From Growth Stagnation to Success

It's a situation every entrepreneur and sales team encounters sooner or later: growth stagnation. That phase where your company seems to stop growing and new customers fail to materialize. How can you keep making the same efforts, yet results keep declining? This moment probably feels immensely frustrating: your team works hard, your marketing budget is fully allocated, yet your growth curve is flattening.

Let me take you back to my first steps as an entrepreneur. Match-day started as a call center and has developed over almost 10 years into a B2B new business agency that helps acquire international A and B clients. This journey was not linear - filled with highs, deep lows, and crucial lessons.

Not a temporary bump: the harsh reality

It was a time of growth when I brought in clients from my warm network and through word of mouth. Those first three years were a fairy tale: I only had to make a phone call or meet someone, and deals closed themselves. The pipeline was full, money flowed, and it felt like we'd found the right formula.

But after three years came the inevitable hitch: few new customers, existing customer numbers declining, and worse - we'd invested heavily in office space and overhead. This was no temporary dip. This was a signal that our growth model had hit its ceiling.

The Valley of Death: the critical moment

Sparring with other entrepreneurs and looking for solutions, I came across Verne Harnish's insights from Scaling Up. He emphasizes that growth stagnation often correlates with revenue volume. This was a revelation.

Between a revenue peak where businesses flourish, and the so-called 'Valley of Death' are considerably more hurdles to overcome. The 'Valley of Death' represents the challenging transition phase where many companies stagnate or even fail due to lack of growth and new opportunities. This is the moment where companies stop growing, but also where entrepreneurs who dare to push through accelerate exponentially.

What this period taught me: there is no growth without conscious strategy. You cannot wait for customers to show up. You must actively, strategically and disciplinedly drive growth.

The saturated growth model: diagnosing

Brand awareness is crucial, especially when you depend on networking and word-of-mouth. In fact, every company, regardless of size, must ensure it's on the radar of their core target audience. I initially invested heavily in SEA and SEO. We saw website visitors increase significantly and forms were filled out regularly. Unfortunately, the volume was still too low for a real growth spurt.

The proof came when I entered my main keywords into Google. It was painfully clear why I had so few inbound leads. My competitors, with well-executed SEO and SEA, dominated the search results. Even when I was on the first page, I was drowning among all the other options. Conclusion: this was a challenge not just I had to tackle, but many entrepreneurs alongside me.

Flexible experimentation: the breakthrough

I realized that if the companies contacting me didn't match my ideal customers, I needed to reconsider my strategy. I started experimenting and testing what worked and what didn't. Experimenting means you're not afraid to fail. But you fail fast, learn fast, and adapt fast.

My first experiment was automation, both via LinkedIn and email automation. I loved that I had more control over who I could reach and didn't have to wait for them to contact me. The big disadvantage of automation is that you 'burn' enormous amounts of data. With a core target group of 1000 companies in the Netherlands, you've already touched them all once soon. This limitation forced me to think further.

From automation, we moved to <a href="/nl/wiki/account-based-marketing" class="text-[#4368b0] hover: text-[#ed6e1c] underline">account-based marketing</a>. This is a fundamentally different model: instead of lightly touching many companies, you focus deeply on your best-fit accounts. You select 50-100 target companies, you understand their business deeply, and you create a personalized approach for each.

Practice what you preach: results

The results didn't take long to appear. When that first dream client came in, it was a moment of genuine satisfaction. This wasn't just a lead that happened to arrive - this was an account we had deliberately identified, understood, and approached.

And when the second dream client followed, it felt like confirmation of the correctness of my strategy. This was no coincidence. This was the result of a fundamentally different approach. Slowly but surely, I started attracting more of these kinds of leads.

What this literally meant in my case was that I could also serve my customers much better. We specialized increasingly in B2B <a href="/nl/wiki/lead-generation" class="text-[#4368b0] hover: text-[#ed6e1c] underline">lead generation</a> and account-based marketing, no longer everything for everyone. Call center software was traded for a sales CRM. Consumer campaigns made way for international B2B-focused companies. My customer base started growing, and in the years that followed, Match-day has grown to a company with almost 60 employees.

The probable mistakes you must avoid

During my journey, I've seen many companies struggle with the same challenges. Here are the mistakes you must definitely avoid:

The three critical steps forward

Growth stagnation is your company trying to tell you something. Don't be deaf to it. Here are three things you need to do NOW:

Embrace change. Test new channels. Focus on your ideal customer. These are not suggestions - they are imperative steps before your growth model comes to a complete standstill.

Ready for your next growth phase?

The Valley of Death doesn't have to be the end. For Match-day, it was the beginning of true scale. We'd love to make the Valley of your company a springboard to your next growth phase.

Want to understand where your growth momentum is stuck? Book an appointment with Thijs and let us diagnose what your next step should be.