30 May Spotting Broken Growth: It’s Not the Faucet. It’s the Cup With a Hole in It.
Sometimes growth efforts flop. Let’s get the most obvious reason out of the way: the person running growth and marketing just isn’t good. The company’s great, the product’s five stars, the sales team’s waiting eagerly – and then nothing. But for the purposes of this fine tale, let’s assume that’s not the issue. Let’s say the growth and marketing team is seasoned, sharp, and bringing the fire. Now what?
The Sales Team Wants Layups, Not Warmups
Marketing and sales are supposed to be friends. I love salespeople – they’re a riot at events, energy is always high, and they make money happen. But sometimes they can be asshats. Especially when they demand leads where the prospect has basically signed in blood that they’re ready to buy.
Let’s be clear: marketing delivers interest, not inked contracts. We create awareness, trigger curiosity, and get the right people to raise their hands. It’s a handoff – and from that point on, sales is supposed to sell.
If marketing could close deals, we wouldn’t need a sales team at all. I’d just put an autoresponder with a DocuSign on every MQL and call it a day.
When the Blame Game Starts
Here’s where it gets dicey. The leads look good – right title, right company, tech stack fits. MQLs flow in. Most are deemed SALs (Sales Accepted Leads), and off they go.
But suddenly the close rate drops. Sales starts saying lead quality is down. But marketing hasn’t changed. Nothing upstream has changed. So what’s really going on?
Maybe there was a sales team shakeup. Maybe the new rep isn’t great. Maybe someone insulted the prospect’s spouse on a discovery call. None of that has anything to do with the leads – but we often get blamed anyway.
That’s when you pull out the numbers. 500 MQLs. 400 SALs. 200 SQLs. 100 closed-won deals. A clean, predictable funnel. But next quarter? Same 500 MQLs, and now only 15% reach SQL status. Yeah, there’s a leak in that boat.
Sometimes, the Product Is the Problem
We don’t always want to admit it, but sometimes, the product just isn’t good. Or it’s too average. Or it’s outdated. In marketing, we may not even initially realize it. We still do all we can – focus on the highs, bury the lows, package it up to feel premium. We aren’t trying to scam anyone. We’re just trying to give the product its best shot.
But lipstick can only do so much. You can’t stop the negative reviews. You can’t fake a 2.6 out of 5 rating on Capterra. And you definitely can’t salvage a rollout that replaced real support with a clunky self-serve help center.
Sometimes, the product had a fun run. But it just wasn’t viable.
Internal Sabotage Happens Too
People want to keep their jobs. Some will protect themselves at the company’s expense. Maybe reports never make it past a certain manager. Maybe good data dies in a spreadsheet graveyard.
These aren’t just “marketing” problems – they’re operational dysfunctions that stifle growth. But when growth stalls, marketing is often the first to get blamed.
Growth Is a System
You can’t just look at conversions. You have to look at context. Great growth leaders don’t just stare at top-of-funnel metrics. They study the whole machine – sales behavior, product experience, delivery quality, customer support, even the politics that quietly shape it all.
Because this isn’t just a funnel – it’s a system of moving parts. Like gears in a machine. If one cog slips, even slightly, everything downstream gets thrown off. Sometimes, that cog is sales. Sometimes it’s the onboarding experience. Sometimes it’s a VP who won’t let bad news move upstream.
AT SRGP, we watch every cog. We oil the squeaky ones. We escalate when something starts grinding. Because in growth, nothing lives in a vacuum – and one faulty gear can stall the whole engine.
Final Word
If you’re getting the volume but not the growth – don’t blame the faucet. Check the cup. And the cogs. And check Mike in sales, who is Platinum rank in Call of Duty yet with a sales response time that rivals continental drift.
