Beyond the Four Pillars: The 12 Key Areas of SOARgrowth

By Larry Goddard, Laurence Frankin and Jennifer Goddard

In our previous article, we introduced the Four Pillars of SOARgrowth™—Sales & Margins, Organization & Culture, Accounting, Finance & Technology, and Responsiveness & Execution—as essential foundations for middle-market business growth. While each pillar is vital on its own, real, sustainable growth only happens when all four are aligned and working in concert. It’s this integration that drives lasting performance and positions a business for long-term success.

But to drive real results, we go deeper.

Each Pillar is made up of three core components, giving us a 12-part framework—what we call the 12 Key Growth Areas of SOARgrowth. These 12 areas serve as the operating system for focused growth, margin improvement, executional strength, and team alignment.

If you want your business to scale with clarity and discipline, this is the roadmap.

Why 12 Areas Matter More Than 4

The Four Pillars offer strategic clarity. They show where your business needs to be strong in order to scale. But inside those Pillars are the real levers—the practices, systems, and decisions that determine whether your strategy creates real, measurable growth.

By focusing on all 12 areas, we uncover hidden strengths, surface blind spots, and prioritize the right next steps. We move beyond generalities (“improve sales”) and into precision (“fix pricing discipline to protect margins”).

Let’s walk through the 12 areas—and how they work together.

PILLAR 1: Sales & Margins

1. Sales Strategy

Do you have the right go-to-market model?
At the core of SOAR’s sales strategy is the SOAR Growth Engine™—a proprietary framework built from decades of hands-on experience and deep market analysis. This engine helps businesses chart a clear, realistic path from their current revenue base—typically the trailing 12 months—to ambitious, achievable outcomes over a 3- to 5-year horizon (and in some cases, up to 10 years).

Our research shows that there are six primary drivers of sales growth—each with supporting sub-drivers that expand the range of potential opportunities. In addition to benefiting from organic momentum in core markets (what we call “riding the wave”), businesses can grow in many ways, including increasing prices strategically, growing Wallet Share (expanding sales to current customers), expanding Market Share (winning new customers), introducing new products or services, entering new markets or customer segments, pursuing strategic acquisitions.

A strong sales strategy aligns with all relevant components of the Growth Engine. Leadership teams should know exactly where they expect growth to come from—and how each initiative supports that trajectory. Without this clarity, companies often over-rely on one or two levers, leaving untapped potential on the table.

2. Margins

Are you making money on the sales you close?
A strong top line means little without margin discipline. We help companies uncover hidden margin leaks—often in discounting, pricing, service bundling, or account selection. Your growth engine is only effective if it fuels profit, not just revenue.

3. Sales Management, Marketing & Product Development

Are sales, marketing, and product development aligned around customer value?
Many companies treat these functions as separate. We integrate them. Sales teams must be equipped with the right message, targeting the right customers, with the right solutions. When marketing insights and product strategy are disconnected, you get wasted spend and missed opportunities.

PILLAR 2: Organization & Culture

4. Organizational Effectiveness

Is your structure enabling or hindering performance?
We examine whether your people know their roles, how decisions are made, and whether the organization supports growth or slows it down. Bureaucracy, unclear accountability, or siloed teams are common culprits that stall momentum.

5. Culture & Values

Do your values drive behavior—or decorate the wall?
Culture is more than vibe. It’s what people do when no one’s watching. We look at whether your stated values are shaping hiring, coaching, feedback, and decision-making. Strong cultures drive consistency, resilience, and trust—especially in tough markets. Ultimately, the best organizations generate “buy-in”, the secret sauce of business growth and success.

6. Leadership

Are your leaders aligned, accountable, and adaptive?
Leadership is the multiplier. If your leadership team lacks alignment, clarity, or cohesion, your strategy won’t stick. SOARgrowth evaluates leadership communication, decision-making, and follow-through. Leadership effectiveness is often the most leveraged point of change.

PILLAR 3: Accounting, Finance & Technology

7. Accounting, Tax & Financial Analysis

Do your numbers tell a clear and timely story?
This isn’t just about compliance. It’s about decision quality. When financial data is clean, current, and trusted, leadership can act with speed and confidence. We look at forecasting accuracy, financial visibility, and how finance supports—not just reports—on growth.

8. Cash, Asset & Risk Management

Are you protecting the business while positioning it to grow?
Cash flow management, capital allocation, and risk planning often get overlooked in growth plans—until a crisis hits. We assess how well your business anticipates risk, manages liquidity, and uses capital to drive long-term value.

9. Information Technology & AI

Is your tech stack helping you scale—or slowing you down?
Too many businesses suffer from disconnected systems, redundant tools, or lack of data access. We focus on simplifying and modernizing the tech infrastructure. Increasingly, we also look at how businesses are adopting automation and AI to unlock productivity and insights.

PILLAR 4: Responsiveness & Execution

10. Responsiveness

Can your business move fast when it counts?
Responsiveness is a competitive advantage—especially in a world where customer expectations change rapidly. This category looks at lead follow-up, decision cycle time, shipping on-time, delivering quality —and the company’s ability to adjust plans when conditions shift. Speed and adaptability beat size every time.

11. Operational Execution & Cost Management

Are you delivering consistently—and profitably?
Execution isn’t just about doing things. It’s about doing the right things the right way, every time. We examine process discipline, efficiency, quality control, and cost visibility. Many businesses can grow revenue—but only some can grow profits.

12. Supply Chain, Purchasing & Logistics

Is your back end enabling—or constraining—your front end?
From procurement to logistics, the operational foundation must support your promise to the market. We assess supplier reliability, inventory strategy, and delivery systems. In today’s environment, this area is often the make-or-break factor in scaling.

How the 12 Growth Areas Drive the Methodology

Every SOARgrowth engagement starts with this assessment. This creates a culture of clarity, accountability, and strategic focus—without the overwhelm of trying to change everything at once. Every one of the 12 Key Growth Areas of SOARgrowth represent a Module in the SOARgrowth platform. A Module is the process where we help companies identify and prioritize the most important growth Opportunities for their business – to facilitate growth in revenues and profitability. In addition, the Module helps reveal the most important Necessities for the business – to facilitate successfully executing the Opportunities and help protect, preserve, and strengthen the organization.

Why This Works for Middle-Market Companies

We built SOARgrowth for the middle market—companies too big for guesswork, too small for bloated consulting models. These companies have smart people, great products, and committed leadership. What they need is the same tools and resources big and PE backed businesses take for granted.

The 12 Key Growth Areas bring the Four Pillars of SOARgrowth to life by helping leadership teams:

• See the whole picture – Clarify where the business is heading across every dimension, not just one.

• Align and prioritize – Focus on what matters most. Sequence initiatives based on ROI, urgency, and readiness—not overwhelm.

• Accelerate progress with confidence – Gain clarity, buy-in, and momentum to move forward decisively.

• Empower initiative teams – Cross-functional teams own specific growth areas, increasing engagement and accountability.

• Build and execute action plans – Turn insights into focused, measurable 90-day action plans that drive real change.

• Connect the dots across departments – Show how every function contributes to the bigger picture and shared success.

• Track progress and celebrate wins – Use meaningful metrics and consistent updates to sustain energy and keep the flywheel turning.

Conclusion

Most growth challenges don’t stem from a lack of ambition—they come from complexity, misalignment, or blind spots that slow momentum and drain focus.

The Four Pillars of SOARgrowth™ provide the high-level structure every business needs. But it’s the 12 Key Growth Areas that make that structure actionable. They help leadership teams zero in on what’s holding them back—and what’s most worth fixing.

Business doesn’t have to feel like a never-ending firefight. With the right insight and alignment, strategy sharpens, execution accelerates, and growth becomes sustainable.

And most importantly—your team feels the shift. They’re more focused, more engaged, and more confident in where the business is going.

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