We talk about growth a lot on this podcast, I mean, it's in the name of our show :)
A lot of companies are in the process of building out a growth team. Many of those companies have been on this podcast to talk about their experiences.
But, do these companies need a growth team? Is it a lot of effort and resources for minimum upside.
On this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Lars Lofgren, CEO of QuickSprout, and managing partner at 'Grow or Die' about why a lot of companies are wasting time and money investing in growth teams.
We cover:
- How Lars defines a growth team, and why that team doesn't make sense for a lot of companies.
- What companies do make sense for a growth team, and why does it work at those companies.
- How Lars grew traffic to QuickSprout by 74%, and the exact tactic he used to do it.
Happy Growing
Time Stamped Notes
[3:55] - Lars talks about his time running growth for "I will teach you to be rich." He joined the company because he was a customer and a fan of the content first. He originally joined to generate leads for Ramit's course, generating 40,000 leads a month.
[6:15] - A lead was a brand new, double opt-in subscriber. Lars eventually ended up owning both revenue and product.
[7:50] - Lars defines a growth team as a team staffed with engineers and designers, who focus on acquisition and engineers. Lars doesn't think a growth team makes sense for a lot of companies. At some point, the upside from running experiments to improve conversion rates across your funnel start to diminish.
[11:10] - We talk about some examples of companies where growth teams do work, and why they work. Most companies that use growth effectively have user virality. A lot of business models don't need a growth team.
[14:30] - We discuss if the success of growth is dependent upon team structure, and where the growth team sits within the organization.
[15:40] - Lars talks about his experiences working with executives, and how a lot of them don't rely on data to make decisions. Sometimes the executive has enough experience to know when they should ignore data. Other executives make an incorrect decision based on prior experience, and ignore the data when they really shouldn't. Lars has seen this happen a lot when it comes to conversion rate optimization tests.
[20:55] - When a test result shows the company should pivot from their core positioning or product roadmap, executives are likely to ignore it, to stay on their planned path.
[23:15] - As a growth leader, there will be a lot less conflict if you are very aligned with your CEO and other executives. Successful growth teams need that alignment from the outset.
[26:35] - Lars talked about how they ended up acquiring QuickSprout and took it from zero revenue to six figures in a year. They make money on affiliate.
[29:30] - Lars and his team grew traffic by 74% from Google.
[32:30] - A repeatable tactic that Lars uses to grow traffic for content-rich websites is to prune the content and delete any content that's below a certain traffic threshold and hasn't acquired any links. Lars rule is, if the content doesn't drive traffic or links, delete it.
[37:15] - If Lars finds content that doesn't get much traffic, but covers a unique topic relevant to his audience, and has the potential to acquire traffic, he'll work on it to improve his search visibility.
[39:20] - Lars talks us through his affiliate tech stack and why he signups to specific affiliate programs. What he looks for are companies that have a product, which stands out in the market.
– Lars on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Kieran on Twitter / LinkedIn / Medium
– Scott on Twitter / Linked / Medium
