understand why so many businesses struggle with brand building. I now want to share these success secrets with you. This comes from my more than 30 years of experience working directly with global multinational companies such as Unilever, Biosensors International, Coca-Cola, and Carlsberg.

Having led the Global Consumer Excellence initiative at Nestle, I know first-hand the challenges of adopting a new strategy that makes the customer the very nucleus of the business. I have experienced first-hand how difficult it can be to get an organisation to change its ways of working. But this is what must happen if brand building the QC² way is going to bring the benefits that many companies already enjoy. Here are my seven suggestions:

1. Gather as much information as you can about the brand

You already have far more information than you realise! Start by gathering as much information as you can find and bring it all together. Check with your colleagues from other departments, too. I am sure you will discover that they, too, have information, probably knowledge they have never shared with anyone before.

2. Identify the category in which you are playing

This is the category from the customers’ perspective, not the industry definition your business association or retail audit supplier uses.

3. Listen to your customers

For a simple start, set up Google alerts for your brand, category, and customer groups so you can follow what is happening on the web. Your care centres are another easy source without even leaving your desk.

4. Define your desired image

Now you know the category in which you are competing and what customers want, verify whether your brand has a USP (Unique selling proposition) and an appropriate image and equity. Check out the post “Brand Image, Equity, Personality & Archetypes: What Every Marketer Needs to Know.” for more on this.

5. Develop a Big Idea on which to communicate

Once you have your USP, it’s time to develop a big idea on which to communicate it. Big Ideas should be based on a relevant insight about your customers. Check out “Customer Centricity is Today’s Business Disruptor (Insights are its Foundation)” for a detailed explanation of developing business insights.

Here are a few examples; the first two are interesting in that two brands in totally different categories have used the exact same insight to come up with their own Big Ideas :

Persil. Insight – “I want my children to experience everything in life, even if they get dirty.” Big Idea – Dirt is Good.
Nido. Insight – “I want my children to experience everything in life, even if they get dirty.” Big Idea – Let them grow, let them go.
Philadelphia soft cheese. Insight – “Food is delicious, but I don’t want to get fat (Butter vs Cream Cheese).” Big Idea: Indulge your desire with fewer calories.

Hopefully, these examples have inspired you to review the insight and big idea for your own brand. If you think you have a great example, why not share it in the comments below?

6. Promote the brand where and when your customers are

This is the step that seems to be difficult for so many brands. They think they will get their message across by advertising on digital media. But there are (at least) two things wrong with this approach.

Firstly, are your target customers actually online? And secondly, where are they? Maybe they are not on the most popular platforms you are using! Pinterest might be perfect for a fashion or cosmetic brand, but not for every industry.

7. Measure your success

V. F. Ridgway published a paper in 1956 criticizing the measurement mantra, and Simon Caulkin, a columnist, later summarized Ridgway’s argument as:

“What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so.”

Now it is clear that you need to measure what you have been doing to understand what’s working and what isn’t. But what metrics should you choose? We are often tempted to use the easiest to measure, even if they are irrelevant to the task!

The data you should be following must help assess whether you are meeting your brand’s objectives. Therefore start by looking at what you were planning to improve and then choose the appropriate metrics to follow the changes you made.

Next Steps to Business Growth

So you’ve gone through all seven steps. Great! So what’s next?

Well, you start by prioritising the actions you need to take to correct the weaknesses you’ve found. Define your needed strategies and tactics, and implement your action plan.

Then? Well, you start at step 1 and go through the process all over again! You see, brand building is a never-ending, virtuous circle. That’s why I’m so passionate about it. You too?