When Growth Feels Like a Failure

He'd built the company from zero to $25M ARR. On paper, a success. But the founder wasn't looking at the paper. He was looking at the trend line.

17% growth.
Then 8%.
Then 1%.

His division leaders were fine with it. The company was profitable. Bonuses paid on time. Everyone was comfortable. Except him.

He'd had successful exits before. He was personally wealthy. He lived a comfortable life. But this company, the one he'd poured years into, was flatlining. And in his mind, that made him a failure. Not because of the money. Because of what it meant.

He had his eyes on another exit. And he knew the truth: 1% year-over-year growth and a thin profit margin wouldn't attract serious buyers. It wouldn't command the kind of sale price that would cement his legacy.

So he started looking at options:

Hire more salespeople
Replace the VP of Sales
Double the marketing budget
Try another coach

But something stopped him.

He knew that hiring more salespeople into the current system would just give him more of the same. And he knew that this was structural, something that coaching alone couldn't fix. What got him here, to $25M ARR, wasn't going to get him to the exit he wanted.

He needed a complete overhaul, a new strategic direction. He'd seen my work before. And he called.

The Real Problem Wasn't on the Org Chart

When I started digging, the division leaders had their explanations ready:

Sales: "Marketing leads are low quality, they puff their numbers"
Marketing: "Sales doesn't work the leads we send them."
Customer Success: "We're sick of having to hold everything together."
Some execs: "Maybe we've just hit our natural ceiling."

But the founder didn't buy it. He knew there was something deeper. And when I looked under the hood, I found it.

This wasn't a people problem. This was a revenue engine problem.

Sales and marketing were fighting each other, not the competition: No shared definitions. No collaboration. No feedback loops. Just blame when the numbers missed.
The sales process couldn't scale: Every rep had their own approach. Onboarding took 6+ months. What worked to get to $10M was breaking at $25M.
Customer success was drowning in manual work: They couldn't identify at-risk accounts before they churned. They couldn't spot expansion opportunities. They were just trying to keep up.
Nobody could answer basic questions: Which marketing campaigns actually drove revenue? What's the real win rate? Why are clients leaving? Leadership was flying blind.
Everyone optimized for their own metrics instead of the company goal: Sales wanted closed deals. Marketing wanted leads. Customer success wanted satisfaction scores. Nobody was optimizing for sustainable, predictable growth.

The old playbook (throw more budget at the problem) wouldn't fix this.

They didn't need more salespeople. They needed their revenue engine to actually work.

Building the Foundation (In Secret)

I met with the founder offsite. Multiple times. Just the two of us. We didn't rush to fix symptoms. I learned and then I built the strategy. But first I asked him: "Why does this matter so much?"

And that's when the truth came out. He'd built companies before. Had exits before. Was wealthy. Comfortable. But this company flatlining had him feeling like a failure.

Past success didn't erase it. This was the one eating at him. The unfinished business. I understood then. This wasn't about hitting a number. This was about proving, to himself, that he could still win. We documented the entire plan before announcing anything. Then I started working with the CMO.

The CMO Was Frustrated Too

She was running a strong demand generation engine. Campaigns were working. Leads were coming in.

But they weren't converting to growth.

When I got permission to work with her (while we were still building the strategy in the background) she was visibly, audibly excited.

Finally, someone saw what she'd been frustrated about. Finally, someone was doing something meaningful.

What I Built

1. Sales and Marketing Alignment

Created shared definitions of qualified leads and target accounts
Built feedback loops so sales could tell marketing what actually worked
Integrated systems so both teams saw the same real-time data
Implemented regular alignment meetings with shared KPIs

The shift: Teams stopped blaming each other and started collaborating.

2. A Repeatable, Scalable Sales Process

Documented the playbook: what works, what doesn't, how to qualify, how to close
Built AI-enhanced onboarding so new reps could ramp in weeks, not months
Created a library of winning messages and sequences
Established clear KPIs and coaching rhythms

The shift: Performance became predictable instead of rep-dependent.

3. Strategic Customer Success

Automated manual tasks so the team could focus on high-value work
Built retention analytics to catch at-risk accounts before churn
Created expansion playbooks to systematically grow existing clients
Aligned metrics with revenue goals, not just satisfaction scores

The shift: Customer retention improved and expansion revenue became a reliable growth driver.

4. Operational Efficiency

Eliminated approval bottlenecks and manual data entry
Built custom reports that answered leadership's real questions
Freed up 15+ hours per week per rep for actual client conversations

The shift: The team could scale without proportionally scaling headcount.

5. Cross-Team Accountability

Got everyone rowing in the same direction
Made data transparent so no one could hide behind excuses
Focused the entire revenue engine on sustainable, predictable growth

The shift: The company broke through the ceiling they thought was natural.

When We Rolled It Out to Sales

The sales team was excited. Visibly. Audibly.

Finally, someone had seen their frustrations and was doing something meaningful to address them.

Not another pep talk. Not another quota increase. Not another "just work harder."

Actual structural change that would make hard work pay off.

The Results

Year One:

Sales hit 132% of quota
Revenue up 37%
Customer retention up 50%
Operational costs down 17%

The Real Win:
The founder got what he needed. Not just the numbers — though those mattered.

He proved that 1% growth wasn't the company's natural ceiling. It was a system problem.

And once we fixed the system, the company became worth buying again. More importantly: he stopped feeling like a failure.

The Lesson

Most CEOs see a capacity problem. The best ones see a system problem first.

What got you here won't get you to your next level. When revenue growth stalls, the instinct is to hire more salespeople, spend more on marketing, replace the VP of Sales.

But if the underlying system is broken: if sales and marketing are fighting each other instead of the competition, if there's no repeatable process, if customer churn is preventable but you can't see it coming... More capacity just means more witnesses to the chaos.

Growth is more than just sales. It's the entire revenue engine: how sales, marketing, partnerships, and customer success work together to acquire, retain, and grow clients. When those systems are misaligned, you can throw all the budget you want at the problem.

You'll still be stuck at 1%.

If This Sounds Familiar

If revenue growth has stalled, if your teams are blaming each other instead of solving the problem, if you're a successful leader who's starting to wonder why this one thing won't break through:

You don't need more leads. You don't need to hire more salespeople yet. You need someone who can diagnose what's actually broken and build the revenue engine that gets you to the exit you want. Let's talk.