Growth isn’t luck. It’s a system. But not every system belongs at every stage. What helps a $10K-a-month studio get consistent will suffocate a $150K-a-month firm with meetings and dashboards. The smartest founders install just enough structure for the season they’re in and nothing more.
Below is a practical guide to which frameworks to use as you climb, what to ignore for now, and how to make the next 90 days count.
$0–$5K/month — Prove Demand, Then Systematize the Win
This is the “talk to humans” stage. You don’t need a full tech stack; you need clarity and speed. Start with StoryBrand to sharpen your one-liner and landing page. Layer in Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) interviews with real prospects: “What was happening that made solving this urgent?” Borrow their words for your headlines. Choose a simple growth model—AARRR* is plenty—and circle the very first “A”: Acquisition. Pick one channel where your ideal buyer already hangs out, and commit to it for 90 days.
Your North Star is not followers or impressions; it’s conversations that move toward a sale; think discovery calls booked, trial sessions scheduled, consult forms completed. Track only three supporting numbers: weekly outreach, weekly responses, and weekly meetings. Run one tiny experiment a week (subject line, offer hook, call-to-action) and log what you learn. That’s your CRO (conversion rate optimization) loop in miniature.
What to ignore: brand architecture rabbit holes, sophisticated automation, and multi-platform content plans. One audience, one offer, one channel. Get bored and keep going.
90-day focus: Clarity → Test → Tighten. Publish one high-signal landing page, drive conversations to it, and close the loop with a simple follow-up script.
*Acquisition, activation, revenue, retention, referrals.
$5K–$25K/month — From Random Acts to Repeatable Flow
You’ve proven people will pay. Now you need consistency without burning out. Keep StoryBrand, but add simple offer architecture: core offer, a paid diagnostic up front, and one logical upsell or add-on. This raises average contract value without feeling “salesy.”
Switch your growth view from “spray and pray” to an AARRR scoreboard: where are leads leaking—awareness, activation, or retention? Fix one stage per month. To beat thrash, use RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) scoring on your idea backlog. Suddenly, “Should we launch a webinar or redo pricing?” has a neutral referee.
Pick a single North Star Metric everyone can remember. For service businesses, “qualified discovery calls per week” is a strong candidate—everything ladders to it: content topics, outreach cadence, website tweaks, even your calendar.
What to ignore: advanced attribution, complex CRMs that take months to stand up, and weekly meetings that could be a 10-minute scoreboard check.
90-day focus: Stabilize lead flow, then polish the first-time experience. If your activation moment is “completed strategy session,” design the path to get more people there—clear prep email, simple scheduler, a short pre-work form that builds commitment.
$25K–$100K/month — Install a Cadence and Take Work Off the Founder
At this tier, founder energy has limits. You need rhythm. Adopt a light operating system: EOS-style 90-day rocks and a weekly Level-10-lite meeting that reviews the scoreboard, clears obstacles, and assigns owners. The goal is fewer priority collisions, not more ceremony.
This is also where you graduate from funnels to growth loops for at least one engine. For example: deliver a standout engagement → request a review and a case study → use those assets to win the next ideal client faster. Loops compound because each cycle makes the next cheaper.
Your offer stack should include a recurring element—quarterly optimization, managed service, or a membership—so you’re not rebuilding revenue from zero each month. Use value-based pricing for outcomes, with a clear floor/ceiling range. And bring in JTBD again to refine your ICP: who buys quickly, stays longer, and gets the biggest transformation?
What to ignore: perfect documentation of every SOP before you sell. Capture the 20% you repeat constantly (discovery, onboarding, reporting). The rest can mature in flight.
90-day focus: One loop, one rock, one hire. Choose the loop (reviews → referrals → warm intros). Choose the rock (reduce time-to-value by 30%). Choose the hire (client success or ops) who protects your calendar and improves client stickiness.
$100K–$300K/month — Scale What Works, Tame Complexity
You’re now playing with multiple channels and a small team. Complexity creeps in fast. Strengthen the North Star tree—one North Star with 3–5 KPIs beneath it, each with an owner and a weekly target. This turns “we’re busy” into “we’re on pace.”
Run a simple portfolio of experiments. Think “three bets per month”: one creative test, one offer/pricing test, one process/sales test. Each has a hypothesis and a decision date. Wins get operationalized; losses feed the insights library.
Use RICE to prioritize cross-department projects, not just marketing ideas. When everything feels urgent, RICE keeps the big rocks big. Keep EOS-style quarterly planning but add a pre-mortem: “It’s 90 days from now and we missed—why?” You’ll surface risks early and design safeguards.
What to ignore: copying enterprise playbooks wholesale. You need depth where results live (ICP clarity, offer delivery, referral engine), not a 14-metric MQL dashboard no one reads.
90-day focus: Choose one engine to scale (e.g., organic + local SEO, or partnerships), one to hold steady, one to prune. Then raise your quality bar on delivery and storytelling—case studies with numbers, not adjectives.
$300K–$1M/month — Moat and Efficiency
At the high end of the small-to-mid market, strategy shifts from “how do we grow” to “how do we grow defensibly.” Bring in 7 Powers thinking to explore real moat: brand, scale economies in acquisition, process IP, data advantages. Double down on a category point of view—what you believe, what you reject, and the language only you use. It makes competitors look interchangeable.
Your growth machine becomes multi-loop: demand creation (POV content, events), demand capture (SEO/PPC/partners), and demand expansion (upsell/cross-sell, community). Maintain the operating rhythm, but guard focus. If a project doesn’t move the North Star or strengthen the moat, it’s noise.
What to ignore: bloat. Tools, meetings, and offers that accreted during the climb but no longer serve the model. Prune quarterly.
90-day focus: One moat project (data, brand, or partnerships), one margin project (automation or process), one narrative project (category POV asset you can use for 12 months).
A Note on MC’s Clarity → Connection → Conversion™ Wrapper
Everything above nests neatly into the wrapper I use with clients:
Clarity: StoryBrand + JTBD to define the who/what/why now.
Connection: AARRR/loops to choose channels and design experiences that resonate.
Conversion: North Star → KPI tree, RICE prioritization, and an operating cadence that compounds wins.
You don’t need fifty frameworks—you need a few you actually use.
Mini Case (composite)
A regional wellness clinic stalled at ~$18K/month. We cleaned up messaging with StoryBrand, added a paid diagnostic, and set the North Star to “qualified eval requests per week.” AARRR analysis showed activation was the choke point—people visited but didn’t book. We rebuilt the consult flow, added same-day scheduling, and installed a simple review-to-referral loop. With a weekly scoreboard and RICE-driven backlog, they crossed $40K/month in two quarters without adding a single social channel.
How to Start—Wherever You Are
Pick your current stage. Choose one framework you’re not using yet. Install it for the next 90 days. Protect a 30-minute weekly review. When in doubt, reduce the scope until it’s impossible not to execute.
Ready To Grow Your Business?
We create strategies and processes for small businesses to grow and scale while helping them stand out in a crowded marketplace.
