Let’s talk founder to founder, leader to leader. The pressure to grow your business is relentless. It is tempting to believe your strategy is solid simply because you have set bold targets or rolled out a new sales playbook. But if you have that nagging sense the results are not matching your ambition, you are not alone. Behind closed doors, some of the best strategists in the world will tell you: most growth-stage businesses mistake activity for strategy and hustle for alignment.
Harvard Business Review and Bain agree: the real problem is rarely a “broken” strategy. More often, it is a misaligned one. And alignment starts when you decide what not to do.
Ask yourself: Are you letting every new opportunity pull your team in another direction? Are your resources spread so thin you could try to chase almost any deal, yet rarely win the ones that truly build competitive advantage?
McKinsey research shows that “strategic drift,” where decision-makers and sellers slowly lose focus, almost always leads to underperformance. The companies that double in three years instead of burning out are the ones that make a handful of hard choices, communicate them relentlessly, and reinforce them through every incentive and process.
What We Call Strategy (But Isn’t)
Here’s the first uncomfortable truth. Revenue targets are not strategy. Product launches are not strategy. Entering a new market is not strategy. Motivational sales themes are not strategy.
These things are important, but they do not answer the hard core question every business must confront: Why here? Why us? Why now?
Bain, Boston Consulting Group, and The Economist have shown for decades that true strategy focuses energy and resources into a small set of areas where you can win decisively. The rest, even good opportunities, must be left alone.
The typical “strategy meeting” produces slick slides full of goals, hope, and directionless hustle. What it does not often produce is a clear answer to which opportunities, prospects, and competitors do not fit your vision. This omission is where confusion begins and results start to slide.
What Real Strategy Feels Like
The World Economic Forum has profiled high-growth companies that thrive because they practice ruthless clarity and alignment. These companies define, with precision:
- Where they compete not the whole market, but specific sectors, geographies, and customer types.
- How they win a unique advantage that competitors cannot easily copy.
- Why their best customers choose them not just features, not just price, but a clear, perceived value that strengthens over time.
This discipline means saying “no” more often than “yes.” It concentrates resources on what drives the business forward. It feels sharper, more focused, and your team feels the difference.
How Misalignment Creeps In
Misalignment is a silent killer of growth-stage companies. Harvard Business Review found that even in disciplined organizations, sales teams rate their understanding of the go-to-market strategy at less than 4 out of 10. Executives believe it is closer to 6 out of 10. That gap is dangerous.
Signs of misalignment include:
- Closing deals that hurt margins
- Pursuing prospects who will never be ideal long-term customers
- Making “special exceptions” that distract from target markets
This does not mean your company is broken. It means you need a reset.
Real alignment happens when every sales motion, process, and incentive ties directly to specific strategic priorities. Hiring, coaching, and rewarding sellers become tightly connected to these priorities. Documentation and repetition make them part of the culture. Bain and McKinsey’s research confirms that when leaders repeat their strategy until every seller can recite it, results improve.
What to Do Next
Ask yourself, and your leadership team questions like these, drawn from GrowExpand, Harvard Business Review and BCG insights:
- Are our sales goals focused on margin and fit, or just volume?
- Do our incentives and compensation support our chosen market strategy?
- When a new deal appears, do we know immediately if it fits or distracts?
If your answers are inconsistent or blurred, your strategy may be more illusion than reality. The fix begins with focus: saying no more often, reinforcing the plan in every conversation, and building a culture that values discipline over chaos.
When you shift from chasing to aligning, you make decisions faster, close deals more profitably, and your whole company understands where it is going and why.
Remember, many of the world’s highest-performing companies began exactly where you are. They faced the same messiness and ambiguity but chose to align completely on a few decisive moves. They turned strategy from a wish list into a crystal-clear direction.
So, step back and ask yourself right now:
Is your strategy an illusion, or is it the true north star your business can rally around?
This post was written by Rich Laster
References: Insights in this article are supported by research and perspectives from Harvard Business Review, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, The Economist, and the World Economic Forum.
The views and opinions expressed on this blogpost are solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of GrowExpand.com, our staff, our partners, or our clients. The material and information contained on this blog is for general information purposes only. You should not rely on said information in making legal, accounting, or other business decisions in the absence of expert counsel.