Reflection: We Chased Growth, and Lost Ourselves Doing It

We made a bold marketing move to accelerate growth. It backfired.

In this episode, Benj and McKenzie break down a failed startup marketing strategy and what it exposed about leadership, values, and growth misalignment. It's a real-world case study in what happens when your strategy outpaces your identity.

If you're a founder, COO, or scaling a business, you'll learn how to recover from a misstep, realign with your core values, and build a more resilient growth plan.

Sessions is hosted by Benj Miller and McKenzie Decker

The best businesses aren’t just built on strategy, they’re built on soul.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro — When growth moves go wrong
• 2:57 What we thought flipping the funnel would do
• 6:13 The failure and the real cost of misalignment
• 9:22 Using the roadmap to course correct
• 12:47 Culture, clarity, and learning the hard way
• 17:32 What we're doing now (and what we ditched)

Transcript

Benj Miller: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to Sessions with System and Soul. I'm Ben Miller here with Mackenzie Decker, partner in crime and all things system and soul, and today we're doing one of our. Sessions called a reflection, which is a reflection on things that we're seeing in the market with our clients, with our coaches.

Benj Miller: And today we're talking about something we're seeing in our own business. And, uh, it's been heavy on Mackenzie's mind. And so I was like, let's go just air it to the world and talk 

McKenzie Decker: it. Let's broadcast it. Let's tell, let's broadcast 

Benj Miller: it. Let's, uh, talk about it more than I would probably think to do. So I'm proud of you for, for putting it out there.

Benj Miller: But, uh, why don't you jump in and tell us what you've been processing on lately. 

McKenzie Decker: Yeah, so at the risk of, I feel this could feel like airing dirty laundry, which is not what we're intending to do. Um, there is just a reality that we practice [00:01:00] what we preach, we do what we teach other people to do, and we're growing business like everybody else.

McKenzie Decker: So behind the scenes there's stuff that doesn't go as planned. So we're just gonna let you know about that and talk through, like how do we. Deal with it. Maybe there's something in this for you. I do think that there absolutely is, especially this time of year where we're kind of like, we're in the back, you know, the back half where we're coming to the end of the year.

McKenzie Decker: Everyone's kind of we're, you know, we're wrapping up goals. We're getting to the point where we're looking ahead at. What's next? How are we going to step into 2026? So I think this will all be helpful for that, but let me tell you about my tough six months. Um, so one of the things that I oversee in our business is the kind of the marketing and sales, we call it the growth seat, and.

McKenzie Decker: We at six months ago, um, it feels like an eternity ago, but six months ago we, [00:02:00] we looked at where we wanted to be by the end of the year. One of our bets is, um, and I'll explain this as much as it's helpful, but one of our bets is really to, um, we call it fully flipping our funnel. So we love a good alliteration fully flipping the funnel and.

McKenzie Decker: We had some, we had probably, I guess you call it like two, three key activities that we invested lots of money in to help us flip the funnel. And six months goes by and we've seen success in some ways, but in other ways some big misses. And there's so many reasons for that. There's so much. Frustration and emotion around that, that I won't, I won't burden you with, but, um, 

Benj Miller: we can hear it in your voice.

McKenzie Decker: Can you? Okay. Okay, good. We're communicating best enough. There's, there's a lot in what we invested in that did not work as planned, [00:03:00] and there's a million reasons for that, but I wanted to talk about it because I think it's a reality that we all run into where. You go and you make these big bets, a bet in, in our words system.

McKenzie Decker: Insult. A bet is a, is a a risk you're willing to take. Um. A risk that as you take it, you're either hopeful or confident that the reward will outweigh the risk. And in this case, for us, it wasn't totally true. So we're all making bets in our businesses, and I'm sure that there's things that happen for you guys that didn't work out a hundred percent.

McKenzie Decker: And I didn't wanna just dump this here and say, you know, we had a failure. You know, failure's, okay. You learn, you live and you learn. Like, that's not the message of today. But I, I did wanna set up that context because. That's just the reality of what our behind the scenes is looked like, and we've, we've had to, had to pivot in a lot of ways.

McKenzie Decker: Do you have a perspective on this from where you sit and what your last [00:04:00] six months has looked like before I keep going. 

Benj Miller: Um, yeah. I mean, anytime you take the time and, you know, part of the bet, the word that's in my head is any, the part of the bet is, is. Calculated, right? Is it strategic? Is it, and it was very, very calculated.

Benj Miller: Like we had a calculated amount of money we were willing to put toward this thing in a timeline. And um, yeah. So it was extremely disappointing that it did not pay off. So, um, but that's, that's the nature of a bet, right? Is be, it wouldn't be a bet if it was guaranteed. And so you've, you've, if you stop taking bets in a business, then you're in trouble as well.

Benj Miller: So part of taking these bets is man, not all of 'em are gonna work out. And this one, I think it was so calculated and it was maybe in a line of bets that had come before it that maybe had a little baggage already for us. Mm-hmm. Right. So it, it [00:05:00] felt like, oh man, we're, we're really struggling with this one.

Benj Miller: So, yeah, that's, 

McKenzie Decker: yeah, sometimes I'm 

Benj Miller: tracking 

McKenzie Decker: some, sometimes I think we get to a point where it's like, gosh, how many times are we gonna learn this lesson? You know? Um, so I, I do think there's a lot in, you know, one point to make is when we get to that kind of point of failure or point of dis disappointment, um, there, there has to be an evaluation of what did we just experience, what didn't go right?

McKenzie Decker: What were we ignorant of when we started? Where were we a little too confident? You know, there's all of those questions. For us. I just wanna like, walk through with, with you all like, how do we do that effectively? Because everybody runs into this. 

Benj Miller: And so for, I think that's the point of the conversation.

Benj Miller: So I'm, I'm excited for you to get there. I, I wanna take out, 'cause I, I realize like we're being super cryptic for no reason. Oh, okay. All, all of our growth has come [00:06:00] because the people that interact with us get massive value and so they then tell somebody else and somebody else, and that's word of mouth is how we've grown continuously over four and a half years.

Benj Miller: And so we thought we would, you know, take the bull by the horns and take control of it and create this beautiful ad campaign to go target people directly and just nothing from there panned out. Um, and we realized that we're way more relational than we, uh, knew in terms of how our business functions and grows and all that.

Benj Miller: So that, that's what we're. Cryptically talking about, is that fair? Did I, is that the right? 

McKenzie Decker: No. Yeah, I, I mean, it's the, yeah. The punchline is really, we invested in a bunch of strategies that were non-relational, very transactional. And that is just what we learned six months later is that's just not how system and soul's going to grow, um, because it never has.

McKenzie Decker: So, um, when we came to that realization, it's [00:07:00] like, okay, uh, well that was one of those, like, this was a total misnomer on our part for thinking. That strategy was gonna work for us when it never did, and we've got all these other ways that are relational that we can be investing in. Um, so there is some learning in that for us.

McKenzie Decker: Um, and I, I wanna, I wanna kind of show you guys, is it okay if I share a roadmap? Just the top part, not the. I'm not gonna share all of our financial data with all of you, but I wanna show you. So when it, for us, one of the ways that we address something like this, when we've hit a wall, we go back to our roadmap.

McKenzie Decker: And our roadmap is our one page strategic plan. We've done an episode on this. If you wanna walk through all the components of it and like build your own, but this is what we go back to and it is. I, I don't even think, like in this, for this last six months, I don't think I realized how important our roadmap was gonna be on the other [00:08:00] side of this six months for this particular use case.

McKenzie Decker: Yeah, there's so many use cases for the roadmap and for me, this was the first. Time that we had such a big bet that did not go as planned, that the roadmap came into, um, came into view as something that was a very, very helpful resetting tool. Alright, so this is our roadmap. This is the top part. I'm not gonna show you the, all of the bets at the bottom, but um, the pieces at the top, we've got our identity statement.

McKenzie Decker: We've got our hedgehog and we've got our culture, our uh, culture equation. And so some of these elements are really key in us looking at this problem and saying, where did we miss it? Where were we in alignment? Where do we miss it? How do we move forward? And so for us. One of the things that was incredibly clear in looking at, I would say, especially our culture equation, so, so look, looking at our culture equation, at the end of the day when we look at our culture, what we want it to be is people over [00:09:00] policy risk over reserved.

McKenzie Decker: Solutions over script and progress over perfection. So there's deep definitions that come with that, but at a high level, those are the four things that we wanna be true about who we are. And I would say, when I think about the decisions that we made. I see. I mean, I see the risk over reserved piece. I'm like, we, we really stepped into, let's, let's take a big swing.

McKenzie Decker: Yeah. Um, well, the two things that don't feel aligned here for me when I evaluate it is like the people over policy. I think there's a, a human, that relational or human element that we mentioned. Um, where we chose, you know, an industry best standard ad strategy that had nothing to do with honoring the people and the problems that we deal with in the way that's helpful to them, communicating to them in a way that they can hear us.

McKenzie Decker: So I think that was a miss. Um, and similarly solution over script, what that [00:10:00] means for us is we don't wanna get stuck in doing things the way that it's always been done. We wanna do it in a way that is nuanced. Yeah. And I think in the way that we approach that problem, we are like, let's just do what everybody else is doing.

McKenzie Decker: Um, and, and I think that, that, that's not the, you know, that's the script. And so I think we were adopting a script mentality instead of. The solution mentality. Um, so for me, go ahead. 

Benj Miller: Well just, um, this, taking it to those two attributes is so brilliant. I'm wondering, like, I'm not sure I would've even caught this use case.

Benj Miller: Like if, even if we had been super diligent to look through our whole roadmap and like double check this bet. I don't know if I would've caught it because. Like to me, person over policy was always I, my viewpoint was always like in regards [00:11:00] to our team. Mm. Right now the use case that you're applying it to I think is brilliant and I think we'll learn for future.

Benj Miller: But I don't know that I would've, even if we were more diligent, I don't know that I would've caught it. Caught that application. I don't know if you feel like you would've, but it's interesting to me like because, because you always want to do the diagnostic, like, where did we go wrong? Did we not evaluate how well this fit our roadmap?

Benj Miller: Or did we just miss it or whatever. And I think that this was something that like we, I didn't think how these two things that we had already articulated apply to this scenario. But now that we have. I think we'll see a whole new world of things that it applies to. Yeah. So it's kind of cool how it took a lesson to learn how real, what we already said was [00:12:00] 

McKenzie Decker: for sure.

McKenzie Decker: I mean, I, I think the roadmap gets tested every time we go back to it of like, is this really, is this really the. Like the document that, is this our 10 commandments, you know? Yeah. Like, it really, it really gets tested in that way. Um, but, and that's why it's so, I think that's why it's so useful for us.

McKenzie Decker: It's very grounding and I think we are like, like you said, like we're discovering all these ways that it's grounding Yeah. A little bit unexpectedly. Um, and I just wanna say if, if you feel like. You being the people watching this, not you binge, but the people watching this, if you feel like you need that kind of grounding.

McKenzie Decker: Um, we, we are doing a workshop series. It's already started, but you can jump in. I, uh, and we can make sure you get up to speed with everything we've covered. But we are gonna be building roadmaps like this. We're gonna be building out the elements [00:13:00] together. Um, live on a call like this where you will have the time to.

McKenzie Decker: Sit with what needs to be on your 10 commandments for your business, whether it's the big bets, whether it's the company Y and the destination that you're headed towards. Um, or it's the culture that you wanna uphold, just like we talked about. So if that's something you wanna be a part of, I think it's a great investment of time, but it's gonna be a huge in the direction and the strategy of your business.

McKenzie Decker: Um, 

Benj Miller: I wanna pick, piggyback that for a second because I've just come out of. Uh, it's starting annual season, so a lot of annual strategic planning, but part of that we start by looking back at the last year. And so coming out of three of these so far, um, it's been so rewarding. Uh, there's two facets of this.

Benj Miller: One is my clients, the three that we've met with so far, have exceeded their revenue goal by [00:14:00] 20%, 30%, and 35% this year. Exceeded not, not like, not growth numbers exceeded their revenue target by that much. And to watch them walk in with the, the energy and alignment and health and excitement for what they get to do and to get to do it together.

Benj Miller: Now, I mean, this is not overnight work. These are, you know, 2, 3, 4 year clients that I've, I've been walking with and journeying with. But like the, to, to watch them get that success and then go. Man, it's because we did these things, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so none of it's magic and none of it's overnight. But I think a lot of us as leaders know the things, but haven't really applied the things.

Benj Miller: And we just want to help more people be able to do that. So that's what this workshop series is about. 

McKenzie Decker: Yeah, absolutely. I wanna point out one more thing on our roadmap that for me. Was [00:15:00] clarifying in the reflection on, you know, the bad bet that we had. And that's our hedgehog. And the hedgehog is, um, I think we just released right before this one, I think we released an episode on how to build a hedgehog.

Benj Miller: Yeah. Um, 

McKenzie Decker: but that's the idea of a hedgehog is. This idea of creating focus and, and really, um, sitting in the center of your, like your power as an organization and your unique gifting and your unique abilities in your market. And so it's what can you be the best in the world at? What are you deeply passionate about and what drives your economic engine?

McKenzie Decker: And so ours, um. Without getting way into the weeds is we can be the best in the world at shipping. Big ideas. Well check that we did that with this. Um, we're deeply passionate about compounding dignity and, um, what drives our economic engine is the number of coaches we have with five or more clients. [00:16:00] Um, so for me, when I looked at that and I was thinking about this bet, I'm like deeply passionate about compounding dignity.

McKenzie Decker: Again, it felt like, I mean the, I felt like we met the economic engine component and. The best in the world component. Like, like I could give those, like a thumbs up where it felt, where it feels misaligned back to that decision that was, um, decision and implementation that was very transactional instead of relational.

McKenzie Decker: I don't think that that approach that we took was compounding dignity. There's something very transactional about the, the channel and the decision there that does not feel like us. It doesn't feel like how we do business. It doesn't feel like how we deliver value. And I'm like that, that makes sense. And so that for me, again, like the hedgehog, that tool took on new meaning for me.

McKenzie Decker: When I think about, yeah, think about our bets. [00:17:00] 

Benj Miller: Yeah. That's so good. And it reminds me, we just had our quarterly. I think last week, maybe the week before, now that we've had a couple weeks space from it, uh, at our next weekly sync, we should go back and just like scrutinize the bets that we made for Q4 through that lens, like, and make sure they pass.

Benj Miller: That'd be a great exercise. 

McKenzie Decker: All right, let's do it. I was gonna say, um, just for awareness, so we've done this evaluation. Like Ben said, we had a quarterly meeting last week. So when we meet, uh, we meet every 90 days. We evaluate, we go, we call it, look back, look around. Like we look at the business and we're like, what happened?

McKenzie Decker: What do we wanna do differently? We, we do all that and then we reset for the next 90 days. And so we do have a new objective around this. So I have a new focus and we really, I, I would say it's, it's really a lot more aligned with our roadmap, but I guess we'll scrutinize it even more [00:18:00] next week. But, um. I would say doing this exercise and looking at the roadmap, it's helped us realize that we have two marketing objectives to help us kind of recoup and get back on track.

McKenzie Decker: And the way I put it when we met was we need to do what we need to do and we need to learn what we need to learn. And there's a lot that comes with that. But do what we need to do is like, we need to follow through on what we've committed to on the relationship driving activities that we've signed up for, which is like, yeah.

McKenzie Decker: Doing this, doing sessions, stepping fully into how we show up on social media, stepping fully into delivering this amazing workshop for all the people that are signed up for it. So it's like we need to deliver the value, and that's one piece of how we move forward and then learn what we need to learn.

McKenzie Decker: We, we really came down to like, we've really gotta think about our go-to market strategy and there's so much that we need to understand about how we do that through a relational lens. [00:19:00] And so there's this deep dive for me in the next 90 days of like stepping into what are all the ways that I need to understand how to market in this way that is compounding dignity.

McKenzie Decker: That is us, that is people focused. So that's where we landed with it and I. While I don't have, you know, all the answers, we didn't totally figure it out. Like I, I still feel grounded and like we're moving in the right direction. And I think that's the power of the roadmap. I think that's the power of kind of doing, doing these cadences and like running through this process quarter over quarter.

Benj Miller: Yeah. Great call out and such a reinforcement for the power of having a roadmap so that. You as a leader can go back to it, but everybody can go back to it and be aligned to the same core. It's kinda like the first principles of your organization, 

McKenzie Decker: right? Yeah, absolutely. Um, 

Benj Miller: we'll link a comment to the episode where we go through the roadmap or if you just want a simple.

Benj Miller: First start, we can go to the episode with the, where we talk through the [00:20:00] hedgehog. If you want help with this, it's, it's so powerful to have somebody that lives in this world thinks this way. Um, so we also have coaches that'll help walk you guys through it, build a roadmap together, uh, and, and just sometimes it's helpful to have that.

Benj Miller: Person that's not heads down in your business to be able to reflect back to you the things that are truly unique about your business. 'cause they just are what they are sometimes when you're heads down in your business. So that's what we're here for, system itself, if we can help reach out. Super. Thanks.

Benj Miller: To fist bumps for making the show happen. Keeping our our heads on straight with this and encouraging us to have conversations like this, uh, where it's, you know, not all sexy and mic drop moments, but it's what does, what does life look like and what do you learn as you go about either building a business or maturing a business, reinventing a business, taking over new leadership within a business.

Benj Miller: There's a lot of people on Instagram that looks like. Everything's just easy and it, [00:21:00] it never is. Business is messy. Um, and that's the game. And if we remember, that's also like the fun and the challenge. And it's growing us and it's making us into something new. And uh, it's something to be super grateful that we get to be part of.

Benj Miller: And so I'm appreciative of people like you that wanna listen, that wanna grow, that wanna learn. Um, and so we'll be back here for you next week with another episode of Sessions. See ya.