Why "Growth at All Costs" Quietly Dies

Years ago, I worked at a market research firm that sold premium B2B respondents. We weren’t the cheapest provider in the market — and that was intentional. Our value proposition was quality.

The premium segment of the market was smaller, but we dominated it. Our share was high, margins were excellent, and the business was extremely profitable.

Then leadership made a push for growth.

The problem they saw was simple: the premium segment was smaller than the “tonnage” side of the market. The larger revenue opportunity appeared to be competing for the massive volume of lower-priced sample projects.

The message from the head of sales was repeated often:

“Do not lose projects over price.”

Almost overnight our sales motion changed. Instead of selling value, we started asking clients a different question:

“What price do we need to be at to win?”

And then we quoted that price.

Revenue grew for a while.

But the system had changed.

Margins shrank. Product investment slowed. We started sourcing from lower-quality suppliers just to make the economics work.

Eventually the thing that made us different — quality — disappeared.

And with it, the brand.

We traded a position of dominance in a premium market for a seat at the table in a commodity one.

The company went from a mid-sized business that was wildly profitable to a much larger company that has since been restructured multiple times just to survive.

Growth can hide a lot of strategic tradeoffs.

Diligence tends to reveal them all at once.