{"id":6597,"date":"2016-07-21T12:22:31","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T12:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/?p=6597"},"modified":"2019-11-28T11:32:40","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T11:32:40","slug":"simplifying-our-business-with-abcd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd","title":{"rendered":"The four letters that have simplified our business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ABCD<\/p>\n

Starting a business is easier than ever.<\/p>\n

But building a business and maintaining that growth in the long-term is harder than ever.<\/p>\n

It can feel overwhelming as a member of a young startup team \u2013 there\u2019s always more to do in the day than you have time for.<\/p>\n

Do you spend time working on the homepage messaging? Do you spend time on a feature that could benefit your most loyal customers? Do you spend time responding to 20 customers on support? All are important, but what is going to make the most difference?<\/p>\n

Simplifying the way the team thinks about their work<\/h2>\n

As we\u2019ve been developing the team and product, we\u2019ve experienced some of these growing pains. We\u2019ve always had an obsession with simplicity<\/a> \u2013 simplicity in our product, our pricing, our messaging. But until recently we hadn\u2019t thought much about simplicity in the way the team works.<\/p>\n

In order to focus our efforts as a team, we wanted to make sure when an engineer was working on a feature they\u2019d know who it was helping and how. When we\u2019re getting back to a customer at 3am in the morning, we want to know how that impacts the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve managed to cut through a lot of noise and define our own framework for thinking about the four core areas of the business that are critically important to us right now \u2013 we call it the ABCD framework.<\/p>\n

ABCD stands for Acquire, Build, Close and Delight.<\/p>\n

In this post, we\u2019ll dive into a quick summary of what each of these means.<\/p>\n

A \u2013 Acquire new visitors, leads and trials<\/h2>\n

\"Acquire<\/p>\n

We\u2019re nothing without our users and customers \u2013 every customer we have originally came to our website<\/a> and checked us out before then signing up for a trial.<\/p>\n

When we think about acquiring new users, our approach is very focused on inbound marketing<\/a> \u2013 we aim to produce truly helpful, valuable content for our audience, which attracts visitors and raises awareness about us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to get visitors to our website, but unless they eventually sign up then we are nothing more than a well-read blog. Our focus moves on to converting visitors into signups \u2013 either by encouraging them to sign up for a trial, by engaging with them on live chat<\/a>, or by persuading them to subscribe to our weekly newsletter<\/a> for regular updates.<\/p>\n

We measure our effectiveness at acquiring new users with a couple of key metrics: visitors to our marketing site and blog, our on-site conversion rate, the number of people who read our newsletter, and the number of trials started each week.<\/p>\n

B \u2013 Build a damn good product<\/h2>\n

\"Build<\/p>\n

This is in our blood and it\u2019s core to everything we do.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t believe it\u2019s possible to build a successful software business without a fantastic product that genuinely solves a big problem for customers.<\/p>\n

Within our engineering team, most of our time is currently spent on building out functionality in the product based on what customers are asking for and what we believe should be on our roadmap.<\/p>\n

Metrics we use to determine whether we\u2019re building a great product include the number of Daily \/ Weekly \/ Monthly Active Users of the platform and specific features, and activation rates of anything new we roll out.<\/p>\n

We also continually gather feedback from customers via email and live chat to go beyond numbers and gain qualitative feedback on what we\u2019re building.<\/p>\n

C \u2013 Close new customers and deals<\/h2>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

Closing deals and converting trial users into customers takes hustle.<\/p>\n

There are many ways to turn someone who\u2019s currently not paying us into someone who is, and finding the most effective way of doing that is an ongoing experiment.<\/p>\n

You can charge a small price and build up a large volume of customers with primarily self-service processes. Or you can charge a huge price annually and build a sales team around the process, delivering a truly personal experience to every high paying customer. Or you can tread somewhere between those.<\/p>\n

Wherever you look, you\u2019ll find businesses who have built billion-dollar empires from any of the above. Finding what\u2019s right for your business requires experimentation, testing, measurement, and most of all, persistence. Successful businesses don\u2019t get built in a day, and very few companies nail their pricing and sales process the first time round.<\/p>\n

A few key metrics we use to measure our success at closing new customers include Net New Monthly Recurring Revenue and the total number of new customers acquired in a month.<\/p>\n

D \u2013 Delight customers and turn them into promoters<\/h2>\n

\"Delight<\/p>\n

As the famous saying goes, it\u2019s far more cost-effective to keep a customer than to acquire a new one.<\/p>\n

In fact, as recently pointed out in a visual example by Lincoln Murphy<\/a>, a huge proportion of the lifetime value of a customer can come from keeping them happy after the original sale.<\/p>\n

We have always believed in providing the best customer service possible to every customer who chooses us. But keeping customers happy \u2013 making them delighted<\/em> \u2013 requires more than just a fast response time.<\/p>\n

Customer delight and customer success require strategy \u2013 a clear definition of what \u200ba\u200b successful customer looks like and a path of how to turn every user into a successful one.<\/p>\n

Building a customer-base of people that love you so much they tell their friends is the dream, but it requires all of our ABCD strategy to work together in unison \u2013 a clear message on the marketing site, emails that educate the user throughout their trial, a product that delivers on the promises we make in the initial pitch, a price point that makes sense for the customer, and easy access to a helpful team when the customer has questions and issues.<\/p>\n

Measuring customer delight isn\u2019t easy, but a few key metrics we use to determine whether we\u2019re doing a good job on this include NPS (Net Promoter Score \u2013 see our post on how to measure NPS<\/a>), customer service response times and customer churn.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it \u2013 as simple as ABCD<\/h2>\n

While this may not give you all the answers on how to grow your business, we\u2019ve certainly found it helpful to utilise the ABCD framework when thinking about complex problems.<\/p>\n

Hopefully next time you\u2019re feeling overwhelmed with everything on your plate, you\u2019ll be able to sort at least some of your problems into four boxes.<\/p>\n

If you have ideas for taking ABCD further or have another framework you use to think about business growth then let us know in the comments or on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting a business is easier than ever. But building a business and maintaining that growth in the long-term is harder…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1586],"tags":[1221,1202,852],"class_list":["post-6597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gosquared-updates","tag-acquire","tag-build","tag-strategy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe four letters that have simplified our business - GoSquared Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The four letters that have simplified our business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Starting a business is easier than ever. But building a business and maintaining that growth in the long-term is harder...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GoSquared Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GoSquared\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-21T12:22:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-28T11:32:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.gosquared.com\/images\/liquidicity\/16_07_21_abcd_twitter_01.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@JamesJGill\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@GoSquared\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James Gill\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"GoSquared\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/gosquaredteam\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/go-squared-ltd.\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GoSquared\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GoSquared\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gosquared.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gosquared.png\",\"width\":1270,\"height\":250,\"caption\":\"GoSquared\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"GoSquared Blog\",\"description\":\"Turn visitors into customers.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"\",\"contentUrl\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd\",\"name\":\"The four letters that have simplified our business - GoSquared Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-21T12:22:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-28T11:32:40+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The four letters that have simplified our business\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b8729da7ca77395a2281bad91768fbe\"},\"headline\":\"The four letters that have simplified our business\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-21T12:22:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-28T11:32:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#webpage\"},\"wordCount\":1117,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"keywords\":[\"Acquire\",\"Build\",\"Strategy\"],\"articleSection\":[\"GoSquared Updates\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b8729da7ca77395a2281bad91768fbe\",\"name\":\"James Gill\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/46c3ae1aefe2bdb6765a3153018aeba55de419fa36083b8dcdf9ee49ffcb5a2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/46c3ae1aefe2bdb6765a3153018aeba55de419fa36083b8dcdf9ee49ffcb5a2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James Gill\"},\"description\":\"James is CEO and one of the co-founders of GoSquared. He also likes to talk about design.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JamesJGill\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/author\/g\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The four letters that have simplified our business - GoSquared Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The four letters that have simplified our business","og_description":"Starting a business is easier than ever. But building a business and maintaining that growth in the long-term is harder...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd","og_site_name":"GoSquared Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GoSquared","article_published_time":"2016-07-21T12:22:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-11-28T11:32:40+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/static.gosquared.com\/images\/liquidicity\/16_07_21_abcd_twitter_01.png","twitter_creator":"@JamesJGill","twitter_site":"@GoSquared","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James Gill","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"GoSquared","url":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/","sameAs":["https:\/\/instagram.com\/gosquaredteam","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/go-squared-ltd.","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GoSquared","https:\/\/twitter.com\/GoSquared"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gosquared.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/gosquared.png","width":1270,"height":250,"caption":"GoSquared"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/","name":"GoSquared Blog","description":"Turn visitors into customers.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#primaryimage","url":"","contentUrl":""},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#webpage","url":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd","name":"The four letters that have simplified our business - GoSquared Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2016-07-21T12:22:31+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-28T11:32:40+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The four letters that have simplified our business"}]},{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#webpage"},"author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b8729da7ca77395a2281bad91768fbe"},"headline":"The four letters that have simplified our business","datePublished":"2016-07-21T12:22:31+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-28T11:32:40+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#webpage"},"wordCount":1117,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"","keywords":["Acquire","Build","Strategy"],"articleSection":["GoSquared Updates"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/simplifying-our-business-with-abcd#respond"]}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7b8729da7ca77395a2281bad91768fbe","name":"James Gill","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/46c3ae1aefe2bdb6765a3153018aeba55de419fa36083b8dcdf9ee49ffcb5a2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/46c3ae1aefe2bdb6765a3153018aeba55de419fa36083b8dcdf9ee49ffcb5a2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"James Gill"},"description":"James is CEO and one of the co-founders of GoSquared. He also likes to talk about design.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/JamesJGill"],"url":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/author\/g"}]}},"wps_subtitle":"How we categorise our tasks into four letters \u2013\u00a0A, B, C and D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}