Scorecard for Marketing Potential

One thing founders underestimate is how strong their business fundamentals really are. The stronger the fundamentals, the more aggressively you should be investing in your marketing.

If you were to take the Scorecard below, and score your business out of 5 on each of the KPIs and then total your score, you’d be able to come to a recommendation on how aggressive that business should be with their Marketing investment. The higher the score, the better positioned a business in their ability to invest in Marketing.

Less than 5 (Poor): Lots of work to do, including finding Product-Market Fit and improving overall retention.

6 to 10 (Below Average): Reduce leaks throughout the funnel, continue improving retention.

11 to 15 (Average): Begin optimizing GTM spend as retention has moved into healthy levels. Continue focus on improving conversion rates.

16-20 (Good): Drive towards reducing CAC Payback Periods and scaling GTM spend. Get NRR above 100% with Customer expansion initiatives (pricing, cross-sell, upsell etc.)

21+ (Excellent): Scale GTM aggressively. Focus on getting more good-fit prospects and pipeline into the funnel.

Scaling GTM aggressively when retention sucks is a huge mistake. Similarly, being conservative with GTM when NRR is above 100% is also a huge mistake.

This is one of the big things founders miss. As they build their business, they often err on the side of caution rather than aggression even when the numbers dictate that they should switch to another gear. It’s easy to understand why founders do this. They’re always balancing cash flow and limited resources against competing priorities.

The key is to start with understanding where you are as a business and then decide where to focus.