Key Takeaways
1. Customer-Led Growth: The Key to Sustainable Success in SaaS
The information you actually need to fix inconsistent, unpredictable growth is found in one place: inside your best customers' heads.
Shift from guesswork to insight. Traditional marketing approaches often rely on tactics and experiments without truly understanding customer needs. Customer-Led Growth focuses on uncovering deep insights about your best customers' experiences, motivations, and desired outcomes. This approach allows you to:
- Identify what life was like for customers before using your solution
- Understand what triggered their search for a new solution
- Discover why they chose your product over alternatives
- Learn how they've grown and changed as your customer
By gaining these insights, you can build a marketing strategy that resonates with the right customers, leading to more consistent and predictable growth. This approach has helped companies like Unbounce increase revenue by nearly 900% in just two years, without relying on paid acquisition channels.
2. Uncover Your Customers' Jobs-to-be-Done for Targeted Marketing
Jobs-to-be-Done: The struggle… That motivated customers… To seek a desired outcome.
Identify customer motivations. The Jobs-to-be-Done framework helps you understand the underlying reasons why customers "hire" your product. To uncover these Jobs:
- Identify struggles, motivations, and desired outcomes in customer responses
- Look for common themes across responses
- Define the top few Jobs customers hire your solution for
- Pick one Job to prioritize
For example, Alistair, a marketing tool for small businesses, identified two distinct Jobs:
- The need to increase marketing presence
- The need to save time and automate
By focusing on the "save time and automate" Job, Alistair was able to:
- Increase trial signups by 89%
- Boost trial-to-paid conversion rate by 40%
Understanding your customers' Jobs allows you to tailor your messaging, product features, and marketing strategies to address their specific needs and pain points.
3. Map the Customer Experience to Identify Growth Opportunities
A common "aha" moment for CLG Teams in the mapping process is "Oh, shit, we haven't been doing X," which quickly turns into, "Oh, shit, look at all the amazing opportunities we have to do X, Y, Z, and more."
Visualize customer journey. Creating a Customer Experience (CX) map helps you understand your customers' journey from their perspective, rather than focusing solely on business metrics. To create a CX map:
- Break down the customer experience into three phases:
- Struggle
- Evaluation
- Growth
- For each phase, identify what customers are:
- Thinking
- Doing
- Feeling
- Define milestones within each phase
This process allows you to:
- Identify gaps in your current customer experience
- Uncover opportunities for improvement
- Align your team around a shared understanding of the customer journey
By mapping the customer experience, companies like Unbounce were able to identify key value moments and optimize their strategies, leading to significant revenue growth.
4. Define Customer-Led KPIs to Measure What Really Matters
When you improve the right leading indicator metrics, your lagging indicator metrics improve as a result.
Focus on actionable metrics. Traditional business metrics often fail to capture customer value or provide actionable insights. Customer-Led KPIs focus on measuring customer success at each milestone of their journey. To define these KPIs:
- Identify customer actions that indicate progress at each milestone
- Ensure KPIs are trackable and represent customer value
- Focus on leading indicators rather than lagging indicators
Examples of customer-led KPIs:
- Struggle phase: New unique website visits
- Evaluation phase: Key feature usage (e.g., "10+ searches and 2+ lists created and 1+ exports generated")
- Growth phase: Monthly key feature usage + upgrade/review/referral
By measuring these customer-centric KPIs, you can:
- Track customer success more accurately
- Identify areas for improvement in your product or marketing
- Align your team's efforts with customer value creation
Companies like SparkToro have used this approach to double their free-to-paid conversions in just two months.
5. Bridge Success Gaps to Improve Customer Experience and Revenue
Where there is customer value to add, there is revenue to gain.
Prioritize customer success. Success gaps are disconnects between what your ideal customers need and what your current experience provides. To bridge these gaps:
- Identify success gaps by walking through your CX map as an ideal customer
- Choose one success gap to focus on, based on potential impact and feasibility
- Develop specific projects to bridge the gap (e.g., in-app checklists, email onboarding series)
- Measure impact using your customer-led KPIs
Examples of success gap bridging:
- SparkToro: Doubled free-to-paid conversions with an in-app checklist and onboarding email series
- CareerCake: Reduced lead-to-sales call time from one month to three days by revising nurture program messaging
- Life Lapse: Increased website visitor-to-user conversion by 93% by rewriting homepage copy
By systematically identifying and bridging success gaps, you can continually improve your customer experience and drive revenue growth.
6. Implement Cross-Functional Teams for Effective Customer-Led Growth
Getting out will require a shift in how you operate—but ultimately, it will relieve the time and energy burden by giving your team clear direction.
Foster collaboration. Implementing Customer-Led Growth requires buy-in and alignment across the organization. Create a cross-functional team to:
- Leverage existing knowledge from various departments
- Increase investment in the project's success
- Reduce duplicate work and break down silos
Key roles in a Customer-Led Growth team:
- Primary Stakeholder: High-level decision-maker (e.g., CEO, COO)
- Champion: Leader of a customer-facing department
- Contributors/Secondary Stakeholders: Department heads with a stake in the outcomes
- Facilitator (optional): Internal or external advisor to guide the process
By involving team members from different departments, you ensure a comprehensive understanding of the customer experience and increase the likelihood of successful implementation.
7. Integrate and Iterate Customer-Led Practices for Long-Term Success
Imagine what you could do if, every month or quarter, you bridged a new success gap and improved performance against another KPI.
Embed customer focus. To make Customer-Led Growth a permanent part of your organization:
- Regularly update your customer research to stay current with evolving needs
- Conduct periodic CX health checks to identify new success gaps
- Continuously iterate on your CX map and KPIs
- Foster a culture of customer-centricity across all departments
Best practices for integration:
- Schedule recurring customer research sessions (e.g., quarterly or bi-annually)
- Create dashboards to track customer-led KPIs
- Implement a system for collecting and acting on customer feedback
- Encourage cross-functional collaboration on customer-centric initiatives
By consistently applying and refining customer-led practices, you can create a virtuous cycle of improvement, leading to sustained growth and customer satisfaction.
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FAQ
What's "Forget the Funnel" about?
- Customer-Led Growth Approach: "Forget the Funnel" by Georgiana Laudi and Claire Suellentrop introduces a customer-led approach to driving predictable, recurring revenue, especially for SaaS companies.
- Beyond Traditional Funnels: The book challenges the traditional marketing funnel model, emphasizing the importance of understanding and mapping the entire customer journey.
- Practical Framework: It provides a step-by-step framework for businesses to align their strategies with customer needs, ensuring long-term growth and customer satisfaction.
- Real-Life Examples: The authors include numerous case studies and examples to illustrate how companies can implement these strategies effectively.
Why should I read "Forget the Funnel"?
- High ROI Insights: The book offers practical, actionable insights that promise a high return on investment by focusing on customer value.
- Comprehensive Guide: It serves as a comprehensive guide for building a growth strategy that connects strategy with daily operations.
- Proven Framework: The Customer-Led Growth Framework has been tested and proven with various SaaS companies, making it a reliable resource.
- Empowers Teams: It empowers marketing and product teams to make informed decisions based on customer insights, leading to more predictable growth.
What are the key takeaways of "Forget the Funnel"?
- Customer-Centric Focus: Shift from a business-centric to a customer-centric approach to understand and meet customer needs effectively.
- Mapping Customer Experience: Learn to map the customer journey in phases—Struggle, Evaluation, and Growth—to identify key milestones and success gaps.
- Defining KPIs: Establish customer-led KPIs that measure customer success and align team efforts with customer value.
- Operationalizing Insights: Use customer insights to bridge success gaps and drive sustainable growth through targeted strategies.
How does the Customer-Led Growth Framework work?
- Three Phases: The framework consists of three phases: Getting Inside Your Customers’ Heads, Mapping Your Customers’ Experience, and Operationalizing Your Customer Insights.
- Customer Research: It starts with in-depth customer research to understand their struggles, motivations, and desired outcomes.
- Experience Mapping: The next step involves mapping the customer journey to identify key milestones and potential success gaps.
- Actionable Strategies: Finally, it focuses on implementing strategies to bridge these gaps and measure success through customer-led KPIs.
What are the best quotes from "Forget the Funnel" and what do they mean?
- Rand Fishkin's Praise: "My team paid tens of thousands of dollars to work with Claire and Gia, and we earned every dollar back tenfold." This highlights the value and effectiveness of the authors' approach.
- April Dunford's Insight: "‘Talk to your customers’ is problematic advice coming from most people. Not Gia and Claire." This emphasizes the authors' unique and systematic approach to customer research.
- Chris Lema's Endorsement: "This is the new gold standard, and the questions in chapter three will be memorized by product and product marketing teams from now on." It underscores the practical and impactful nature of the book's content.
- Emily Kramer's Advice: "Great marketing starts with knowing your customer." This quote encapsulates the book's core message of customer-centric marketing.
How does "Forget the Funnel" redefine traditional marketing concepts?
- Beyond Funnels: The book argues that traditional marketing funnels are inadequate for recurring revenue models like SaaS, as they focus only on initial customer acquisition.
- Customer Journey Focus: It emphasizes mapping the entire customer journey, including post-purchase phases, to ensure ongoing customer satisfaction and retention.
- Value Moments: The authors introduce the concept of value moments, where the focus is on delivering customer value rather than just achieving business-centric metrics.
- Iterative Process: The framework encourages continuous learning and adaptation based on customer feedback and evolving needs.
What is the significance of customer research in "Forget the Funnel"?
- Foundation of Strategy: Customer research is the foundation of the Customer-Led Growth Framework, providing insights into customer needs and behaviors.
- Understanding Motivations: It helps businesses understand the motivations and desired outcomes of their best customers, leading to more effective marketing strategies.
- Identifying Success Gaps: Research identifies success gaps in the customer journey, allowing companies to address these areas and improve customer satisfaction.
- Informed Decision-Making: By basing decisions on real customer data, businesses can reduce guesswork and implement strategies that resonate with their target audience.
How can businesses map their customers' experience according to "Forget the Funnel"?
- Three Phases: The customer experience is mapped into three phases: Struggle, Evaluation, and Growth, each with specific milestones.
- Thinking, Doing, Feeling: For each phase, businesses should identify what customers are thinking, doing, and feeling to understand their journey better.
- Milestones and KPIs: Define milestones within each phase and establish KPIs that measure customer success and progress.
- Iterative Improvement: Use the map to identify areas for improvement and continuously refine the customer experience based on feedback and insights.
What role do KPIs play in the Customer-Led Growth Framework?
- Customer-Centric Metrics: KPIs are designed to measure customer success rather than just business outcomes, ensuring alignment with customer needs.
- Leading Indicators: Focus on leading indicators that are actionable and can drive improvements in customer experience and satisfaction.
- Tracking Progress: KPIs help track progress across different phases of the customer journey, providing insights into areas that need attention.
- Driving Growth: By aligning KPIs with customer value, businesses can drive sustainable growth and improve customer retention.
How can businesses operationalize customer insights from "Forget the Funnel"?
- Bridging Success Gaps: Identify and address success gaps in the customer journey to enhance the overall experience and drive growth.
- Cross-Functional Teams: Involve cross-functional teams in implementing customer-led strategies to ensure alignment and collaboration.
- Continuous Improvement: Use customer insights to continuously refine and improve marketing, product, and sales strategies.
- Measuring Impact: Regularly measure the impact of changes using customer-led KPIs to ensure strategies are effective and aligned with customer needs.
How does "Forget the Funnel" help in building a customer-led team?
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: The book emphasizes the importance of building a cross-functional team with buy-in from multiple departments.
- Roles and Responsibilities: It outlines specific roles such as Champion, Primary Stakeholder, and Contributors to ensure accountability and collaboration.
- Overcoming Resistance: Provides strategies to overcome resistance to customer research and cross-functional teamwork.
- Empowering Teams: By aligning team efforts with customer value, it empowers teams to make informed decisions and drive growth.
What are some real-life examples of companies using the Customer-Led Growth Framework?
- Autobooks: By focusing on customer insights, Autobooks increased their sign-up rate by 64% and ongoing product usage by 300%.
- SparkToro: Implemented an in-app checklist and onboarding email series, doubling their free-to-paid conversions.
- Life Lapse: Rewrote their homepage to align with customer insights, resulting in a 93% increase in website visitor conversions.
- HiringBranch: Updated messaging and offered a free trial, leading to qualified inbound leads from multimillion-dollar prospects.
Review Summary
Forget the Funnel receives mostly positive reviews, praised for its concise, practical approach to SaaS marketing. Readers appreciate its focus on customer-led growth, actionable advice, and tactical insights. The book is valued for its short length and emphasis on understanding customer needs. Some criticisms include lack of depth and relevance for non-SaaS businesses. Overall, it's recommended for marketers, founders, and product managers seeking a customer-centric approach to growth, though a few readers found it basic or unoriginal.
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