Joost de Jager recently shared something that caught my attention: "We have growth ambitions. Can you help us?" He explained that this was the question he got from Lodewijk van Ommeren a little over two years ago, when Bureau Zuidema had the ambition, a strong team, and decades of experience in behavior training, but needed new momentum and someone willing to challenge the status quo.

That line matters because it is the most common growth request leaders make, and also the most dangerously vague. "Help us grow" can mean anything. More leads. Better conversion. Higher prices. New products. A new story in the market. Or simply, a way to stop good ideas from dying in the idea phase.

Joost described what happened next with refreshing honesty: he challenged routines that "had always been done that way," asked uncomfortable questions, pitched ideas that met resistance, and sometimes pushed them through anyway. Not everyone liked it. But two years later, the work produced a sharper positioning, a new website, campaigns built on real customer insights, an expanded training portfolio (including successful leadership programs), and processes that made execution repeatable. The reported result: over 25% growth.

I want to expand on what Joost is really pointing to here: growth is rarely a marketing trick. It is a strategy-to-execution discipline. Marketing becomes the visible output, but the engine is alignment, choices, customer truth, and the operational muscle to ship.

The real question behind "Can you help us grow?"

When a company asks for growth help, I have learned to respond with a set of clarifying questions that mirror Joost's approach:

What does "growth" mean in numbers and time (revenue, margin, volume, retention)?
What must be true for that growth to happen (segments, channels, proposition, capacity)?
What is currently getting in the way (unclear positioning, weak pipeline, poor follow-up, scattered priorities)?
Where does execution break down (decisions, ownership, processes, data, incentives)?

Growth is a direction. Strategy is the set of choices. Execution is the system that keeps those choices from evaporating.

Joost's story highlights a common pattern: organizations often already have talent and experience, but lack a unifying narrative in the market and the internal cadence to make change stick.

Why challenging the status quo is not a personality trait

Joost wrote that he "made it difficult" at times by asking uncomfortable questions and tackling processes that were considered normal. This is not about being contrarian. It is about refusing to accept implicit assumptions as if they are facts.

In practice, "challenging the status quo" often looks like:

Questioning legacy segmentation: "Are we serving everyone, which means no one feels specifically understood?"
Reframing value: "Are we selling training hours, or behavior change outcomes?"
Auditing the funnel: "Where exactly do we lose deals, and do we know why?"
Testing uncomfortable trade-offs: "If we focus on two segments and stop chasing the rest, what happens?"

The discomfort is a signal that a real decision is on the table. Without decisions, growth programs turn into busywork.

Positioning first, because everything else depends on it

Joost mentioned "a sharpened positioning" as a key outcome. That is not a branding nice-to-have. Positioning is the filter that makes all marketing and sales choices easier.

Strong positioning answers:

Who is this for?
What problem do we solve better than alternatives?
What do we want to be known for?
Why should a buyer believe us?

When positioning is fuzzy, teams compensate by adding more content, more campaigns, more offers, and more features. The result is noise. When positioning is clear, you can simplify your message, your website, and your demand generation into a coherent story buyers repeat back to you.

A practical positioning checkpoint

If you want a simple test, try this: ask five people in your organization to write, in one sentence, what you do and why it matters. If you get five different answers, your marketing will likely look like five different strategies.

Customer insights are not a survey deck, they are a decision tool

Joost called out "campaigns built on real customer insights." I love that phrasing because many teams do research, but few teams use insights to make sharper choices.

Customer insights are useful when they change behavior inside the company, for example:

You stop leading with internal jargon and start leading with the buyer's job-to-be-done.
You adjust your proof points to match the buyer's risk (credibility, outcomes, references).
You discover the true competitors are not other providers, but "do nothing" or "we will build it ourselves."
You redesign onboarding and follow-up because the real friction was not awareness, it was activation.

Insights are only "real" when they create trade-offs: what you will say no to, and what you will double down on.

Expanding the portfolio without diluting the brand

Another outcome Joost mentioned was expanding the training portfolio with successful leadership programs. Portfolio expansion can be a growth lever, but it can also weaken positioning if it becomes a grab bag.

The difference is whether new offerings:

reinforce the core promise (same audience, adjacent problems), or
chase revenue in unrelated directions (different buyers, different outcomes, different sales motion).

If leadership training fits naturally into the same behavior-change narrative, it strengthens the story. If it is "because leadership is trending," it can confuse the market. Joost's results suggest they expanded in a way that complemented the sharper positioning.

The overlooked growth lever: processes that prevent idea purgatory

The most operational line in Joost's post may be the most important: implementing processes "that ensure good ideas do not get stuck in the idea phase." This is where many growth efforts quietly fail.

Ideas are plentiful. Execution capacity is scarce.

A lightweight execution system usually includes:

A clear prioritization cadence (monthly or quarterly)
One owner per initiative (not a committee)
Defined success metrics (leading and lagging)
A review rhythm that is about learning, not blame
A way to translate insights into backlog items (website updates, sales enablement, campaign iterations)

When that system exists, marketing stops being a series of heroic sprints and becomes compounding progress.

Why the "25% growth" headline is credible

Joost shared "over 25% growth" as the result. In my view, that number is plausible precisely because it is not presented as a single tactic win. It is the combined impact of:

clearer market message (better conversion)
better customer understanding (higher relevance)
improved digital foundation (website that supports the story)
expanded, aligned offerings (more value per customer)
repeatable execution (more consistency, less thrash)

In other words, it is growth by design, not growth by accident.

The transition: building foundations that outlast the consultant

Joost also noted that Bureau Zuidema will continue with a new in-house marketing manager, and that his work is nearly done. That is another signal of a healthy engagement: the goal is not dependency, it is capability.

If you are considering external support for growth, take a lesson from this story. The best outcomes happen when an outsider helps you:

make choices you were postponing
install operating rhythms that your team can run
leave behind clear messaging, assets, and processes
enable internal ownership before the engagement ends

The real deliverable is not a campaign. It is a foundation that makes the next 10 campaigns better.

A question to bring back to your team

If "We have growth ambitions" is where you are right now, borrow Joost's implied playbook and ask:

What status quo are we protecting that is holding us back?
Which customer truths are we ignoring because they are inconvenient?
What would we stop doing if we had to choose?
What process would prevent our best ideas from stalling?

Answer those, and marketing becomes less about activity and more about execution with intent.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Joost de Jager, Strategy to Execution | Business Transformation | AI practitioner | Analytics Translator. View the original LinkedIn post →