Cleve Gibbon

If you like something, you’ll use it. A lot. That’s product engagement.

I recently listened to John Straw speaking on a McKinsey podcast. I’m sharing his super simple way of thinking about product engagement. Take a look at these two companies:

Company A: Makes $1, per 100 users, with 1k interactions per day

Company B: Makes $1000, per 100 users, with 1 interaction per day

So which company has better engagement? A or B? Of course it’s A. However, it’s important for Company A not to lose sight of this as it grows the $ part of the equation.

It’s clear that company A has a product that customers want to engage with. Company B has got the marketing right.  Sustainable businesses scale products (the ends) not marketing (the means).  

Twenty years ago technical agility unlocked smarter ways to ship software faster. Did you that Amazon.Com releases code changes to meet customer needs every 12 seconds? Now, after a year of living with COVID, business agility is now the next mountain to climb.

Growth is the term of the day. It’s important. But let’s not get distracted. Long-term, sustainable growth depends up a business that changes to meet new challenges. Now that’s business agility.

So, there are five ways to grow a business:

•   Increase revenue
•   Increase new business
•   Increase existing business
•   Increase shareholder value
•   Decrease cost

Surviving a pandemic has taught everyone to do more with less. And so decreasing costs is table stakes for ongoing business success. Moreover, a healthy mix of everything drives additional value for shareholders. So, sustainable business growth really relies on increasing revenue through new and existing business. This leads us to sales and the four key ways to sell:

•   New Products/Services to New Customers
•   New Product/Services to Existing Customers
•   Existing Product/Services to New Customers
•   Existing Product/Services to Existing Customers

So that means there are only two important considerations for the business:

•   Customers
•   Product and Services 

We know customers are constantly changing. Knowing your customer requires every business to continuously invest to understand them. Next, products and services must always meet the ongoing needs of the customer. Simple!

Business agility delivers the right products and services to customers. Hard! But, it is a critical differentiator in today’s competitive landscape. If you cannot adapt your products and services to match customer needs, the market is unforgiving. And COVID has made the market even flatter. Products and services are borderless. Increasingly digital. And accessible from anywhere, by anyone, at any time.