How silos hinder organizational growth 

Today, many organizations struggle to grow. One of the main reasons for this are silos; teams or departments that operate independently of each other. Working in silos is detrimental on several levels: it hinders collaboration and knowledge sharing, impedes efficiency, increases competition between teams, and generally leads to missed opportunities and insights that could benefit the organization. How do you avoid silos and grow as one big team into the future? 

From silos to growth teams 

One way to break down silos within your organization is to establish growth teams. These teams take a structured, data-driven approach to driving business growth. More specifically, they: 

• identify growth obstacles; 
• devise growth opportunities;
• perform growth experiments; 
• analyze the results of their efforts; 
• iterate and scale successful tactics. 

To achieve the best possible results, a growth team brings together people with different areas of expertise. Common roles include: 

Growth lead: steers the team in the right direction, takes care of project and stakeholder management, and ensures everyone reaches their full potential. 

• Data analyst: analyzes all sorts of data to improve decision-making. 
• Technical marketeer: has extensive knowledge of tools and can use them efficiently. 
• Product expert: critically looks at the product and guides possible changes. 
• Content creator: specializes in creative copy and/or design. 

4 tips for building your growth team 

Building a growth team can quickly become complex. Here are 4 tips to get you started. 

 Tip #1: Break down silos in your organization 

In many companies, sales, marketing, and customer success teams operate on their own. This hinders productivity and growth. By fostering open communication and collaboration, teams can better leverage their resources and work toward a common goal. 

 Tip #2: Define your one metric that matters 

Avoid focusing on vanity metrics that lack meaningful impact. To establish clarity within your growth team, identify a single key metric that indicates success and ensure that everyone is aligned with it. 

 Tip #3: Experiment in a structured way 

In most companies, growth team members have other responsibilities. To avoid growth team burnout, prioritize structured experimentation. Limit the number of experiments you conduct at a time and allocate sufficient time to prepare, execute, and analyze new experiments. 

 Tip #4: Keep investing in your people 

Business growth goes hand in hand with people growth. Therefore, it’s crucial to continually invest in developing their skills and exploring innovations and industry trends. 

Our approach 

At Customer Collective, we help you grow your business in 5 simple steps: 

 Step #1: Assessment 

First, we perform an audit to get a clear picture of your business. This allows us to identify business challenges, gaps in your marketing stack, and potential growth opportunities. 

 Step #2: Team formation 

Then it’s time to assemble your growth team. Some roles may already be present in your company, others you will need to upskill or onboard. Another option is to engage an external growth squad. 

 Step #3: Workshop 

In a co-creation workshop, we identify your one metric that matters and devise tactics that contribute to it. By making people aware of what’s possible, we lay the groundwork for the first experiments. 

 Step #4: Structural experimentation 

We prioritize experiments and start implementing them step by step. During regular check-ins, we review your progress and look for further refinement opportunities. 

 Step #5: Reflection 

At the end of each sprint, we compile a detailed summary or ‘cookbook’. This allows us to evaluate your efforts and start iterating and scaling successful experiments.