What's Slowing Your Growth?

Quiz Questions

• 1.
  When it comes to your growth strategy, how clear is it who your current approach is truly built for?

  • A.
    Very Clear - we've explicitly defined, prioritized, and pressure-tested who our strategy is built for as our customer base has evolved
  • B.
    Mostly clear - but we try to make our strategy work for a wide range of customers
  • C.
    Somewhat unclear - our strategy has evolved, but who it's built for hasn't been revisited recently
  • D.
    Unclear - we're not confident our strategy reflects who is actually buying today
• 2.
  How often do teams disagree about who the customer is when making growth decisions?

  • A.
    Rarely — teams are aligned on who we’re building for
  • B.
    Occasionally — alignment breaks down in certain situations
  • C.
    Frequently — different teams operate with different assumptions
  • D.
    Almost always — customer alignment is a recurring challenge
• 3.
  Which best describes how your strategy accounts for different customer needs, expectations, and contexts?

  • A.
    Our strategy is intentionally designed to reflect meaningful differences in customer needs, expectations, and contexts
  • B.
    We recognize differences, but address them inconsistently
  • C.
    We mostly assume one approach should work for everyone
  • D.
    We haven’t explicitly accounted for this yet
• 4.
  How consistent is the experience your brand delivers across channels and touchpoints?

  • A.
    Very consistent — customers get the same clarity and relevance everywhere
  • B.
    Mostly consistent — with some gaps across channels
  • C.
    Uneven — some teams or channels get it right, others don’t
  • D.
    Inconsistent — the experience varies significantly depending on where customers engage
• 5.
  How confident are you that your messaging resonates equally well with different customer segments?

  • A.
    Very confident — we test and refine based on real feedback
  • B.
    Somewhat confident — performance varies by audience
  • C.
    Not very confident — it works for some, falls flat for others
  • D.
    Unsure — we don’t have strong visibility into this
• 6.
  When campaigns or initiatives underperform, how easy is it to identify where friction occurred?

  • A.
    Very easy — we can pinpoint breakdowns quickly
  • B.
    Somewhat — but it often requires manual investigation
  • C.
    Difficult — we know something’s off, but not exactly where
  • D.
    Very difficult — we often learn about friction only after customers react or results are impacted
• 7.
  How clearly are key customer and experience decisions codified for teams to use consistently?

  • A.
    Very clearly — decisions are documented and actively used
  • B.
    Somewhat — guidance exists, but isn’t always applied
  • C.
    Minimally — teams interpret decisions on their own
  • D.
    Not at all — many choices are made ad hoc
• 8.
  Where does customer and cultural intelligence primarily live in your organization?

  • A.
    Embedded in systems, processes, and planning workflows
  • B.
    Shared across teams, but not systematized
  • C.
    Concentrated in certain individuals or agencies
  • D.
    Mostly external or informal
• 9.
  How dependent is consistent execution on specific people or teams?

  • A.
    Not dependent — systems support consistency
  • B.
    Somewhat — a few key players drive quality
  • C.
    Very dependent — outcomes vary by owner
  • D.
    D. Entirely — progress slows when people change

Quiz Outcomes

• 1.
  Strategy Friction

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  Specifically: gaps between who your strategy is built for — and who is actually coming to you for help, with different customers bringing distinct needs, wants, and expectations your current strategy doesn’t fully address.What this means:Your growth challenges aren’t about effort or ambition.They’re about fit.As your brand has evolved, the people coming to you have likely evolved too. But your growth strategy may still be optimized for a narrower version of your customer — one that no longer reflects the full reality of who is engaging with your brand today.When strategy is built for one dominant customer profile, it often struggles to convert, resonate, or scale once the makeup of your customers expands across identities, experiences, and expectations.Where this friction shows upStrategy friction rarely looks like failure.More often, it shows up as:campaigns that perform unevenly across audiencesmessaging that resonates with some customers but falls flat with otherscustomer acquisition that feels harder or more expensive than expectedlower retention among some customer segmentsgrowth initiatives that make sense internally, but don’t fully land externallyThese are often signs that varying customer needs, expectations, and decision drivers aren’t sufficiently shaping strategy.Why this matters before you scaleWhen this kind of friction isn’t addressed early, scaling tends to magnify it.Instead of momentum, you get:diminishing returns on marketing investmentmissed opportunities with key audiencesgrowing gaps between intent, experience, and impactBefore optimizing execution or systems, it’s critical to ensure your strategy is designed to support who your customers actually are today — not who it was originally built for.The right next stepBased on your result, the most important next step isn’t to optimize tactics — it’s to bring your strategy back into alignment with who your customers actually are today.That work starts with:Clarifying who your current growth strategy is truly built forDeveloping the customer intimacy needed to drive consistent conversionIdentifying where customer needs, expectations, and decision drivers aren’t fully accounted forRealigning priorities so growth efforts resonate more consistently and convert more effectivelyThis creates the foundation for stronger execution, more relevant customer experiences, and sustainable growth.If you want support doing this workIf you’d like help working through this with structure, focus, and a strategic outside perspective grounded in best practices and what’s working today, a Growth Roadmapping Session can help.The session uses a proven framework to:pressure-test who your strategy is truly built forsurface where customer needs and identities create frictionclarify where focus will unlock the most momentumIt’s not about changing everything.It’s about aligning your strategy to support the customers you’re actually serving — now and as you grow.
• 2.
  Execution Friction

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  Specifically: gaps between what your strategy intends — and how it’s actually experienced by different customers across channels and touchpoints.What this means Your strategy may be directionally sound.The friction isn’t in what you’re trying to do — it’s in how consistently and effectively it shows up in the real world.As organizations grow, execution friction often emerges when good intentions aren’t translated into experiences that account for how different customers actually engage, evaluate relevance, and build trust.In practice, this often looks like:products and offerings designed with a one-size-fits-all assumption that breaks down as customer identities, needs, and contexts varymessaging that sounds right internally, but lacks the customer intimacy, representation, or authenticity needed to truly landbrand stories that feel generic — or overcorrected — because cultural intelligence isn’t embedded into how messages are developed and reviewedinconsistencies across the experience — for example, strong resonance on social, but a very different (and less relevant) experience on the website or in productaccess and inclusion signals that exist, but are poorly placed or inconsistently delivered — for example, a Spanish-language experience technically available, but buried in a footer rather than integrated into the core journeyThe result is a brand that means one thing internally — but feels very different depending on who the customer is and how they encounter it.Why this matters as you scaleExecution friction doesn’t disappear with scale — it intensifies.As volume increases, small inconsistencies turn into systemic experience problems, leading to:rising acquisition costsuneven customer experiences and rates of customer successmissed opportunities to convert, retain, and build loyaltyEven strong strategies underperform when execution isn’t designed to support variation in customer expectations, needs, and lived contexts.The right next stepBased on your result, the most important next step isn’t adding more tactics — it’s understanding where execution is breaking down and why.That work starts with:examining how strategy is translated into real customer experiencesunderstanding how different types of customers experience your brand at key touchpoints — and whether that experience matches your intentidentifying where messaging, product delivery, or placement isn’t resonating with certain customer segmentspinpointing which touchpoints are creating friction, confusion, or drop-offThis clarity makes it possible to improve performance without guessing or overcorrecting.If you want support doing this workIf you’d like help working through this with structure, focus, and a strategic outside perspective, the Friction Finder Growth Audit can help.The audit is designed to help you see how your brand is actually experienced across key touchpoints, not just how it’s intended to show up.Using a structured evaluation approach, it helps:examine how strategy translates into real customer experiencesunderstand how different types of customers experience your brand at critical touchpoints — and where that experience breaks from intentsurface execution gaps related to messaging, product delivery, placement, and contextprioritize the friction points most likely to be affecting conversion, retention, and trustIt’s not about adding more tactics.It’s about making execution visible — so you can fix what actually matters.
• 3.
  Systems Friction

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  Specifically: gaps between how your organization operates — and what’s required to support consistent, relevant experiences as your customer base grows more complex.What this meansYou may have the right strategy.You may even see strong execution in pockets.But system friction emerges when internal systems aren’t designed to produce consistent results for every customer — especially as customer needs, identities, and contexts vary.In many organizations, this shows up when:key strategic choices haven’t been made, leaving execution open to interpretation rather than guidancecreative briefs, brand guidelines, and planning processes don’t account for customer variation, forcing teams to rely on personal judgment or past normscustomer intelligence and cultural intelligence exist, but aren’t embedded into the systems teams use every dayaccess to insight and expertise is uneven, concentrated with certain individuals, agencies, or consultants rather than operationalized across the organizationA common (and real-life) example:A brand hasn’t taken a clear position on using gender-neutral language. One agency applies it thoughtfully. Another doesn’t. Elsewhere, it’s avoided entirely. The result is inconsistency.Without explicit decisions and shared guidance, experiences vary not because teams disagree — but because the system never made the choice for them.Teams do their best.But when systems aren’t designed to support consistency, results depend on who’s involved — not on how the organization operates.Where this friction shows upSystem friction often looks like:recurring execution issues that resurface even after they’ve been “fixed”inconsistent customer experiences across teams, channels, or regionsteams relying on manual workarounds to maintain quality or relevancedecisions being independently at multiple touchpoints, instead of codified and scaledgrowth progress that feels fragile — dependent on people, not structureOver time, this friction becomes normalized — and invisible.Why this matters as you scaleSystem friction is what keeps strategy and execution misaligned even when everyone knows what needs to change.Without the right systems in place:progress stalls once attention shiftsinconsistency creeps back ingrowth relies on heroics instead of intentional designAs scale increases, these limitations compound — making growth harder, slower, and more expensive than it needs to be.The right next stepBased on your result, the most important next step is to design systems that make the right decisions repeatable.That work starts with:identifying where systems fail to capture meaningful customer differencescodifying key strategic and experience decisions so teams aren’t left guessingembedding customer and cultural intelligence into briefs, workflows, and measurementaligning ownership so consistency doesn’t depend on individualsThis is how organizations move from knowing what’s wrong to preventing it from recurring.If you want support doing this workIf you’d like help translating insight into durable systems, the Frictionless Growth Retainer can help.The retainer is designed for organizations that recognize recurring friction — but need support turning that insight into clear decisions, durable systems, and consistent execution.Together, we work to:operationalize strategic decisionsembed customer insight into how work actually gets doneremove friction progressively, not just identify itIt’s not about more tools.It’s about designing systems that make growth easier to sustain.