The Growth Code: The Key to Unlocking Sustainable Growth in any Modern Business

By Buckley Barlow

The Growth Code was written for forward-thinking, growth-oriented organizations and teams that are committed to building, growing, and improving the digital leaders of tomorrow. It’s a handbook for anyone who wants relevant knowledge and training along with actionable ideas that can be quickly implemented to create a long-term, sustai

• Language: English
• Publisher: In The Know
• Release date: Nov 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9780998075303

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The Growth Code: The Key to Unlocking Sustainable Growth in Any Modern Busines

First Edition

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915552

ISBN 978-0-9980753-0-3

Published by

In The Know Publishing, LLC

111 North Market Street

San Jose, CA. 95113

www.beintheknow.co

Copyright © 2016 by In The Know Publishing, LLC

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any for or by any means, written, mechanical or electronic, recording, scanning, photocopying or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.

Trademarks: In The Know and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of In The Know, LLC and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. In The Know, LLC and In The Know Publishing, LLC are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING WHERE FROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THEIR WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR FOR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ

DEDICATION

Dedicated to the perpetual learner. The knowledge craver. The tinkerer, the experimenter, the entrepreneurial junkie. The overachiever. The underdog. The difference maker. The doer who makes things happen. And to the quirky misfit who makes the world a much more interesting and satisfying place for all of us.

You know who you are.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have so many people to thank for making this book a reality. First, it all started with my mother who pushed me to write. She wanted a novel. Sorry to disappoint mom, it’s a business book. To my father who helped frame my analytical thinking and forced me to challenge every assumption. To my wife, Charlotte, one of the greatest human beings you could ever meet. Pinch pinch. Yeah, I married up. To my wonderful little girls whose bright smiles make my day. To my siblings, extended family, and friends who have supported me through thick and thin and got me through some very difficult times. I’m here because of you.

Huge shout-out to Abbi Perets, the CEO of this book. Abbi has been an amazing business associate and writing mentor. Her work and help with this content have been stellar, and without her proactive and professional support, my ideas could have just as easily died on the vine. To Angela Greaser, the COO of this book and my upcoming book with Nicole Kroese, a huge thank you for skillfully managing people, projects, and processes with a positive attitude rarely encountered in my professional career. To Steve Kiger, Nicole Hudson, Grace Cline, and Doug Richardson for their amazing graphic design and creative work to make this project pop! Job well done, team!

And last, to all the incredible entrepreneurs, partners, investors, and colleagues who have influenced and shaped my unique career path and who took the time to show me how to go about business building – thank you for your leadership, mentorship, confidence, and trust in me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

What is IN THE KNOW?

Who Are You?

Who Am I?

What Will This Book Teach You?

What Do Those Icons Mean?

Foreword

Scarcity and Trusted Sources

Chapter One

Netflix, Mad Men, and Mindset

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

A Really Important Topic: Mindset

Chapter Two

When You Gotta Grow, You Gotta Grow

Beyond the Buzzwords

Another Broken Buzzword: Digital Marketing

Chapter Three

How to Get There from Here

Chapter Four

Sleeping In Closets With Coworkers

StoryVesting: Zoom In On What Matters

Chapter Five

Set The Stage For StoryVesting

StoryVesting Always Starts With Why

Your Ideal Customer

Let the Why Drive The How

Find Employees Who Believe In Both Stories

Chapter Six

Understanding Your Customers

Your Buyer Persona(s)

Defining Demographics

Your Buyer Persona: Demographics Worksheet

Defining Psychographics

Your Buyer Persona: Psychographics Worksheet

Picture Perfect

Chapter Seven

Story Alignment

Identify the Why

Determine the How

What Do You Do?

Why StoryVesting Matters

Chapter Eight

Be A People Person

Up Close and Personal With Your People

Individual Assessments

Make the Necessary Changes

Help Your People Thrive

Chapter Nine

Processes

How To Build A Process

Chapter Ten

Optimize Your Processes

List Your Processes

Identify the Bottlenecks

Evaluate Your Expectations

A Real-Life Example

Revisit Processes Regularly

Chapter Eleven

Platforms and Tools of the Trade

So Many Platforms, So Little Time

The Difference Between Working and Planning to Work

The Cost of Free Platforms

Chapter Twelve

Your Platforms

Chapter Thirteen

The Funnel Is Dead. Long Live the Funnel!

Chapter Fourteen

Planning: Where It All Begins

Your Plan: Step by Step

Examine Product/Market Fit

Evaluate your People

The Growth Team

Who Plays On The Growth Team?

Review Your Processes and Platforms

Chapter Fifteen

Content and Inbound Marketing

More Content vs. Better Content

Your Content Pillar

Chapter Sixteen

Attraction: Draw Prospects Into Your Funnel

Assess Your Content

Your Content Team

Find the Right Writer

How to Work With Your Writer

Create an Editorial Calendar

Write and Publish Your Content

Chapter Seventeen

Nurturing and Connecting With Prospects

Test and Refine Your SEO and SEM

Leverage Other Audiences

Segment Your Database

Automate Your Processes

Chapter Eighteen

Converting Your Prospects into Customers

Simplify and Automate

Retarget Carefully

Optimize the User Experience

Chapter Nineteen

Engaging Customers & Creating Social Advocates

Identify Your True Advocates

Connect With Your Advocates

Create Amazing Experiences

Chapter Twenty

Sustainable Growth

Another Important Point To Consider

The Path To Sustainable Growth

Chapter Twenty-One

Measure, Test, and Optimize

Which Metrics Matter?

The Leaky Funnel, Revisited

Thank you!

Thank you so much for choosing to read The Growth Code. I’ve actually put together a few goodies just for readers, and you get the entire package right now for free. Go to http://beintheknow.co/the-growth-code-goodies and enter your name and email address, and I’ll send you the following freebies:

How To Grow, an amazing resource filled with the best growth marketing advice and information from 15 of the top growth marketers out there. These are the same strategies they’ve used to propel their own companies to amazing new heights – fast.

>>>Tap here to get your goodies!<<<

7 Essential Skills, a special guide for anyone looking for a job in digital marketing, packed with tips and insights from the very people who are hiring in this competitive, demanding field. I asked them exactly what they’re looking for when they interview candidates, and they told me everything you need to know.

>>>Tap here to get your goodies!<<<

7 Deadly E-Commerce Sins And How You Can Avoid Them, with actionable advice and information that you absolutely need to know if you want to sell successfully online.

>>>Tap here to get your goodies!<<<

In addition to these free guides, you’ll also get printable copies of every single worksheet in The Growth Code in one handy PDF. You can print the whole thing, or just the pages you choose, so that you can easily follow along and complete the worksheets and exercises as you go through the book.

Go to http://beintheknow.co/the-growth-code-goodies and enter your name and email address, and you’ll have immediate access to everything.

Thanks again for reading and here’s to your personal and professional growth!

Welcome!

What is IN THE KNOW?

Welcome to the IN THE KNOW business growth series. Here you’ll find the critical information you need to help your business to grow – without all the fluff. We cut right to the heart of what really matters and what really works, because let’s face it, you don’t have time to sit around and read a bunch of empty words – you need to know what works, and you need to know NOW. So that’s what we’re here for – to get you IN THE KNOW and ahead of the curve.

WHO ARE YOU?

Maybe you’re a new hire looking to make an amazing impression. You’re not just showing up to put in face time – and you’re not satisfied just doing the work that’s assigned to you. You want to add strategic value and contribute toward moving the needle of growth north. The gap between what you learned in school or college and what you need to know on the job is painfully obvious. You learned a lot of theory, but how do you apply it? What are the tools, channels, and moving trends that are going to impact what you do on a daily basis? And what can you do with that information to become a valued asset to any organization?

Or perhaps you’ve done your time in the trenches and now you manage the product, people, processes, and platforms. Your job is dependent on growing both the top and the bottom lines. That means you have to have a solid handle on both strategy and tactical implementation. Most importantly, you want to show your team, your colleagues, and those who count on you that you’re ahead of the curve and on top of what’s hot and what’s not. Ultimately, growth is directly or indirectly on your shoulders. You could be working in growth, marketing, product, engineering, or data analysis, but the fact is, you want to learn how to collaborate better with your colleagues, you want to better understand the jargon, the buzzwords, the strategies, the ideas, the tactics, and the tools needed to enhance your ultimate goal: growth.

Regardless of whether you’re a new hire, a busy business owner, or an executive, one thing is certain: Your goal and focus is on getting traction, growing your business, and then learning how to scale it to new heights. After all you didn’t start a non-profit or a business that has to be decoded every single week. You know that you can’t do it all, but it’s critical that you know exactly how to build, grow and scale your business to the point that you are truly free, truly happy, and truly empowered. And it takes a heck of a lot of learning to bring in all the pieces of a growth framework.

WHO AM I?

I’m a growth guy who loves all things personal and professional growth. If I’m not in progress and learning mode, I’m probably done. I’m an entrepreneur who loves to build and grow new ventures. I’m an experimenter who spends time drilling down to the why – the driver of behavior, and in terms of business, the motivation to buy X product or Y service. I’m a consultant who rolls up his sleeves to help the founders, executives, and teams of emerging growth companies improve and grow. I’m an investor. Not a big one, but I do invest regularly in things I care about. I’m an author and blogger who loves sharing ideas that I’ve learned over the years from my own experience. Oh, did I mention that I’m crazy about learning new things? I’m a gentleman farmer. Yeah, agriculture is one of my passions; not only is it refreshing to get away from the city, I like to invest in things at the start of a supply chain.

I’m a husband to an amazing woman and best friend, father to two amazing little girls that dazzle every day, brother to some of the most boisterous and opinionated siblings a brother could have and son to an incredible mother who inspires me every day and a father who pushes my understanding of humanity. I’m 100% original human. Yeah, weird, I know, but maybe by the time I write another book on growth, I may be augmented?

On the professional front, I’ll start by saying that I’ve never founded a Unicorn – the term used to define a billion-dollar business. I’ve never been a media darling, splashing my picture around as I build and exit companies for astronomical sums of money. And I don’t hype myself and my team up on nootropics in order to beat out the competition.

Nope, instead I’m an actual, hard-working person. A growth guy who starts from scratch and builds on that first single, that first double, and so on.

My passion for growth started about 20 years ago, when I was an early growth team member of one of the fastest growing VC-backed companies in the world (which I’ll highlight in the book), and yes, that company was a Unicorn. The valuation of that company, hard as it may be to believe, was entirely based on revenues – perhaps the most critical metric of any company.

I’ve also had the chance to do consultative business development with some of the biggest brands on the planet. This taught me an enormous amount about how to grow a newer venture alongside a Fortune 100 partner. I’ve personally bootstrapped several ventures into the multiple millions and have directed multiple acquisitions and participated in several exits along the way. More importantly, when it comes to growth, I believe in sustainable and incremental success, and I have helped build incremental and sustainable growth into dozens of companies of all shapes and sizes.

It may not be as flashy as those billion-dollar exits, but I’m not a guy who flashes a