Do You Have a Growth Problem?
By Jennifer Goddard and Larry Goddard
Most leadership teams think they have a growth problem, but in fact, they might just have a visibility void.
Revenue isn’t where it needs to be. Margins are under pressure. The plan from last year didn’t fully materialize. The instinctive response is predictable: Push salespeople to work harder.
On the surface, it feels logical.
But underneath, something more fundamental is happening.
The Way Most Companies See Growth
In most organizations, revenue is viewed as a single number.
It’s tracked, reported, and compared to plan.
But that number is a blend of very different realities:
Customers behaving differently
Products performing unevenly
Segments growing at different rates
Opportunities expanding, shrinking, or sitting idle
When everything is blended together, it creates a simple but flawed conclusion:
It looks like one problem.
So the response becomes one solution.
Push the salespeople to work harder.
Why That Thinking Breaks Down
Growth doesn’t behave uniformly.
Inside most businesses:
Some customers are increasing their spending
Some have plateaued
Some have quietly pulled back
Some are buying elsewhere, while still buying from you
None of that shows up clearly in a single number.
So teams push across the board.
More calls. More campaigns. More initiatives.
But when effort is spread evenly across an uneven landscape, the result is predictable:
A lot of activity, but limited acceleration.
What High-Growth Companies Do Differently
The companies that grow consistently don’t start with effort.
They start with visibility.
They break revenue apart to understand:
Where growth is already happening
Where it has stalled
Where it has been lost
Where it hasn’t been fully developed
Once that becomes clear, growth stops being a guessing game…
…and becomes a focus decision.
A Different Way to Think About Growth
What if growth isn’t something you create first?
What if it’s something you uncover?
Inside your business today, there are:
Customers with untapped potential
Relationships that have cooled but not necessarily disappeared
Segments expanding faster than others
Most companies don’t lack opportunity.
They lack clarity on where that opportunity sits.
Why This Matters Now
Markets are shifting. Costs are rising. Customers are changing.
In that environment, effort alone doesn’t create advantage.
Clarity does.
Because when you can see where growth actually lives:
Priorities become obvious
Decisions get faster
Teams align more naturally
And execution becomes far more effective.
If growth has felt harder than it should…
If the team is working, but results aren’t matching the effort…
It’s worth asking:
“What specific growth levers, customers, segments, regions and products are going to optimize our growth? And, do we have the visibility to see this?
Where This Is Heading
Leadership teams should approach growth this way—by making it visible before trying to drive it.
That’s exactly what SOAR Elevate does for middle-market companies.
It breaks revenue down into its underlying drivers, identifies where growth is sitting across customers, products, and segments, and quantifies the specific opportunities worth pursuing—so teams stop guessing and start focusing.
When visibility improves, everything downstream changes: strategy gets sharper, execution gets easier, and growth becomes far more predictable.