In my last article I asked: Is it time for a renaissance in your business?
→ This is a question every business leader should return to—again and again. ←
Why?
Because, as I explained in that article, you and I are wired to miss it. And when we do, it can have catastrophic consequences for our businesses.
As leaders, we’re so used to optimizing our businesses that we can easily forget that everything, including our business growth strategies, will at some point lose their effectiveness. You can only optimize so much. Your business, like everyone else’s, will eventually reach the top of the classic S-Curve. That’s when it’s time for a change. It’s time to find a new S-Curve.
And if you don’t spot it early, you’ll waste precious time — years, sometimes — trying to squeeze growth out of a strategy that’s already run its course.
Consider Amazon. Had it stopped at being the world’s biggest bookseller, it never would’ve become the world’s biggest retailer, top cloud provider, or streaming giant. Its transformation was deliberate—and decisive.
Your business may be successful now, but if you’re not thinking about when a renaissance or reinvention is needed, you increase the risk of business stagnation or worse.
So, how do you find a new S-Curve for your business?
The Three Levers of Transformational Growth
Creating transformational growth requires significant changes to the way your business operates. What got you here, won’t get you there simply because optimization can’t get you there.
Your business needs to be transformed—reinvented. Anything less is just further tweaking, leaving your business not all that different than before.
A transformed business is not just a business that makes more money, though that’s a byproduct of a well-executed transformation. When your business undergoes a renaissance, it becomes markedly different than it was before.
You’ll see it in three profound ways:
- Your product and/or market will have higher value – You’ve adopted your offering to provide greater value, serve a more lucrative market, or both.
- Your supporting structures will be realigned to support delivering higher value – Your policies, processes, team composition, and partnerships were reconfigured to enable new growth.
- Your team will be more engaged – You have a renewed vision and mission that inspires deeper commitment, alignment, and energy across the organization.
That kind of renaissance doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t happen by tweaking around the edges, either.
It happens when you apply the power of a lever. Three of them, in fact.
The Three Levers of Transformational Growth
- Resonant Market Focus
- Bold Offer
- Robust Revenue Engine
The beauty of each of these levers is that they are entirely within your control. You get to decide which markets to focus upon, which offers to put forth, and how to construct the revenue engine to drive growth.
In this article, we’ll explore the first lever and cover the other two in future articles (sign up here to receive them).
The First Lever of Transformational Growth: A Resonant Market Focus
At the heart of any renaissance–and I’m using that term interchangeably with transformation–is rediscovery. In every renaissance, paradigms and assumptions are challenged. New observations are formed. And a new period of growth emerges as a result.
One of the most important assumptions you must challenge are those about the market you are serving. Is it still the best market in which to grow your business? (All things being equal, I am assuming that you’re relatively market agnostic and the primary objective is to grow your business. You may have other reasons to continue to serve the market you’re serving, in which case the other two Levers of Transformational Growth mentioned above will be more helpful to you.)
Evaluating alternative markets is a vital exercise, if nothing more than to confirm that your present market is where you should be. Continuing to optimize within a market that is no longer the most lucrative or strategically sound only holds the promise of future diminishing returns.
Why Rethink Your Market?
Your market defines your playing field, but markets are never static–neither should be your evaluation of them. While there are many reasons why you should reevaluate the markets you serve, here are three prominent ones:
- Markets shift. Buyer’s needs shift. What's to say that the market you've optimized is the highest value market you should be pursuing? The assumptions you have about your current market and what they value may have changed in ways you hadn’t anticipated. And other markets that weren’t once viable may have become even more attractive than the one you currently serve. Rethinking the markets you serve can open up new revenue opportunities that would otherwise remain unnoticed.
- Narrowing your market can increase effectiveness. When you think of growing your business, your mind might naturally turn toward expansion–what new markets can we serve? That’s a helpful question to consider, but expansion also brings greater costs and often less market traction. Narrowing your market, on the other hand, gives you the ability to focus your resources on your most important customers thereby increasing your value to them and your company’s value to a prospective new buyer. Sometimes you need to narrow your market to broaden your appeal. For more on this, read my article Do you expand or narrow?
- A narrower range of needs enables a stronger economic offer. A more focused market provides a narrower range of needs to satisfy, enabling you to create a more distinctive and higher-value offer (the second Transformational Growth Lever, which we'll explore in a future article). By becoming an expert in a particular area, you can also command a premium price for your products or services.
The Three Characteristics of a Resonant Market
When evaluating potential markets for your next S-curve, look for the characteristics that make the market truly resonant to your core business. Here are three of what I consider to be the most important:
- High Economic Need – The ideal resonant market has problems that have a material effect on their business. If driven by regulatory or other requirements, that creates an urgency that can accelerate your growth.
- Size and Positioning – The ideal resonant market should be large enough to matter but small enough for you to gain a leadership position. You want prospects to say, "I've heard of these guys before. Seen them around. Know others that used them." Ideally, you want to be able to achieve a #1 or #2 position in the market.
- Strong Network Effect – The ideal resonant market will have a high degree of interaction, collaboration and influence among its members. Think of it like a strong neural network of interconnections and influence among buyers, suppliers, and other stakeholders who can help you grow your business. The strength of market interconnections isn’t just about scale—it’s about depth, influence, and collaboration. A market with high network effects fosters trust, information sharing, and efficiency, making it easier for businesses to scale and sustain growth. This is especially important for B2B businesses offering products and services where trust and referrals are critical for success.
The Balancing Act: Choosing the Right Market
Picking a market focus is a balancing act between moving too quickly and not moving at all. Inaction can erode your value proposition, reducing you to an also-ran in your industry. Acting too quickly, without considering the costs, can be a sign of the "Grass is Greener" effect—the illusion that an unfamiliar market is automatically better.. Remember, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but as someone once said, "so is the water bill."
To mitigate this, watch out for cognitive biases that can cloud your judgment, particularly recency bias that might have you chasing the latest trend rather than identifying truly transformative opportunities, or the novelty bias which will have you pursuing a new market purely because it’s different, rather than because it aligns with your strategic advantages.
Often, the best market opportunities aren't far afield from where you are now. Look where you've already had success. The diamonds in the rough may be among the customers you already serve - just waiting for you to recognize their potential as the centerpiece of your next growth curve.
Finding your next growth curve starts with asking the right questions about your market. But it doesn’t end there. In a future article, we’ll look at how a bold offer—one that’s unmistakably valuable and distinct—can unlock deeper market traction and higher margins.
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