How do you learn from and apply best practices and benchmarks from other growth leaders and organizations?

While best practices and benchmarks offer valuable insights, they're more of a compass than a map. They can guide us, but they don't dictate every turn we should take. It's crucial to adapt and sometimes even deviate from these guidelines based on our unique business context and market conditions. Experimentation can often lead to discovering even more effective strategies that are tailored to our specific needs. It's all about using these tools wisely but not being afraid to think outside the box and innovate beyond conventional wisdom.

Whenever speaking about best practices and benchmarks I find it helpful to acknowledge what best practices and benchmarks aren't. Best practices have been tried and tested by others making them a good starting point. But they aren't your final strategy or a roadmap for you to follow. It's important to remember that they vary from industry to industry and that what works for others may not work for you. There have been countless times where I've ran experiments and an unconventional approach has bested a best pratice. Similarly with benchmarks. Unless the benchmarks are from your exact niche for a competing product, you should recognise that they are just a starting point. A great starting point albeit, but a starting point nonetheless.

Adopting best practices from growth leaders involve: - Continuous Learning: Keep up with trends via webinars, podcasts, and publications. - Networking: Exchange insights at forums and conferences. - Benchmarking: Compare your performance to industry standards. - Adaptation: Customize insights to fit your context. - Experimentation: Test strategies to assess effectiveness. - Knowledge Sharing: Promote a learning culture internally. These steps have been pivotal in integrating advanced strategies and achieving sustainable growth.

Absolutely! Best practices encompass proven methods or strategies validated by successful leaders or organizations within your industry. They serve as a guide to sidestep common pitfalls and adopt effective tactics in pursuit of growth goals, drawing from the successes of others. Benchmarks, on the other hand, are standards used to gauge performance against others or one's past achievements. They aid in setting achievable yet challenging targets, tracking progress, and pinpointing areas for improvement or potential opportunities by comparing against established criteria. Both best practices and benchmarks provide valuable insights to refine strategies and enhance performance toward desired outcomes.

Best practices and benchmarks are a measure of what worked well for others and what did not. However, it is not a 'one size fits all'. The best practices vary from industry to industry, depending on the life cycle of the product, the size of the organization and the like. In my experience, look at those benchmarks that are right for you. For example, to apply 'learnings' that worked for a digital bank during the pandemic to your digital bank after the pandemic may not work. Usually, the more similarities with your offering, the more applicability and suitability of the benchmark.

Stop copying surface-level tactics. Here's my reverse-engineering framework that helped identify patterns leading to 592% growth: Track Industry Leaders: - Monitor tech stack changes - Document funnel evolution - Map content strategy → Found 47% conversion gaps Study Success Patterns: - Analyze growth velocity - Track pivot points - Document timing → Cut costs by 40% Build Learning Loops: - Join mastermind groups - Create data swaps - Share benchmark data

Existen numerosas fuentes de mejores prácticas y benchmarks que puedes utilizar para aprender y aplicar en tu estrategia de crecimiento. Por ejemplo, libros, blogs, podcasts y boletines pueden brindar ideas, historias y consejos de expertos y profesionales en crecimiento. Además, comunidades en línea, foros y grupos pueden facilitar discusiones, preguntas y retroalimentación entre colegas y mentores. Asimismo, cursos, webinars, talleres y eventos ofrecen oportunidades de capacitación, educación y networking para aprendices y líderes de crecimiento. Por otro lado, herramientas, plataformas y bases de datos pueden proporcionar datos, análisis e informes sobre métricas de crecimiento y KPIs en diferentes industrias.

To truly excel in leveraging best practices and benchmarks, it's crucial to diversify your sources. 📚 Books and blogs provide foundational knowledge, while podcasts and newsletters keep you updated with the latest trends and insights. Engaging in online communities and forums can offer real-time feedback and peer support. 🗣️ Courses and webinars are fantastic for structured learning and networking opportunities. Finally, tools and databases give you the hard data needed to measure your progress and make informed decisions. 📊 Combining these resources ensures a well-rounded approach to growth. 🌟

Join a community or networking group that offers you this knowledge, and if you don't find one out there, create one yourself. Totally worth it ;)

Certainly! There are numerous avenues to explore for accessing best practices and benchmarks to refine your growth strategy. Books, blogs, podcasts, and newsletters authored by growth experts offer insights and tips. Engaging in online communities, forums, and groups facilitates discussions and feedback from peers and mentors. Participating in courses, webinars, workshops, and events provides educational and networking opportunities for growth-focused individuals. Utilizing tools, platforms, and databases grants access to data and reports on growth metrics and KPIs across industries.

Identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) involves selecting measurable metrics that align with specific business goals. For example, in an e-commerce setting, a critical KPI could be the "Conversion Rate," measuring the percentage of website visitors who make a purchase, providing a clear indicator of the effectiveness of the online sales strategy and user experience.

Absolutely! When assessing best practices and benchmarks for your growth strategy, consider various factors to ensure their suitability. Evaluate the credibility, trustworthiness, and relevance of the source. Determine if the practice aligns with your situation or if there are notable differences. Check the recency and updates of the information—whether it's current and reflective of the latest trends. Look for specificity and actionability—is it detailed enough to implement? Assess whether it can be measured and compared against your existing strategies or metrics. By addressing these aspects, you can discern which practices and benchmarks are most pertinent to your specific context and goals.

Controversially, I think an organisation needs to do more work on itself before looking out at benchmarks and best practices. How well do I understand my own current practices? What are our current KPIs and how confident am I that they are correct? If I know my own business well then I can start to think about where improvements are needed and seek benchmarks and practices as targets and inspiration. The reliability factor is both about the source of the research and the thoroughness of research. Even if it's well researched and peer-reviewed to nth degree, a pinch of salt is still as the benchmarks/practices will come from businesses as unique as yours. TLDR; understand your own business in detail before seeking external inspiration.

Not all practices are created equal. Evaluate based on relevance to your industry, scalability, and alignment with your growth goals. Scrutinize the data – understand the context behind success stories and benchmark figures. Look for patterns and correlations, and always consider the uniqueness of your organization. The best practices you choose should resonate with your mission and customer needs.

Evaluating best practices involves assessing their applicability, feasibility, and alignment with specific goals, while benchmarks are evaluated by measuring performance against them, adjusting strategies, and continuously striving for improvement.

Learning from growth leaders and organizations involves actively studying their best practices, distilling key insights, and applying adaptable methods, fostering a culture of continuous improvement to optimize strategies and achieve sustainable growth.

Application is the litmus test for the efficacy of best practices. Map out a clear strategy for implementation, considering your team's capabilities and resources. Integrate these practices into your growth hacking playbook systematically, ensuring alignment with your overall business objectives. Iterate as needed, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

To learn and apply best practices and benchmarks, actively engage in industry events, forums, and networking opportunities to gather insights. Analyze case studies and success stories of growth leaders. For instance, our team attended a digital marketing summit where we learned about innovative strategies implemented by industry leaders, inspiring us to adapt similar approaches in our campaigns.

Application is what moves the bottom line metrics. I start by testing the best practice on a small scale to see if it works in my context. For example, if another company had success with a referral program, I might pilot it with a subset of my user base before a full rollout. I tweak the strategy based on initial results and feedback to fit my company’s unique needs. It’s about adapting, not just adopting.

Applying best practices involves adapting them to fit organizational needs, fostering a culture that embraces innovation while leveraging benchmarks to set achievable goals, drive performance improvements, and guide strategic decision-making.

First, stay in the loop with industry trends. For example, if you’re in tech, check out what big players like Apple are doing. Next, compare your results with top companies in your field. If you’re in retail, look at how Nike hits their goals and see what you can learn from them. When you achieve something, celebrate and share it with your team. It keeps everyone motivated. If something doesn’t work, don’t sweat it—analyse what went wrong and use it to improve. Lastly, be open to trying new ideas. Experiment with different strategies to see what works best for you. This way, you stay ahead and keep growing!

It is all about continuous improvements. The Kaizen way. Identify the most critical areas, and KPIs to become successful, track those, compare internally and with competitors, and internally and focus on improving those numbers. Deep dive, research, and analyse to better understand what drives these numbers and how they can be improved.

In response to our organization's distinct operational context and culture, we strategically customized and applied flexibility to the implementation of industry best practices, specifically tailoring a customer engagement strategy. This involved adapting communication channels, response times, and engagement initiatives to better resonate with our target audience. As a result, our customer satisfaction and retention rates experienced a noteworthy 20% improvement, showcasing the effectiveness of an approach finely tuned to our organizational nuances.

Best practice is the table stakes. It brings you up to the level of the market. Winning requires blending creativity into those practices to find an edge against your competitors. The principle here is to learn from best practices, judiciously set targets based on benchmarks, and then use that as your platform to create innovative winning strategies. To win you have to better than the benchmark.

Adapt, don't copy: Best practices are starting points, not plug-and-play solutions. Always tailor to your unique product, audience and goals

Explore uncharted territories of innovation by fostering a culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration within your organization, encouraging diverse perspectives and skill sets to converge, ultimately igniting novel ideas and solutions that transcend traditional boundaries.

Out of 100 people you meet, IGNORE 99 of them (for "advice," I mean). Most advice is noise. But when you find that ONE person who KNOWS their stuff, who's been there, done that… LISTEN to EVERYTHING they say. So, always be asking yourself "who is talking? Has that person actually achieved the results you want? No? Move on. Yes? It's probably worth your time to sh*t up and pay attention. Don’t bother impressing them. Just listen, ask questions, and absorb the knowledge. 1) What did you do? 2) Why? 3) What were the results? 4) How did you know you were on track? 5) What did you do when you weren't? 6) What would you do in X situation? People are usually HAPPY TO SHARE their expertise—you just have to give them the space to do it.

Consider creating a network of growth peers to regularly share insights and experiences. Learning from both successes and failures in different contexts can provide valuable lessons and inspire innovative strategies for your own growth efforts.