Most businesses in the earlier stages are mainly focused on getting leads and sales - and rightly so. Having a way to generate leads and a winning offer is the core foundation of your business.

That’s what I like to call “Vertical Growth” because you’re only scaling a small part of your business - the front end lead gen and sales piece.

For example, a very common mistake people make even when they have offer that's converting is keeping the emphasis on:

(CO) CONVERT MILESTONE - adding different lead magnets (or launch tactics) with the idea that any way to get more leads is a solution to generating more revenue.

(SE) SELL MILESTONE - doing everything they can to increase sales conversions, or trying to blindly add multiple offers believing that all together will generate more revenue.

In that scenario, they are missing out on 7 other hidden profit pockets (X marks the spot), and that doesn't include any complex or advanced marketing methods, just genuine understanding of their audience and how to better help them.

DISCLAIMER ALERT: If you are just starting out, then you are already miles ahead from others in your situation, because you understand the entire customer journey and all the important milestones. But, my suggestion is to stick to the VERRTICAL GROWTH until you have the offer people are willing to pay for, over and over again. 

Ok, once you get the vertical growth right, and you have leads and sales coming in (flagship offer that's converting), it’s time to zoom out and shift to looking at HORIZONTAL GROWTH. 

Horizontal growth means looking at the rest of the customer journey - things like retention, how they go through your course, what kind of results your customers are getting, what else they may buy from you, and more.

The mistake that many business owners make is waiting TOO LONG to focus on their Horizontal Growth - this leads to missed opportunities and slower growth, or maybe even hitting a ceiling on your income. 

In short, you are always focused on covering ALL eight customer journey milestones for current stage of growth, before moving to the next one.

That way you avoid "leaky areas" in your business, and have full control of all key conversion points.

Why 8x4?

The Scaling Matrix has 8 milestones of the customer journey (which are leverage points you can use to increase profits and results in your business)

And 4 stages of growth - you’ll want to focus on different things at each stage.

​Put them together and you’ll get a custom path for YOUR business based on what you already have in place, your goals, and your priorities.

To get you started, there are 8 questions you can begin to ask yourself to figure out where YOU are on the Matrix: 

FRONT END (getting people in)

ATTRACT (AT) - do I know where my best audience is coming from?
The Attract milestone is all about better understanding WHO you are attracting into your world, and how to get your message in front of the IDEAL audience. 

CONVERT (CO) - do I know what my audience wants?
You don't want to use just any lead magnet, but the one that resonates the most with your ideal audience profile, and their behavior patterns. 

ENGAGE (EN) - do I know how to keep their attention?
Keeping the attention of your leads once they enter your world, is one of the most underrated milestones in your customer journey, and a huge "profit leaking point", so let's fix this.

SELL (SE) - do I know how to help them?
How to get the most out of your flagship offer, without focusing on JUST increasing conversions. There are 10 different tactics and tweaks you could use to improve your profitability, on this part of the journey.

BACK-END (getting people to stay)

ACTIVATE (AC) - how do I jumpstart my students’ progress?
How to make sure most of your customers start (and continue) their journey from day one.

EDUCATE (ED) - how do they learn and understand?
Educate your students without overwhelming them, while motivating them to take action.

IMPLEMENT (IM) - how do I make them take action and apply what they've learned?
How to make sure your students don't stay in the "consumption loop" and actually start applying what they've learned

CELEBRATE (CE) - do I know what success means for my audience, but also for me?
Motivating your students to proactively become your testimonials and case studies.

And what about the 4 stages of growth?

Easy, each of the growth stages represents how you look at a specific milestone.

BUDGET (BU) - Have I implemented this customer journey milestone in my business and getting the audience to experience it?

ECONOMY (EC) - Am I actively tracking this milestone and understanding what's working and NOT working in my business?

BUSINESS CLASS (BC) - Am I getting better results in this milestone compared to our past promotions?

FIRSTCLASS (FC) - Am I actively boosting this milestone by adding “profit multipliers”? 

Now that you better understand the framework behind "boosting profitability while increasing customers success", it's time to share 21 data-based tweaks you can start implementing today.

Click on the button below to access tweaks and action steps for each...

FirstClass Success helps visionary CEOs and digital course creators grow their business by focusing on the “unsexy” parts: tracking, dashboards, and data to make smart decisions that lead to more leads, sales, and better customer results.