BUSINESS

CREATING A BUSINESS STRATEGY THAT

GROWTH
DIRECTLY IMPACTS BUSINESS GROWTH

IN 2020

WRITTEN BY

AMIT VYAS

A NEXA PUBLICATION
 NEXA  E-BOOK 4TH
SERIES EDITION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 02

TODAY' S CHALLENGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03

THE FUNNEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . .  05

THE RISE OF THE FLYWHEEL . . . . . . . . . . . 07

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

GROWING WITH LESS (THE RISE OF ABM) 12

CONCLUSION / ABOUT US . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  2   

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
IN 2020, WHAT WILL BE THE BIGGEST DRIVERS OF BUSINESS GROWTH?

With economists confident that we're Today’s customer is highly empowered, has
heading into another global recession, it's an abundance of information and knowledge
time for senior leadership teams to think at their fingertips, can understand intricacies
seriously about not just survival but what related to your products and services by
strategies can be employed that will help watching free online videos and has a entirely
their companies to grow and perhaps even different expectation in terms of how they
flourish, while their competitors flounder like to be communicated to.
and fall by the wayside.
The purpose of this E-Guide is to highlight
At the heart of any strategy must be the the needs of today’s customer, what impacts
customer. Make no mistake, customer their decision making and buying processes
focused companies will be those most likely and to help businesses find a better way of
to grow and increase market share even if reaching their target audiences.
sales and marketing budgets are reduced in
the process. This 4th Edition has been re-written and
includes references to some of the latest
The bottom line is that happy customers will sales and marketing data available.
bring you more happy customers, but don't
take them for granted. Amit Vyas
CEO, Nexa
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CHAPTER 2

TODAY'S CHALLENGES
FOR EVERY BUSINESS

Growing a business today is harder than it's Today's consumers are empowered and have
ever been and requires businesses to refocus the technology at their fingertips that allows
their attention on customers.  Businesses them to research virtually any buying decision
traditionally, that created a product or within a matter of seconds.  Gone are the days
provided a service have found that it's not as of someone walking into a showroom or office
easy to sell these products as it once was.  ready to be sold to by a salesperson.

While this presents a challenge, it's hugely 3:  Sales teams are not generating qualified
important to understand what factors are sales leads
driving this change.  Here are some of the When was the last time you made a purchase
main trends and issues that businesses face or investment on the back of receiving a cold
from a commercial perspective: sales call?  Chances are that if this ever indeed
happened, it would have been a long time ago.
1:  Increased Competition
Even during weaker market conditions, it’s The reality is that cold calls are becoming less
likely that the number of competitors for and less effective with brand perception
your company is on the increase and if you actually being negative towards those that
are an established business you may face continue to cold call potential customers.
pressure from clients in terms of price and
higher expectations. Generating sales leads are also becoming less
of a sales person's task and more of a
2:  Customers are changing the way they marketing team's role.  Today's customers
now buy products / services spend vast amounts of time researching
In 2011, Google published is research study products or services online, so those
called "Zero Moment of Truth" that found businesses who educate their audience and
that 70% of a purchasers buying decision is help the research, are positioned to do better.
made BEFORE they speak to a sales person.
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TODAY'S CHALLENGES
CONTINUED

4: Buyers don't actually need salespeople process who offers a consultative approach so
anymore that the needs of the buyer are clearly
Business decision makers, like all consumers, understood.
have come to expect a wealth of information
available on the products or services they are 5:  Marketing budgets are being diluted as the
researching or planning to buy. number of marketing opportunities increases
The number of online marketing opportunities
A simple Google search from their continues to increase inline with innovation
smartphone during or immediately after a advancement and publisher created marketing
business meeting could be the first step in channels in the content driven world that we
exploring options for their needs.  The operate in.  Despite this, in most firms,
question for most organisations is whether advertising budgets remain constant and in
they are actually being found when those hot weaker economies, are even declining.  
prospects are searching for answers and
resources on a particular topic related to This presents a clear problem for marketers. 
their industry. Do they focus on specific channels and maybe
reduce experimentation or dilute their budget
The need for a salesperson has become across multiple channels to widen reach and
almost non-existent until it’s time to “close audience engagement opportunities. 
the deal".  Many buyers even view Whichever route is selected, there are
salespeople as simply price negotiators or a opportunities that are going to be missed.  
dreaded step they have to go through to get
a quote or proposal.   While it's unfair to expect large increases in
marketing budgets, businesses need to focus
Buyers also typically prefer to deal with a on integrating their marketing efforts for
consultant or expert during the sales  maximum gain - even when budgets are tight.

Google is responsible for 94% of total organic traffic. (Web 75% of companies say closing more deals is their top sales
Presence Solutions, 2017) priority. (HubSpot, 2018)

Only 29% of people want to talk to a salesperson to learn 40% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is
more about a product, while 62% will consult a search engine. getting harder. (HubSpot, 2018)
(HubSpot, 2016)
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  5   

CHAPTER 3

THE FUNNEL
SALES & MARKETING FUNNELS ARE VERY DIFFERENT TODAY

The way in which customer empowerment The issue with the approach was that
has increased has had an impact on how everything was based on timing (and luck).  
organisations manage their sales processes.
The timing of that call as well as the timing of
A good example of this is how Sales & that sales meeting would fundamentally
Marketing  Funnels have changed during the dictate whether a particular sales activity
internet era. would be successful or not.  

As customers have become more educated

and utilisation of the research tools around
them has increased, there has been a huge
shift in how the Funnel looks today.

Traditionally, it was the duty of sales teams,

especially in the B2B arena to both generate
interest in a product or service as well as
close that business when the opportunity
arrived.  This required the sales teams to
make countless sales calls and attend
numerous sales meetings.

Source: Davies BDM

 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  6   

THE FUNNEL
CONTINUED

The Self Educating Buyer's Realm High Quality Content to Support Sales
The Top of the Funnel's stages has If we assume that potential customers turn to
witnessed the main shift between the search engines or other online resources
traditional model and what most during the initial self-educating sales period,
organisations find today. we need to understand what type of content
that person is searching for and balance this
As we have already seen, customers today with the type of content that will show up in
will spend countless hours researching Google. 
products, services and companies BEFORE
reaching out to a potential provider.  It's at As the leading search engine, Google has a
this stage that the first shortlist of potential clear focus on providing those typing
services providers is produced - without any questions into its system with a page full of
involvement or communication with them. the best possible answers.  Google, in many
respects today, is as much an 'answers-
Therefore, organisations need to ensure that engine' as it is a search engine.
they have the following aspects in order to
ensure that they are a part of this process: It's therefore important to understand the
types of questions your potential customers
- Online visibility (through search engines) are asking and create content that answers
- A good quality website that has a capability each of these.  This is a tried and tested
of generating sales leads method that is employed not only by Nexa,
- High quality content that actually helps the but countless others across the world.
prospect during the research stages and helps
to identify you as a trusted partner for them
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CHAPTER 4

THE RISE OF THE FLYWHEEL

DOES THE SALES & MARKETING FUNNEL TELL US THE FULL STORY?

As we have seen, the modern sales and Here are some of the key findings:
marketing funnel raises a number of
questions for businesses that are targeting Customer impatience is growing:  82% of
new customers in the digital era.  Alongside a consumers expect a response within 10
willingness to adapt to the changing needs of minutes for any sales or marketing related
customers, successful businesses also need a question.
fuller understand how existing customers Customers want contract flexibility:  89% of
impact business growth.  In 2018, HubSpot consumers are more likely to buy a product or
conducted a market research study to service if it is easy to cancel the contract.
identify the real impact of this. Customers expect simplicity:  69% of
consumers will not purchase a product or
The study asked participants a number of
service if they don't understand the pricing
questions related to the sales and marketing
model.
processes, how these impact the relationship
Customers want transparency:  75% of
between buyers and service / product
consumers are likely to look for an alternative
providers and the impact of this on sales and
product or service provider if your website
business growth as well as loyalty.
doesn't contain prices.
Customers are forgiving: 96% of customers
would continue to buy from a provider if they
made a mistake but then apologised and made
it right.

Source: HubSpot Inbound Conference 2018

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THE FLYWHEEL & BUSINESS GROWTH

CONTINUED
And all the momentum you built acquiring that
We Live in a Customer-First World
customer? Gone. Each day, each month, and each
Customers today want to be treated with
quarter, we have to start new.  This isn’t just
respect, don't want to be sold at and want total
inefficient, it’s a major problem. Ignoring how
control of their relationships with service or
customers can help you grow is perilous in
product providers.
today’s world.

This isn't new but in the sales and marketing

Word of mouth has always been fundamental to
world, it's a key point to not only understand
great marketing, but look at the world we live in
but to craft meaningful strategies around in
today. Trust is at an all time low, it’s harder to get
order to maximise the impact of the
distribution on Google and Facebook, and
opportunities presented by this, especially if
prospects are doing far more independent
your industry (and competitors) take a more
research than they ever have. With word of
traditional approach when it comes to customer
mouth being so crucial, losing the momentum you
relationships.  According to HubSpot and their
generate in creating a new customer is a real drag
research, businesses with real growth ambitions
on your growth.
need to focus on aligning the following:
Whereas funnels lose their momentum at the
Sales bottom, flywheels leverage their momentum to
Marketing keep spinning. Also, because they preserve
momentum so well, all of the additional energy
Service you add to spin it faster adds to the capacity of
(with customers at the centre) the whole.  Since you’re applying all sorts of force
all around your flywheel, ensure that none of
The Flywheel in Practice your investments oppose each other. A lack of
The flywheel approach to customer centricity alignment between sales and customer success,
and business growth needs to be understood in for instance, can create unhappy customers and
order to apply its function within your business. slow your flywheel when they churn. Classic sales
and marketing misalignment is another area
What is a Flywheel? where the flywheel can slow. Alignment is crucial.
Invented by James Watt, a flywheel is simple a
wheel or disc on an axis, that’s incredibly You can reduce friction by finding the
energy-efficient. The amount of energy it stores inefficiencies where your customers are losing
depends on how fast you spin it, how much momentum, and making them better. Improving
friction there is, and the composition of the conversion rates, delighting customers at scale,
wheel itself -- how big it is and how much it and addressing issues that cause you to churn
weighs. Flywheels are used in cars, trains and customers increase the speed of your flywheel.
power plants. The other crucial area to consider when thinking
about friction is how your teams are organised.
Flywheels represent a circular process where Silos, handoffs, and specialisation all create
customers feed growth.  During growth mode, friction.
businesses tend to invest more in customer
marketing, rather than in customer advocacy or As you successfully increase speed and decrease
creating delightful onboarding for new friction, you will create more delighted
customers.   The Flywheel approach suggests customers. More delighted customers means a
that equal weight, whether via investment or “heavier” wheel, and one that produces more
just attention, must be afforded to each part of energy when spun. Said another way, your
it.  The Flywheel also fixes some of the flywheel produces more growth as your customer
deficiencies with the funnel, specifically relating count increases. If you can add “density” to those
to business growth.  Funnels produce customers, by getting them to adopt more of your
customers, but don’t consider how those products or be more “sticky,” even more
customers can help you grow. momentum and growth can be achieved.
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THE FLYWHEEL & BUSINESS GROWTH

CONTINUED

The Funnel Broken Down:

Delight
Customers: Tie your success to your customers’. Shift
Businesses grow when customers succeed resources to be more effectively distributed
and are delighted with the quality of service throughout the entire customer experience.
or product provided. It’s as simple as that. If
every team inside your organisation isn’t Flywheel Implementation Tips:
aligned and working to minimise friction for
your customers, the whole company loses 1 - Identify Friction
momentum. Which areas of your business create the
largest amounts of customer friction. 
Identify these first.

2 - Measure Satisfaction
Use tools such as Net Promotor Score and
Customer Satisfaction Surveys to
understanding how your business performs
operationally, how likely your customers are
to recommend you to others and, which areas
of the business need improvement to reduce
Attract
friction.
Earn your people's attention, don't force it.
Attract visitors with useful content and
3 - Use Automation
eliminate barriers as they try to learn about
Automation can be used both internally and
your company.
for customer-facing tasks.  Identify
repeatable tasks and use automation to drive
internal and client efficiencies.

4 - Re-Align Goals
Incentivise internal teams to reduce friction
for clients and base goals on customer
retention and growth

Engage
Open relationships, don't just close deals.
Enable buyers to engage with you on their
preferred timeline and channels. Tie sales
incentives to customer success not just close
rate. Ref: Hubspot Blog Flywheel 2018
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  10   

CHAPTER 5

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
TO YOUR CURRENT MARKETING, SERVICE & SALES STRATEGIES

From our experience at Nexa working with a The Need for More Data
variety of businesses in industries ranging Most businesses are now used to looking at
from oil and gas to recruitment, automobile digital data provided from tools such as
and wealth management (and everything in Google Analytics or social media reporting
between), it's become apparent that there tools and while this helps to set benchmarks
are some common missing components in and provide insights related to sales
most companies' marketing, sales and service performance, there are limitations to this
strategies.  when correlating these numbers to actual
business growth.
These include:
- Failing to identify what the ideal customer Business also need a combination of other
profile looks like and how these types of types of data:
customers can be found.
- Understanding the difference between a - Sales Leads Generated by Channel
Marketing Qualified Lead and a Sales - Quality of Sales Leads Generated
Qualified Lead - Customer Net Promotor Scores
- Lack of Lead Generation strategies outside - Customer Satisfaction Data
of traditional advertising, Email Campaigns, - Customer Response Data - how fast are
Google Ads or Trade Shows your team at reacting to a customer
- Lack of understanding / data related to request?
customer satisfaction and loyalty
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  11   

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
CONTINUED

KPIs or Goals That Impact All Teams

If your business is growth focused in 2020,

it's vital that all aspects of your organisation
are aligned to this and have a clear
understanding that real growth is impacted
by customer satisfaction and referrals
combined with effective sales and marketing
- and not just reliant on the latter two
departments.

True success within an organisation can be

achieved when key departments collaborate
and work towards clear organisational goals.  

This is no different for your Sales,

Operational and Marketing teams.  If these
teams work together and are incentivised to
do so, the impact for your business will
undoubtedly be positive.
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  12   

CHAPTER 6

GROWING WITH LESS

DECLINING BUDGETS DO NOT HAVE TO MEAN LESS OPPORTUNITY

Over the last decade or so, the increase in Digital advertising is increasing in cost
marketing channels have made it easier than This reality is this. As more and more
ever for businesses to market their products businesses advertise online, the costlier it
or services. The ability to reach target gets. For the likes of Google and Facebook,
audiences is also much more accessible with this business model fuels their growth but for
data-driven advertising solutions provided advertisers, it typically means that month on
by companies such as Google, Facebook (& month, more money will need to be invested in
Instagram), LinkedIn and more. With this, it's order to maintain marketing results.
possible today, for businesses of any size to
run advertising campaigns using these digital Time for another option?
channels. As technology advances, new opportunities
are created. While Google, Facebook or
But businesses need to be cautious LinkedIn offer isolated or siloed marketing
The internet is a busy place and with cost opportunities some of the newest and best
effective marketing solutions available to marketing tactics combines technology, data
every business, it's becoming increasingly and content in order to provide a highly cost
difficult for a company to stand out from the effective and impactful opportunity for
crowd. Coupled with this, the advertising businesses.
channels mentioned above work on a auction
or demand based pricing model, where the Enter Account Based Marketing (ABM).
higher the demand for a specific advertising
slot, the more costly the advertising
becomes.
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  13   

GROWING WITH LESS

CONTINUED

Account Based Marketing (ABM) is the creation and publishing of high-quality,

described as the fastest, most cost effective informative and helpful content
way for B2B businesses to generate leads. A the ability to track views, visits and engagement
clearer definition though could be this: on a personal / company-wide level
the ability to automate further rounds of
ABM, is a targeted approach to B2B marketing -- engagement based on the actions / responses /
one that involves honing in on key accounts, results of previous communication
creating hyper-targeted content and campaigns, the ability to personalise all communication
and delivering a personalised experience to the
companies that matter most. Marketing technology leader, Jon Miller described
ABM as "marketing with a spear and not a net". 
ABM could be seen as a hybrid approach to
Inbound and Outbound marketing - and This analogy not only suggests that the ABM
whether that's 100% accurate or not, there's approach focuses on very specific audiences, but
a justification to this. also suggests that this may be a more cost
effective way to market a product or service.
ABM takes the best parts of traditional
outbound sales which include the ability to: Having run a number of ABM campaigns for a
identify specific target audiences or key diverse range of clients, we've found that not only
people. is ABM a much more cost effective fork of
reach these audiences (typically via marketing, but it's also faster. Much faster.
telephone but also via email as well).
tailor a elevator pitch that attempts to
relate to that person.
generate an outcome from this activity
(face to face meeting or follow up call)

ABM also takes some of the best parts of

both the inbound philosophy and marketing
automation software tools such as:
 BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2020  |  14  

ABOUT US
About the Author About Nexa
Amit Vyas is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nexa, a As one of the largest fully-independent Digital
digital marketing agency that was launched in Marketing Agencies in the UAE, Nexa has provided a
Dubai in 2005. vast array of services to over 1,000 clients in the
region since 2005.  
With close to a decade of experience within Digital
Marketing, Amit has seen first hand, the dynamic Nexa is HubSpot's only Platinum Partner Agency for
environment with which businesses now have to the GCC region.
operate in order to achieve growth and to succeed.
Services Include:
Amit has worked with hundreds of businesses in Growth Marketing Consultancy
the Middle East from startups to large Performance Marketing, Lead Generation & CRM
multinational clients during his time at Nexa and Digital Strategy
previously, in the UK.  He can be found at Social Media Strategy & Management
international conferences and has spoken at Inbound and Content Marketing
marketing events in the USA (SXSW and Content Website Design & Development
Marketing Conference), Australia (ANZMAC), Content Creation including high-quality Video and
India (Content Marketing Summit at the world Audio Production
Marketing Congress) as well as countless others in Workshops: Sales Enablement & Inbound Marketing
Europe and the UAE.
Our Clients Include:
Microsoft
Bosch
Ferrari
Intel
Gulf Craft Super Yachts
Hilton Worldwide
Wyndham
Audi
Invisalign

We can help
As a fully independent growth marketing agency, we continuously challenge traditional
‘marketing norms’ by offering digital marketing and technology to our clients that helps them to
achieve improved business results and performance.  Our independent status allows us to
proactively work with our clients as a trusted partner without the need or objectives to pitch
products and services based on internal KPIs or other non-client-friendly metrics.  This also
allows us to dynamically craft cutting edge strategies tailor-made for each client based on their
overall business goals and objectives integrating a range of digital marketing tools and channels,
which is proven to deliver the best results for a client.  

The quality of our work and the results generated has also resulted in us gaining important
industry recognition by winning the 'Best Integrated Campaign' award at both the 2017 and
2018 MENA Search Awards - the highest profile search marketing awards.  Our ability to drive
growth for clients in multiple industry sectors using integrated digital marketing channels is
unmatched with a track record spanning over a decade.

Nexa’s offices in Dubai, New York and Manchester (England) and our in-house team of experts
provide a comprehensive portfolio of services focused on Growth Marketing and Digital
Transformation including Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation, Sales Enablement and
Service Measurement.
A NEXA PUBLICATION