Slow growth: Is it a product or go-to-market problem?

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By Kirk Averett

I have been fortunate in my career to grow three SaaS products from little or no revenue to $40M+ each, and one popular add-on from $0 to more than $10M. More than once, we faced a thorny question when growth didn't meet expectations: was it the way we marketed and sold the product, or was the product deficient in some way? Because growth goals matter to multiple teams, this problem has the potential to generate internal conflict.

Before asking this question, it is vital to understand the marketplace for the product. How big is it? Is it growing or shrinking? Each year, how much of the market will consider seriously buying a product like yours?

Assuming the market is healthy and well understood, I believe that three data points together can reveal the source of a growth problem: sales leads, closed/won %, and NPS.

Product problems

Product problems show up as low Net Promoter Scores and feedback about gaps, missed expectations, and customer pain. Sometimes product problems will manifest in a lower closed/won %-- but a powerful sales team is often able to overcome even well-founded objections and close deals.

If the product's weaknesses are readily apparent to casual prospects, then lead flow will also be weak. "Weak" is always relative to the size of the market. When I sold hosted business email, it was a massive market. Still, I knew that most businesses only looked at new email solutions every three or four years, and usually only when facing either a forced upgrade on their current solution or experiencing significant problems with downtime or spam. By dividing the whole market by ~48, I had a more reasonable expectation about the total available pool of prospects for a given month.

One product we had created for enterprises wasn't selling well. A closer look revealed a fair number of opportunities coming our way, but sellers weren't confident, and we closed only a few deals. Worse yet, those customers were far more likely to give us a low NPS score and churn away. We studied the market, talked with our customers, and changed the offering. Sales improved almost overnight, followed by NPS and churn.

I should mention that, in my experience, an NPS score below 30 is a problem. It indicates that there are real gaps in what customers need or expect. Shoot for a score of 50 or higher.

Go-to-market problems

It may seem a little obvious at this point: if there is a great market and you have delighted (and sticky) customers, but still aren't adding new customers, then it is time to focus on the go-to-market strategy and execution.

A low number of sales leads generally points to opportunities with awareness, messaging, differentiation, lead gen, or sales channels.

A high number of sales leads with a low closed/won % doesn't always mean that sales training and processes need to be improved. First, make sure that the definition of a "lead" is appropriate, clear, and settled.

With the enterprise product mentioned above, we got the go-to-market part of the equation right from the start. We knew that the ingredients we used for SMB growth wouldn't create growth with Enterprises. So we designed a simple and effective process for our new market. Having a great go-to-market meant that we could experience immediate growth once the product fit the market.

Growing is hard

Every part of the process is a competition for attention, understanding, respect, and trust. But few things are as satisfying as seeing your solution solve a customer's problems. Good luck!