WTF is growth, anyway?

Hey there,

Earlier this year, I was in a deep spiral about business, life, and everything in between. If you’ve been reading Brand Burnout for a while, you probably picked up on it—I wasn’t exactly subtle.

The spiral was caused by a myriad of things, but mostly my unrelenting grip on ideas and projects that were no longer serving my vision. In my endless pursuit of more, I’d lost the thread of what I was trying to build—for myself, my family, and other business owners around me.

One person who helped me out of that spiral? Laura Green, founder of Impact Vector. We did a clarity workshop together earlier this year. Six months later, and I’m still buzzing with energy! She’s a strategist focused on aligned, personalized growth for creatives and entrepreneurs.

I asked her to share some of that wisdom with the Burnouts (what I lovingly call you subscribers), and dig into what “growth” really means—and what it doesn’t—in hopes it might spark clarity if you’ve been stuck in your own spiral.

Enjoy!

Let’s start with the fun stuff—if your brand were an animal, what would it be?

It’s hard to pick just one! 😂 Probably a hawk. A little bit of free-spirited soaring, a little bit of keen vision and precision.

Oh, I can totally see that! You have the uncanny ability to think big and then dial things in to bring folks back to reality.

And speaking of reality, everyone says they want growth, but not everyone defines what that looks like. When clients tell you they want to grow, what specific outcomes are they usually after

The big tension is that it’s often not defined clearly. There can be a significant difference between what clients think they’re after and what’s core to the vision.

A common thread is that clients are looking for “more” in a very broad, undefined way—more clients, more revenue, that sort of thing. But for most of the clients I work with, that’s not the whole truth.

If the only thing they wanted was revenue or a high client volume, they would be operating with a different business model. But they’ve chosen to build their business a certain way. So we need to find what’s driving that, and it’s often deeply personal. It might be the desire to push a certain value forward in the world or to make a particular message heard.

I don’t mean that it has to be existential either.

One thing you and I have in common is that we believe it’s important for all kinds of folks to have a pathway to building a business in their own way. We want more of that. In many ways, the value of my work starts long before the strategies or tactics. It starts here with really excavating what’s most authentic.

Yes to more of that! I’m curious why you personally find that client-defined path to growth so important. And why avoid the usual, “expected” growth levers?

Short answer? Because people won’t actually do it otherwise. 

Listen, entrepreneurs are wild and sometimes rebellious folks. We’re stubborn! (That’s one of our superpowers, really.)

GUILTY!

So if I go handing out one-size-fits-most roadmaps to success, most of my clients would ignore them entirely. Actually, most of my coaching clients come to me right after they finish another accelerator or incubator. It’s because they’ve just been handed an overwhelming volume of info and resources and been told to make it work. They’re left trying to figure out how to make it work for them.

I work with creatives and leaders who are deeply values-driven. They need growth strategies that protect their personal values and boundaries instead of rubbing up against them.

No one likes chafing, ya know?

And speaking of the rub—I have some issues with a lot of growth conversations.

Growth can sometimes distract from a vision or dilute brand perception. How do you help clients stay true to their values and customer expectations while they expand?

This is exactly why we spend so much time fleshing out vision from the beginning. Once we’ve done that, the vision just gets baked into everything else. The tactics we lay out and the supporting systems reflect where it is they want to go. We use systems to make it really difficult to go against the values we started with.

Coaching and community can really help with this! We all need those little nudges in the right direction from time to time.

Community is HUGE! And not the fluffy, ‘We’re like-minded,’ type, but the kind where we’re really getting into meaningful, sometimes challenging, conversations—which, coincidentally, is how I met you!

When we met, I was immediately drawn to your framework, which focuses on three areas: vision, tactics, and systems. Which do you feel is the most undervalued or misunderstood by business owners—and how does that affect how their brand shows up?

Jamie! This is like asking me who’s my favorite child!!

But okay, fine—since I believe so strongly in alignment, I would say vision is most misunderstood. It’s easy for folks to feel like vision statements just live on websites and don’t have much to do with the day-to-day of running a business. It couldn’t be further from the truth. When done well, every single part of a strategy is oriented around vision. She’s the pack leader. Gotta start with her.

I see this a lot with values, too—folks just slap them on their website and call it a day. That couldn’t be further from the truth!

You talk about creating impact by reducing friction (that chafing we mentioned earlier). What are some of the biggest frictions you discover when working with clients?

It’s always in the misalignments. And it’s usually when a client has borrowed a growth strategy that’s worked for someone else without making sure it's compatible with or authentic to their own work.

The “growth” is taking them in one direction when they want to go the other. In practice, this can mean revenue growth is happening totally separately from growth towards impact or vision. You’re pulling one lever that’s making money and a totally different one that’s moving towards vision. Unless your single, solitary goal is money (and those people are not my people), you have to understand how they’re connected. Alignment is the antidote to friction.

It’s fascinating to me that this is an issue that plagues both solo business owners and established businesses. I know you work with both categories—so what are some things you think the two could learn from one another?

Oh, this is truly one of my favorite parts of my work. I love helping the established orgs who are ten years down the road remember how excited and hopeful and enthusiastic they were when they started.

The big lesson for an established org: This should be fun! Let’s rekindle some of that!

On the flip side, the “older” organizations have made it through a lot of “keep going” moments that can really rattle someone who is in an earlier stage and has smaller margins. Things are going to go differently than we thought; that’s just how life goes.

The big lesson for a solo business owner: You can make it. Just keep going.

Speaking of “keep going,” I used to teach spin, which is basically riding a bike going nowhere to loud music. Because of that, my brain thinks in soundtracks. So, if your business had a karaoke song, what would it be?

I think I’m going with “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen. That’s how I want my clients to feel because of our work together.

Coincidentally, I dressed up as Freddie Mercury for one of my spin classes. 😂 I knew we were destined to be friends!

And if folks want to be your friend, or just soak up some of your knowledge, where should they go to learn more about you?

They can connect with me on LinkedIn or my website, but for the knowledge, ya got to sign up for the newsletter!

Thanks, Laura!

And thank you for reading!