In this Issue

🌱    Green Shoots
🧊    ICE Your Opportunities
🏃    Move Your Organization

🌱  Green Shoots

Marshall Goldsmith famously said, “What got you here won’t get you there.” Ain’t that the truth!

A fast-growing organization must disrupt itself to keep growing. In CoStrategy, we describe this phenomenon as the Rule of 3 and 10: every time a business triples in size it fundamentally changes. This requires building for the next level to get to the next level.

Things have shifted. Repetitive external shocks and uncertainty are forcing change on organizations. Growth is no longer linear or predictable. Leaders must be more adept at spotting emerging growth markets.

Green Shoots are sprouts of new growth that emerge from the cracks and fissures of disruption.

Part of what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur is the ability to spot green shoots. But when you get hit with too much change, too frequently, and for too long, even the best entrepreneurs can lose their edge.

Green shoots are always there. When you slow down and look, you see them. They may not be obvious to your core business or even where you’ve come from, but that’s the point. There’s an opportunity there if you can nurture it.

Great entrepreneurs don’t predict what comes next. They notice what’s already forming.‍

Spotting and harvesting green shoots is a skill we teach in CoStrategy. We show you how to use sales sprints for market research to identify and validate growth markets.

🧊  ICE Your Opportunities

When a business says yes to one opportunity, it is saying no to another. That’s part of good strategy: making choices.

If you are comparing strategic choices and you don’t have a clear decision, try ICE.

ICE is a simple scoring matrix to rank projects. It stands for:

• Impact: What is the business impact of the initiative?
• Cost: How much will it cost to implement fully?
• Effort: What resources will be required?

The traditional ICE Matrix uses Impact, Confidence, and Ease. I adjust mine for making investment decisions in a growth strategy.

ICE compares your options apples-to-apples. The purpose is to remove the halo effect of a leader’s gut instinct and replace it with an analytical review of opportunities against cost and potential.

📊  One Stat to Watch

39%

of new podcasts are AI-generated, according to Bloomberg. It can’t be that hard to stand out when you’re competing against AI slop.

🏃  Move Your Organization

Brand positioning has been mistakenly identified as a marketing activity. It’s not. True positioning is an entire organization commitment. When you pick a market or a niche to own, you have to go all in on it.

My objective for positioning, and what we teach in CoStrategy, is to be so good that the only way to compete with your company is to buy it. You don’t get that with marketing alone.

Zappos is a perfect example of this. Amazon tried to go toe-to-toe with them, but in the shoe category, Zappos was unbeatable. Amazon acquired Zappos in 2009 for $1.2 billion.

Zappos owned the position of shoe e-tailer not because of great marketing, but how it derisked buying shoes online. They recreated a shoe store where you could try on as many shoes as you wanted until you found the right one:

• Free shipping, both ways with no minimum order sizes.
• Free returns with a full refund within 365 days of purchase.
• 24/7 support with a real human being at any time.

Amazon was built for a very different e-commerce market, and didn’t have the infrastructure to compete directly with Zappos.

Positioning is an act of assertion. When you select a growth market, you win by investing in the core skills, assets, and capabilities to serve your market brilliantly.

You can guarantee your competitors will copy you, especially when you’re successful. But that’s ok. You built your infrastructure with purpose. What is value creating for your business will be a cost for them.

Let them compete. It validates your position. Just don’t slow down. You’re always building for the next level to get to the next level. Positioning moves with you as you grow.

🤔  Thoughts on Today’s Issue?

We’d love to hear your feedback. Message with any thoughts, comments, or ideas for future issues.