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Pick the right growth motion and you fund the channels that convert, hire the skills that matter and hit revenue targets sooner. Compare outbound, inbound, product and partner plays to choose with confidence.
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In Chapter 1 you claimed your spot in the market. The next step is deciding how you will reach potential customers. Four growth motions are available:
The motion you choose shapes everything that follows, and your marketing, sales teams and daily activities will look very different, so this decision must come first. If you already know which of the four works for you, feel free to skip this chapter and jump to packaging and pricing, the next step in the go-to-market strategy.
In this chapter I will share the pros and cons of every growth motion; the same trade-offs should guide your choice. The decision also influences your customer acquisition costs.
Each motion carries a built-in customer-acquisition cost. Outbound means SDR salaries, dialler software and data licences before the first email is sent; inbound needs up budget for writers, designers and ad clicks; product-led still funds engineers who polish self-serve onboarding and keep a free tier running; partner-led pays commissions or revenue share to resellers. Those fixed costs set the floor for what you must recover from every deal, so the pricing (in the next chapter) you charge must rise to meet them.
The outcome of this chapter is that you select one motion and run it until it is profitable. A word of caution: running two growth motions from the start makes growth operations heavy and results slow. Make the hard decision now to pick just one, and every later step will be simpler and your return on investment higher.
With that caution out of the way, let us dive into the four growth motions one by one.
If one of the four already fits you perfectly, feel free to skip this chapter and jump to packaging and pricing. Otherwise, read on. In this chapter I share the pros and cons of every growth motion. A recent conversation with a B2B founder who was weighing partner-led against outbound-led growth sparked these notes; the same trade-offs may guide your choice.
Pick one motion, run it until it is profitable, then consider adding a second. Running two from the start makes operations heavy and results slow. Make the hard decision now and every later step in your go-to-market plan becomes easier. Choose wisely and, wherever possible, choose one.
Outbound-led means you look up prospects first, then reach out with cold email, calls, LinkedIn messages or targeted event introductions. Every step is controlled by you, not by an inbound search query or an app sign-up. The funnel volume is modest, but every touch is high intent because you pick the people.
Outbound excels when your average contract value is healthy, the buying unit is clearly defined and reliable data sources let you find those buyers quickly. It is also the fastest way to test whether your message resonates: people either reply or they do not, and you learn within days.
Cold outreach gives almost instant signal. A sequence that falls flat after one hundred sends tells you the offer or list is wrong, letting you fix copy or data long before a content-driven programme would expose the issue.
With a clean list, a proven sequence and disciplined follow-up, outbound becomes a numbers game. Add another salesperson, buy another list, raise meeting output in stepwise fashion and forecast bookings reliably.
Most prospects will ignore or decline your first approach. Repetition risks harming brand perception if messaging or targeting slips, so copy must stay personal and lists fresh.
Privacy rules and mailbox-provider limits change often. Outbound teams must monitor bounce rates, warming protocols and regional legislation, or risk blacklisting that halts all email activity.
Expect one sales development representative for roughly one hundred new prospects per month. Three SDRs usually justify one account executive to run discovery and closing calls, with a revenue-operations specialist hired once staggered sequences and multiple territories appear. Founders often carry the account-executive role in the earliest stage, handing it off when meetings outnumber their calendar slots.
An SDR stack typically starts with a data provider such as Apollo to source accurate contact information. Personalised email sequences are sent through Lemlist or Instantly, while every touch lands in a core CRM—HubSpot for tighter marketing integration or Pipedrive for pure outbound focus. Calendly streamlines booking, and compliance plug-ins watch delivery rates.
Activation rests on three headline numbers. First, a reply rate above five per cent shows copy and list are aligned. Second, at least two per cent of prospects should convert to scheduled meetings. Finally, cost per qualified demo must sit beneath your target acquisition cost; otherwise the motion cannot scale profitably.
When those thresholds are met and the pipeline flows month after month, outbound becomes a repeatable engine. Only then should you consider layering in a second growth motion. Until that point, keep the team small, lists precise and copy sharply tuned to the persona uncovered in Chapter 1.
Inbound-led centres on creating content or experiences that draw prospects to you. Blog posts, comparison pages, webinars, social threads, and free templates rank in search or get shared inside communities. Visitors raise their hand, download a guide, book a demo, or sign up for a trial. Instead of pushing messages out, you pull buyers in.
This motion shines when you sell to a segment that researches online and the contract value justifies patient asset building. It compounds: each new article or video joins the library, driving enquiries for months with no extra spend.
A well-positioned article can rank for years, sending a steady stream of visitors who arrive already interested in your topic. Each new post, checklist, or webinar stacks on the last, letting pipeline grow without proportional budget increases.
Educational content proves expertise long before a salesperson appears. When prospects feel they have learnt from you, discovery calls jump straight to specifics rather than basic credibility checks.
Search algorithms and community goodwill take time. Expect three to six months before serious volume appears. Impatient founders often cut the programme before momentum forms.
Every niche now publishes guides and podcasts. Surface-level posts drown in a crowded feed. Inbound teams must invest in genuine insight, original data, or standout production, which lifts both cost and creative skill requirements.
An inbound core starts with one content strategist and one writer or editor. Add a search-engine-optimisation specialist once twenty or more posts are live, then a marketing-operations role to automate nurture emails and lead scoring. Sales involvement remains light until marketing qualified leads reach consistent weekly numbers, at which point a single inbound account executive can handle discovery.
Keyword research often begins in Ahrefs or Semrush. Content is drafted in Notion and published on a site managed through Webflow or WordPress. HubSpot captures form fills and triggers nurture sequences. Loom or Riverside handles webinar recordings, while Buffer schedules social distribution.
Watch organic sessions, conversion rate to lead, and lead to opportunity rate. A healthy benchmark: at least one per cent of organic visitors submit a form, and fifteen per cent of those become qualified opportunities. Content efficiency appears in cost per organic opportunity: divide monthly content spend by the opportunities delivered. When that figure beats paid channel costs, inbound has reached escape velocity.
Once inbound delivers predictable opportunities and the content calendar hums, consider layering a second motion. Until then, resist the temptation to split focus; compound gains need patience and consistent publishing cadence.
Product-led growth (PLG) flips the traditional funnel: the product itself becomes the primary driver of acquisition, activation and expansion. Prospects start in a free plan, free trial or freemium tier; value is delivered within minutes, and usage data then guides tailored upsell paths. Instead of lengthy sales calls, the “A-ha” moment arrives inside the interface, turning happy users into internal champions who pull purchasing conversations forward.
PLG excels when your product solves a clear, self-serviceable task and time-to-value can be measured in minutes rather than days. It can unlock rapid, global reach without proportional sales head-count, but only if the onboarding flow and in-app prompts feel almost intuitive.
Free tiers and self-sign-up pages lower commitment anxiety. Users explore on their schedule, no calendar juggling needed. Each satisfied user becomes a referral node, inviting teammates and accelerating word of mouth.
Product analytics reveal which actions correlate with paid conversions. Marketing and product teams iterate pricing walls, usage caps and upgrade nudges based on live dashboards, improving conversion without guesswork.
Self-serve onboarding, usage metering, in-app messaging and billing integrations demand serious development time. Early-stage teams can underestimate the scope and delay shipping core features.
Freemium attracts small teams who may never upgrade. Without a parallel enterprise motion, revenue per account can plateau unless usage caps and value gates are carefully tuned.
A PLG team starts with a product manager focused on onboarding, one growth-minded engineer and a product designer. Add a lifecycle marketer once activation emails and in-app prompts require systematic testing, then a customer-success manager to nurture high-usage accounts towards paid tiers. Sales hires arrive later, targeting large workspaces that outgrow self-serve limits.
Segment or RudderStack pipe raw product events to Mixpanel or Amplitude. Intercom or Userflow delivers contextual tips and upgrade nudges. Stripe or Paddle handles usage-based billing. Heap or PostHog surfaces drop-off points in onboarding, while Hotjar recordings validate where users struggle.
Track time to first value, free-to-paid conversion rate and expansion revenue per active account. Healthy PLG funnels show a sub-five-minute median time to first A-ha, free-to-paid conversions of at least five per cent and negative net revenue churn as workspaces expand and add seats.
When the self-serve engine predictably turns sign-ups into revenue, only then layer outbound or partner motions. Until then, every sprint should tighten onboarding, refine value gates and sharpen data-driven upgrade triggers.
Partner-led growth relies on alliances with agencies, consultancies, marketplaces or technology vendors who already serve your ideal customers. Instead of courting prospects directly, you win distribution, credibility and implementation capacity through the partner’s established relationships. Deals originate when a partner recommends or bundles your product, often sharing revenue or receiving reciprocal referrals.
Partner-led works best when your solution complements an existing platform, requires specialised set-up or boosts a partner’s own service revenue. It can deliver large contracts with minimal acquisition spend, yet demands clear value exchange and patient relationship building.
Partners act as force-multipliers, inserting your product into conversations you would struggle to access. Their endorsement bypasses prospect scepticism and shortens due-diligence cycles.
Marketing budgets shift from paid ads to enablement collateral and joint events. A mature partner channel can scale revenue without equally scaling head-count.
Recruiting, onboarding and activating partners take months. Early revenue forecasts often slip while programmes, training and incentive structures mature.
Revenue splits reduce net ARR per deal, and customer experience sits partly outside your control. Misaligned incentives or inconsistent delivery can damage brand perception.
Begin with a channel lead who designs the programme, identifies target partner types and negotiates agreements. Add a partner success manager to run enablement sessions, co-marketing campaigns and quarterly business reviews. As the channel scales, assign a solutions engineer to support complex deployments and a partner marketing specialist to coordinate joint content.
Partner relationship management platforms such as PartnerStack or Allbound track deal registration and payouts. Enablement portals like Highspot centralise playbooks and certifications. Co-marketing relies on shared HubSpot landing pages, while Crossbeam maps overlapping accounts for attribution clarity.
Monitor partner-sourced pipeline, partner-sourced closed-won revenue and average time from referral to deal. Healthy channels show a rising percentage of total ARR from partners, deal cycles equal to or shorter than direct sales, and active partners hitting quarterly revenue targets.
Establish a small, high-quality pilot group first; refine incentives, onboarding and joint messaging before recruiting at scale. Once referral flow is predictable, partner-led can layer atop an outbound or PLG motion, giving you multiple engines that interlock rather than compete.
You now have a clear view of the four growth motions:
Each motion calls for a different team structure, tool stack and success metric. Trying to blend two from day one spreads focus thin and slows momentum; pick a single motion, work it until it turns a reliable profit, then decide whether layering on a second engine truly adds leverage.
Confirm your choice, share it with the wider team and lock it into your go-to-market plan. With the route to market set, you are ready for the next step: designing products, bundles and price points that fit the motion you have chosen.
Head to the next chapter below to turn strategy into offers customers cannot refuse.
Pick the right growth motion and you fund the channels that convert, hire the skills that matter and hit revenue targets sooner. Compare outbound, inbound, product and partner plays to choose with confidence.
Hitting sales targets feels impossible, because more traffic doesn’t work (anymore). Everyone’s busy, but you don’t know what’s working.
