How do you empower your team to make better decisions in their day-to-day work to increase conversions and drive more revenue?

Here’s the thing: Most companies claim to be customer-led. They say things like, “We talk to our customers all the time,” “Our CSAT scores are great," and “User testing is part of our DNA.” But actual customer-led growth means mobilizing your entire team around the ideal customer’s experience. Not piecemeal in Product, Marketing or CS.

If you’re going to mobilize a truly customer-led team, you need to know which pitfalls to avoid and how to set your team up for success so that they can take customer insight and turn it into revenue-generating outcomes for your business.

On this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast, Georgiana and Claire break down why Customer-Led Growth is such a powerful tool for driving revenue and how it helps your team break down silos and actually align around your ideal customer. They also share the challenges you might encounter when implementing CLG and how to navigate them.

Discussed:

• The benefits of Customer-Led Growth for teams and what it looks like to implement it well.
  
  
• The practicality of a CLG approach and how it helps teams build more relevant, resonant customer experiences to drive conversions, revenue, and all-around smarter decisions.
  
  
• Common traps that teams fall into when trying to implement — from practitioners who “go rogue” to having too many cooks in the kitchen — and how to avoid them.

Key moments:

1:32 - Georgiana describes what it looks like to implement customer-led growth, why a lot of companies that say they’re “customer-centric” are full of it, and the benefits of being truly customer-led.

4:44 - Claire digs into why CLG helps teams feel more connected to the customer and the power of a shared language across different departments. She also describes how it helped one customer to have Jobs-to-Be-Done language in real time.

7:00 - Georgiana shares how a CLG approach drives a better, more resonant customer experience, which, in turn, impacts conversion rates, revenue, and your highest-level business goals.

9:44 - Claire describes how adding one question to your sign-up form can be a huge win for customer-led growth and trigger more valuable and relevant customer experiences right away.

11:23 - The pair talks through some of the traps teams fall into when CLG goes wrong, starting with one person trying to push the project forward on their own without involving other stakeholders — AKA the lone wolf.

17:01 - Claire talks about another challenging dynamic: stakeholders cycling in and out of a project due to turnover. Georgiana offers her take on why it happens and how to navigate it.

18:48 - You shouldn’t “lone wolf” customer-led growth, but involving too many stakeholders is a problem, too. Claire and Georgiana explore the challenges of having too many cooks in the CLG kitchen

Follow Georgiana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgianalaudi/

Follow Claire on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairesuellentrop/

Read the uber-practical Forget The Funnel book: https://forgetthefunnel.com/customer-led-growth/book

Check out Forget the Funnel’s website: https://forgetthefunnel.com/

Get the free Forget the Funnel workbook to help you implement Customer-Led Growth: https://forgetthefunnel.com/workbook

We need to talk about voice of customer — because there’s been a misunderstanding.

Voice of customer isn’t just for huge companies. It’s also not an abstract, academic concept that’s too broad for teams to use.

Done right, insights pulled from the words your customers use are practical and actionable. And they can help your team make better business decisions day in and day out.

Best of all, you don’t have to undertake a massive, endless research project to start putting the words of your best customers, aka ‘Voice of Customer', to work for your business. You can tap into both quick-win and in-depth methods to capture and leverage those insights to attract way more great-fit customers.

Ready to tap into VoC? Listen to this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast as Georgiana and Claire dive deep into why the voice of the customer matters, how you can (and should) apply it to your business, and the methods you can use to get started.

Discussed:

• Common misconceptions about voice of customer and how it fits into the foundational understanding of your customers.
  
  
• Methods for capturing voice of customer, including customer interviews, qualitative surveys, signup flows, social listening and other quick-win tactics.
  
  
• Practical applications for voice of customer, from your homepage copy to product positioning and onboarding experiences.

Key moments:

1:12 - Claire kicks things off by defining voice of customer, and Georgiana explains some of the misconceptions that might hold companies back from capturing and using it.

5:16 - Georgiana takes a “then and now” look at the voice of customer concept. She compares how the term was first used in 1993 to how it looks today, with practical daily applications in areas like marketing.

8:38 - Georgiana explains how capturing voice of customer is part of foundational customer understanding. She also describes the output of those conversations: both high-level understanding and actual customer quotes.

12:05 - Claire asks Georgiana to share some methods for capturing voice of customer beyond customer interviews.

16:21 - Claire offers guidance for which methods to start with when gathering the voice of the customer and the importance of knowing that your insights are coming from your best-fit customers.

21:51 - Georgiana speaks to the importance of recording and manually transcribing customer interviews — and why you shouldn’t use AI to transcribe for voice of customer.

24:27 - Georgiana and Claire share an example of a customer who gathered the voice of the customer through qualitative surveys. What they learned completely changed their messaging, which led to a 93% increase in product sign-ups.

30:39 - Voice of customer is versatile and applicable well beyond your website homepage. Georgiana closes out the episode by sharing the many applications for the voice of customer.

Follow Georgiana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgianalaudi/

Follow Claire on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairesuellentrop/

Read the uber-practical Forget The Funnel book: https://forgetthefunnel.com/customer-led-growth/book

Check out Forget the Funnel’s website: https://forgetthefunnel.com/

Get the free Forget the Funnel workbook to help you implement Customer-Led Growth: https://forgetthefunnel.com/workbook

It’s rough out there in SaaS—everyone’s feeling it. Whether you’re trying to lower your acquisition costs, make the most of organic inbound interest, or better meet the needs of your technical buyers, you might be ready to take a more product-led approach to growth.

But if you’re a sales-led organization, the transition to product-led can be bumpy, and the idea of switching probably raises more questions than answers.

How do you validate that there’s a real ‘product-led’ opportunity for your SaaS? How do you prevent cannabilizing your sales opportunities? What would a shift like this mean for your team? What are some low-risk ways to leverage your product for acquisition?

If you’ve got questions like those, don't miss this Forget the Funnel podcast episode. Claire and Georgiana dig into all things product-led and share the indications that your SaaS is ready for a product-led approach, how to navigate company culture pitfalls, and the baby steps you can take to get started and validate the transition.

Discussed:

• Key indicators that signal your SaaS is ready for product-led growth.
  
  
• Cultural and team alignment are essentials for a smooth transition to PLG, and marketing, product, and other teams might need to change.
  
  
• Practical starting points for integrating product-led tactics into your current business model.

Key moments:

2:03—Georgiana breaks down the differences between sales-led and product-led growth and other approaches to growth.

4:01 - Claire asks Georgiana to walk through the signs that a company might need to move toward product-led growth or that it’s time to transition away from founder-led sales.

9:14 - Team culture is critical in shifting to a product-led approach. Claire and Georgiana explore some potential growing pains when moving away from the sales-led structure (and where to focus on overcoming those).

13:50—Claire shares the cautionary tale of a company where the CEO wanted to move to a product-led approach but didn’t do the legwork to get buy-in from the rest of the leadership team.

15:06 - Georgiana explores how the move to product-led growth might look for different teams — and how, in particular, the expectations of product and marketing need to shift.

19:14—Georgiana explores tangible ways companies can start the transition from a purely sales-led to a product-led approach, including learning from their customers to better leverage their product.

20:52 - Claire and Georgiana break down examples of tactical entry points to PLG, like a video from the CEO when someone books a demo and sandboxes or other low-touch customer experiences.

28:38—The pair closes out the episode by emphasizing how important it is to know your customers intimately before you can leverage product-led growth.

Follow Georgiana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgianalaudi/

Follow Claire on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairesuellentrop/

Read the uber-practical Forget The Funnel book: https://forgetthefunnel.com/customer-led-growth/book

Check out Forget the Funnel’s website: https://forgetthefunnel.com/

Get the free Forget the Funnel workbook to help you implement Customer-Led Growth: https://forgetthefunnel.com/workbook