Score, before
61/100
Case Studies / Manufacturing
The 42% spend that moved nothing.
A mid-sized industrial manufacturer, roughly $30M revenue, growth flat for three quarters. Marketing spend was up 42% year on year and every advisor said the same thing: get more leads. The constraint was somewhere else entirely.
Growth Intelligence Summary · Redacted
Constraint
Pricing
First Move
Repackage
Budget freed
18%
Score, 90d
61 → 69
Situation
A healthy business that had stopped growing
Strong product, loyal customers, a capable commercial team. But three flat quarters had the board nervous, and the instinct was to spend into it. The marketing budget had grown 42%; the revenue line hadn't followed.
Symptoms
Rising spend, rising cost, flat result
Cost per acquisition was climbing. Sales converted well, around 29%, but complained there weren't enough quality conversations. Discounts were being signed off case by case to hit quarterly numbers. Everyone was busy; nothing moved.
The constraint
Pricing, not demand
The 9X read scored Foundation weak on one lever: pricing and packaging. Discount-by-default meant list price was realised on fewer than half of deals. The margin that would have funded acquisition was leaking out the back. More leads would simply have meant more discounting.
Recommendation
Fix the leak before opening the tap
Restructure pricing into three clear tiers, remove the reflex discount, and give sales a value narrative to hold the line. Only then scale demand, now that each new customer carried the margin to justify the acquisition cost.
Outcome
18% of budget, found not spent
Within a quarter, tighter discounting recovered roughly 18% of effective budget without a single extra dollar of spend. The projected Growth Score moved 61 → 69, and the demand programme that followed finally compounded instead of leaking.
The lesson
Sometimes the fastest way to more demand is better pricing
When a business asks for "more leads," the honest first question is whether it can afford the leads it already gets. Pricing is the quietest lever, and often the fastest.
† Figures representative; client identity and specifics redacted.
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