Stuck at the same turnover for three years? The 90-day marketing strategy to get you off the plateau

The short answer: when growth stalls, doing more marketing is rarely the answer. The way off the plateau is ninety days spent getting the foundations right: understanding where the real opportunity lies, getting clear about who you need to reach and why they should choose you, then building a marketing plan that consistently puts that message in front of the right people.

You built the business by being good at what you do. That might have got you to £1m, £2m or £3m. But what got you here won't necessarily get you to the next stage.

At some point, referrals, reputation and the MD driving sales can stop being enough. That's when marketing needs to become a proper business function rather than a collection of things you do when someone has the time.

Why good businesses need a marketing strategy to grow

When a business owner tells me they need more leads, I take that seriously. But I don't automatically assume lead generation is the problem.

First, I want to understand what is actually stopping the business growing.

• Are you targeting the right customers?

• Are you clear about the work you want more of?

• Can a prospective customer understand why they should choose you rather than the company down the road?

• Is the marketing you're already paying for doing its job?

• And are you making the best use of the people, reputation and opportunities you already have?

Sometimes the answer genuinely is that you need more leads.

Sometimes it isn't.

That's what the first ninety days are there to establish.

The 90-day path

• Days 1–30: work out where you really stand. I start by looking outwards: your market, competitors and, crucially, your customers. What do they actually value? Why do they choose you? Where are the opportunities? And where are you spending money without getting enough back?

  
  

• Days 31–60: decide where you're going to compete. This is where we get clear on your target audiences, positioning and the reasons someone should choose you. Not a clever strapline. A commercially useful position that gives the whole business clarity about who you're trying to win and what you need them to understand about you.

  
  

• Days 61–90: turn the strategy into something you can use. We build the communications plan and identify the Brilliant Basics that need to be put in place first. That might mean your website, Google Ads, email, sales materials, case studies, LinkedIn or something else entirely. The point is that we're no longer guessing. We know what we're trying to achieve, who we're trying to reach and why each piece of marketing is there.

  
  

At the end of ninety days, you have strong marketing foundations, a clear marketing strategy and plan and the tools to implement it consistently.

With us, with another agency, with individual specialists or eventually with your own marketing team.

What this looks like in real life

When I started working with CN Glass, Gary didn't simply want “more marketing”.

He wanted to change the shape of the business.

Around 70% of CN Glass's work was domestic. Gary could see a bigger opportunity in commercial glazing: larger projects, higher margins and more consistent revenue. His ambition was to turn the business from 70% domestic to 70% commercial.

So that became the commercial objective behind the marketing strategy.

In the first ninety days, I reviewed what CN Glass was already doing, researched the market and its competitors, interviewed key customers and worked out where the business genuinely stood out.

We got clear about its positioning and target audiences. We started reviewing the website messaging and advertising. And we brought in a new website partner who could improve the site and run the Google Ads needed to generate a more consistent flow of domestic enquiries.

There was an important reason for doing that.

Gary was a natural salesman. I didn't need marketing to replace him. I needed marketing to free him up.

If we could create a more consistent marketing engine for the domestic business, Gary could spend more of his time doing what he was particularly good at: developing the commercial relationships that would change the future of CN Glass.

The first ninety days didn't deliver the final result. They gave us the direction and foundations that made it possible.

Over the following 18 months, CN Glass achieved the shift Gary had set out to make: the business moved from around 70% domestic to around 70% commercial. Website leads quadrupled. Gary subsequently estimated that the business had generated ten times the cost of its marketing investment in orders. 

And over the four years we worked together, the business grew substantially before reaching the point where it made sense to take marketing in-house.

That's what the first ninety days are for. Not a marketing miracle. A clear commercial direction, a marketing strategy and strong enough foundations to build on for the next five years.

Where to start tonight

Not by deciding you need SEO, LinkedIn, Google Ads or a new website.

Start by working out what's actually holding the business back.

The Scorecard below takes two minutes and will help you identify what needs fixing first. Or book a call with me. There's no obligation, just a chat through where your challenges currently are.

Take the 2-minute Scorecard