For many small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners, ardently pursuing ambitious growth goals can feel like a rollercoaster ride. If you're constantly addressing escalating hurdles and still not reaching your business’s growth potential, you might have a few growth bottlenecks holding you back.
As the lifeblood of a thriving operation, Growth Ops not only drives efficiency but clears these hurdles.
In this blog, we delve into identifying the most common growth bottlenecks hiding in plain sight and provide actionable strategies to fix them fast.
The 80/20 Rule of Scaling: Focus on the Right Customers
Many SMBs have limited resources and need to leverage the 80/20 rule effectively. This principle suggests that 80% of your outcomes are determined by 20% of your efforts.
Identifying Your Top 20%:
- Understand Your Customer Economics: Analyze which customers generate the most revenue (something we'll do every time we kick off an Alignment Session with our clients)
- Find Your Fans & Promoters: Assess who refers more customers or leaves positive reviews.
- Perform a Growth Driver Assessment: Determine which products/services have the largest margins or highest retention rates.
Simple Strategies to Enhance Focus:
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Reallocate Resources to Better Serve High-Value Customers
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Shift product development priorities toward features or services most valued by high-retention, high-margin clients.
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Train support and success teams specifically on the needs and expectations of top-tier segments.
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Create dedicated account management or customer success tiers for enterprise or VIP clients.
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Tailor Marketing Efforts to Attract Similar Clients
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Use lookalike audience targeting in digital advertising based on attributes of high-LTV customers.
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Develop messaging and case studies that speak directly to the pain points and goals of high-value segments.
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Invest in SEO and content strategies that align with the search behavior and decision criteria of ideal customers.
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Develop Loyalty Programs to Retain These Clients Longer
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Introduce tiered rewards or benefits based on usage, tenure, or spend.
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Offer exclusive access to beta features, early product releases, or VIP events.
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Implement proactive engagement strategies like quarterly business reviews (QBRs) and personalized success planning.
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Enhance Product and Service Offerings Based on Retention Insights
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Analyze retention data to identify which features correlate with long-term usage.
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Sunset low-performing features that detract from core value.
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Bundle products or create premium packages that align with top customer preferences.
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Build Feedback Loops with High-Value Customers
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Establish advisory boards or user panels comprised of top-tier customers.
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Use NPS and qualitative feedback to refine product-market fit within key segments.
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Involve loyal customers in product roadmap planning or beta testing.
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Align Internal KPIs with Strategic Focus
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Set team OKRs that prioritize growth within high-margin, high-retention segments.
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Measure performance not just by acquisition volume, but by LTV and segment-specific retention.
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Incentivize cross-functional teams (product, sales, CS) to collaborate on outcomes tied to strategic customer cohorts.
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Why “Doing More” is Killing Your Growth: Embrace Smart Ops Over Hustle
The hustle mentality can overwhelm teams without corresponding measurable growth, oftentimes masking underlying inefficiencies. Focusing on what truly matters can catalyze a sustainable growth trajectory.
Signs of Counterproductive Hustle:
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High Employee Turnover Rates:
Frequent departures may indicate overwork, unclear roles, or a toxic pace. Losing institutional knowledge disrupts continuity and stalls long-term growth efforts.
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Burnout Without Clear Productivity Gains:
When long hours and intense output don’t correlate with measurable business outcomes, it signals misalignment between effort and value. Chronic burnout erodes morale, creativity, and decision quality.
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Constant Multitasking with Scarce Impactful Results:
Teams spread thin across too many tasks may feel busy but deliver little meaningful progress. This often leads to reactive work, missed opportunities, and strategic drift.
Transitioning to Better Growth Through Growth Ops:
- Process Assessment: Regularly audit workflows, communication channels, and customer journeys to identify redundancies, bottlenecks, or manual work that could be streamlined or removed. Encourage teams to flag friction points and propose improvements.
- Priority Setting: Deploy OKRs or similar frameworks to ensure that every team’s work ties directly to measurable, strategic objectives. Regular check-ins and retrospectives help maintain alignment and adapt to new insights or market shifts.
- Mindful Automation: Introduce automation not just for efficiency, but for freeing up cognitive capacity. Focus on automating low-value, repetitive tasks (e.g., data entry, reporting, follow-ups) while preserving human judgment for high-stakes decisions.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: Shift from instinct-led to evidence-based operations by implementing clear KPIs and dashboards. Use data to spot trends, test hypotheses, and refine initiatives before scaling.
- Empowered Teams with Clear Ownership: Equip teams with the autonomy, tools, and clarity to make decisions quickly. Define roles and responsibilities so execution happens with less friction and more accountability.
Systems vs. Scrappy: Building the Perfect Balance
There is a time and place for both systems and scrappiness as you scale.
Knowing when to employ each can save time and money, while simultaneously boosting innovation. In the early stages of growth, scrappiness enables speed, experimentation, and creative problem-solving with limited resources. It allows teams to test ideas quickly, pivot as needed, and stay nimble in response to customer feedback or market shifts. However, as operations become more complex, a lack of structure can lead to miscommunication, duplicated effort, and growing pains that stall progress.
That’s where systems come in — to bring consistency, scalability, and accountability. Systems help ensure that high-value processes are repeatable and optimized, freeing teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than reinventing the wheel. The key is not choosing one over the other, but building a culture that knows when to hustle and when to formalize. The ideal growth ops environment combines the agility of a startup mindset with the discipline of mature operational thinking — allowing for creativity within a scalable framework.
Leaders should routinely assess which areas require structure and which still benefit from experimentation. Codify what works, but leave space for iteration. By doing so, organizations can scale efficiently without losing the innovative edge that sparked growth in the first place.
When To Choose Systems:
- Repeated Tasks with Predictable Outcomes: If a task is done regularly and follows a clear sequence — such as onboarding new employees, processing invoices, or running performance reports — it’s ripe for systematization. Automating or documenting these workflows saves time, reduces errors, and improves consistency.
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Measurable Processes That Impact Revenue Directly (e.g., Billing, CRM Updates): Processes tied to cash flow, customer lifecycle, or data integrity should be standardized early. Reliable billing systems, accurate CRM hygiene, and structured sales pipelines are critical for forecasting, resource planning, and customer trust.
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Compliance, Risk Management, and Quality Control: Areas involving legal requirements, data security, or service-level agreements (SLAs) demand well-documented, enforced systems to mitigate risk and ensure accountability.
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Scaling Operations Across Teams or Regions: When multiple teams or locations are involved, systems create alignment and efficiency, enabling growth without chaos.
When to Stay Scrappy:
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New Product Launches Needing Creative Input: When entering uncharted territory — like a product debut, market test, or rebrand — rigidity kills momentum. Looser, experimental processes allow for brainstorming, customer discovery, and pivoting based on early learnings.
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Early-Stage Customer Feedback Iterations: In the discovery and validation phases, fast cycles of build-measure-learn are essential. Over-systematizing too early can slow down responsiveness and stifle innovation.
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Problem-Solving in Uncertain or Rapidly Changing Conditions: Scrappiness excels when navigating ambiguity. Whether it’s responding to a competitor’s surprise move or troubleshooting a critical issue, the ability to move quickly and improvise is vital.
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MVP Development or Pilot Testing: Minimum Viable Products don’t need perfect back-end systems. Scrappy workflows can get the product in front of users faster, enabling faster feedback loops and smarter resource allocation.
Spotting and Eliminating Bottlenecks
Being nimble enough to swiftly identify and eliminate growth bottlenecks can differentiate successful SMBs from stagnant ones.
Identifying Common Bottlenecks:
Being nimble enough to swiftly identify and eliminate growth bottlenecks can differentiate successful SMBs from stagnant ones.
- Customer Acquisition Costs: High spend not translating into higher conversion.
- Operational Inefficiencies: Redundant processes increasing cycle times.
- Product/Service Relevancy: Offerings not resonating with target demographics.
- Cash Flow Constraints: Poor revenue management affecting growth capabilities.
- Market Understanding: Outdated market data slowing pivot potential.
Killer Solutions to Eliminate Growth Bottlenecks:
- Perform regular operational audits to detect process inefficiencies.
- Analyze customer journey data to optimize acquisition and conversion strategies.
- Hold quarterly market reviews to ensure product relevance and competitive positioning.
- Introduce a stringent cash flow oversight regime to boost liquidity.
- Leverage customer feedback and field data to realign business focus.
Wrapping Up
Understanding and addressing growth bottlenecks effectively separates proactive SMBs from the rest. By targeting operations strategically with a key focus on using the right resources for the right customers, embracing efficient yet smart operations, and seamlessly blending systems with the needed flexibility, your business can unearth hidden potential for sustainable growth. Armed with process improvements and technological adaptations, this growth-oriented strategy will propel SMBs toward achieving their ambitious goals.
Stay ambitious, be strategic, and let Human_Code guide you on simplifying your growth journey—from unburdening your staff to unlocking real market potential amid constraints.
Connect with us to explore customized solutions for your business scale-up ambitions today.
41 King William Street, Suite 300
Hamilton, ON L8R 1A2
905.529.6005
hello@humancode.ca
About Us
Human_Code is a fractional Growth Ops team helping EOS businesses and growth-focused SMBs build smarter, more scalable revenue engines. Our services include full-funnel strategy, demand generation, CRM and technology implementation, sales enablement, and customer success alignment. We've proudly operated in Hamilton, Ontario for more than 25 years.