Frameworks

Framework library

The named frameworks we run growth and operations on: how a goal becomes a decision, a test and a number someone owns.

Marketing metrics and formulas Glossary of the basic terms, with sources

Strategy

Where to play and how to win against the competition.

29 frameworks

Strategy7 Powers framework7 Powers is Hamilton Helmer's model of the seven conditions that let a business earn higher returns than its rivals for years, each one pairing a benefit for the company with a barrier that stops competitors from taking it away.StrategyAggregation theoryAggregation theory explains why, on the internet, the company that owns the relationship with users can commoditize its suppliers and take most of the profit in a market.StrategyAnsoff matrixThe Ansoff matrix sorts a company's growth options into four strategies, market penetration, market development, product development and diversification, by whether the product and the market are already known or new.StrategyBalanced scorecard and strategy mapsThe balanced scorecard is a management system that tracks a strategy through four linked sets of objectives and measures: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth, drawn first as a strategy map.StrategyBCG matrix (growth-share matrix)The BCG growth-share matrix sorts a company's products or business units by market growth and relative market share so leaders know which ones to fund, hold, fix or exit.StrategyBlue Ocean StrategyBlue Ocean Strategy is a method for creating a new market space instead of fighting rivals for share, using the ERRC grid and the strategy canvas to cut costs and add new value at the same time.StrategyBusiness Model CanvasThe Business Model Canvas is a one-page template with nine blocks that describes how a business creates, delivers and captures value, so a team can see its whole model at once and test the weakest parts first.StrategyCompetitive analysis matrixA competitive analysis matrix is a table that scores your company and three to five rivals on the same buying criteria, so you can see where you lead, where you trail and where nobody serves the customer well.StrategyDisruptive innovationDisruptive innovation is Clayton Christensen's theory of how a smaller entrant with a cheaper, simpler offer starts where incumbents are not looking and later takes their mainstream customers.StrategyDynamic capabilitiesDynamic capabilities are a company's ability to spot a change in its market, commit money and people to it, and rebuild what it owns and does, so that today's strengths do not turn into tomorrow's traps.StrategyGE-McKinsey matrixThe GE-McKinsey matrix scores a company's business units on two composite measures, industry attractiveness and business unit strength, so leaders can weigh several factors into one investment call per unit instead of relying on two raw numbers.StrategyGood Strategy Bad Strategy: Rumelt's strategy kernelRichard Rumelt's kernel says every good strategy has three parts, a diagnosis of the challenge, a guiding policy for dealing with it and coherent actions that carry it out, and it gives you four signs for spotting a bad one.StrategyHoshin kanriHoshin kanri is a way to run strategy as a yearly management cycle: leadership picks a few breakthrough objectives, each level agrees its own targets and means through catchball, and progress is reviewed every month.StrategyLean CanvasLean Canvas is a one-page template, adapted by Ash Maurya from the Business Model Canvas, that breaks a startup idea into nine boxes of assumptions so a founder can find the riskiest one and test it first.StrategyMcKinsey 7S modelThe McKinsey 7S model is a checklist of seven parts of an organization that have to fit together, used to diagnose why a change is stalling and to plan what else must move with it.StrategyOGSM frameworkOGSM is a one-page planning format that links what a business wants to achieve (Objective and Goals) to how it will get there and track progress (Strategies and Measures).StrategyPEST and PESTLE analysisPESTLE analysis is a checklist for scanning the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental changes outside a company, then scoring which ones will actually hit it.StrategyPlatform strategy and network effectsPlatform strategy is a way to grow by connecting groups of users who make each other more valuable, and network effects are the reason it can pay off at scale.StrategyPlaying to Win (strategy choice cascade)Playing to Win is A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin's way of writing a strategy as five linked choices, from what winning means to the systems that keep the company able to win.StrategyPorter's five forcesPorter's five forces is a framework for scoring how much profit an industry has to offer before any company inside it does anything smart or dumb.StrategyPorter's generic strategiesPorter's generic strategies is a framework for choosing how a company will beat its rivals: by having the lowest cost, by being different enough to charge more, or by doing either for one narrow segment.StrategyScenario planningScenario planning is a method for preparing a strategy for several plausible futures at once, instead of betting the plan on a single forecast.StrategyStrategy canvasA strategy canvas is a one-page line chart that scores your offer and your rivals' offers on the factors your industry competes on, so you can see where everyone looks the same and where you could break away.StrategySWOT analysisSWOT analysis is a four-box planning tool that lists an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses and its external opportunities and threats, so a team can agree where it stands before choosing a strategy.StrategyThree horizons of growthThe three horizons of growth is a McKinsey model for managing a company's current core, its emerging businesses and its long-term options at the same time, so growth does not stall when the core matures.StrategyValue chain analysisValue chain analysis splits a company into the nine activities that produce what it sells, so you can see which ones earn the margin and which ones eat it.StrategyValue propositionA value proposition states what a specific customer gets from your offer, at roughly what cost, and why that beats their next best option, so the whole team builds and sells the same promise.StrategyVRIO frameworkThe VRIO framework is a four-question test, from strategy scholar Jay Barney, that tells you which of a company's resources and capabilities can give it a lasting edge over rivals and which only keep it level.StrategyWardley mappingWardley mapping is a way to draw what your business depends on, from the user's need down to the infrastructure, and show how each part is changing, so you can decide where to build, where to buy and where to act first.

Marketing strategy

Who the product is for, what it promises and why they should care.

20 frameworks

Marketing strategyAIDA modelAIDA is a four-stage model, attention, interest, desire, action, that marketers have used since the early 1900s to plan what to say to a prospect at each point before a purchase, and it is the shape behind most marketing funnels today.Marketing strategyApril Dunford positioning (Obviously Awesome)April Dunford's positioning method is a team exercise from her book Obviously Awesome that finds the market where your product is clearly the best choice, starting from what customers would use instead and ending with the category you sell in.Marketing strategyBinet and Field 60/40 rule (The Long and the Short of It)Les Binet and Peter Field's analysis of IPA effectiveness cases, which found that brands tend to get the best results when they split marketing money between long-term brand building and short-term sales activation, at about 60:40 on average.Marketing strategyBowling alley strategyThe bowling alley strategy is Geoffrey Moore's method for growing from one won niche into neighbouring ones, choosing each next segment so that references or partners from the last one carry over.Marketing strategyBuyer personaA buyer persona is a research-based description of one type of buyer and how they make a specific purchase decision, used to decide what marketing and sales say, to whom and when.Marketing strategyCategory designCategory design is a playbook for defining a new market category around a problem buyers had not named, then making your company the one people picture when they think of that category.Marketing strategyCategory entry pointsCategory entry points are the buying situations, needs and moments that make people think of a category, and the Ehrenberg-Bass method for finding them, choosing which to link the brand to and measuring progress.Marketing strategyCrossing the chasmCrossing the chasm is Geoffrey Moore's playbook for taking a new technology product from its first enthusiastic buyers to the cautious mainstream by winning one narrow segment completely before moving on.Marketing strategyCustomer value mapA customer value map plots every competitor in a market by the quality customers perceive against the price they pay, with a fair-value line showing which offers are a good deal and which are overpriced.Marketing strategyDiffusion of innovationsDiffusion of innovations is Everett Rogers' theory of how a new product or idea spreads through a group of people over time, who adopts it first, and what makes the spread fast or slow.Marketing strategyGo-to-market strategyA go-to-market strategy is the plan for how a product reaches paying customers: which segment you sell to first, what you promise them, what you charge, through which channels, and who does the selling.Marketing strategyHow Brands GrowHow Brands Grow is Byron Sharp's 2010 book arguing, from decades of purchase data, that brands grow mainly by winning more buyers, most of them light buyers, rather than by making existing buyers more loyal.Marketing strategyIdeal customer profile (ICP)An ideal customer profile describes the type of company that gets the most value from your product and returns the most value to you, so sales and marketing know which accounts to chase and which to drop.Marketing strategyMarket segmentation bases and examplesMarket segmentation is the practice of splitting a market into groups of buyers whose needs or behavior differ, so a company can choose which groups to serve and shape its offer for each.Marketing strategyMarketing mix modeling (MMM)Marketing mix modeling is a statistical way to estimate how much each marketing channel adds to sales over time, so you can decide where the next unit of budget should go.Marketing strategyMental and physical availabilityMental and physical availability is the Ehrenberg-Bass model of brand growth: a brand sells more when more buyers think of it in more buying situations and can find and buy it wherever they shop.Marketing strategyPositioning statement templateA positioning statement is a short internal sentence that says who a product is for, what it is, what it does for them and why they should pick it over the alternative, so every team describes it the same way.Marketing strategyProduct life cycleThe product life cycle describes how sales of a product category move through development, growth, maturity and decline, so a team can plan its marketing for the stage it is in and the one coming next.Marketing strategySTP marketing: segmentation, targeting, positioningSTP is the three-step sequence of segmenting a market, choosing which segments to serve and deciding how the chosen buyers should see your offer, so that product, price and message are built for someone in particular.Marketing strategyTAM SAM SOMTAM SAM SOM is a way to size a market in three nested layers, from total demand down to the revenue you can realistically win in the next few years.

Growth

How a growth goal becomes a sequence of decisions and weekly tests.

19 frameworks

GrowthAARRR pirate metricsAARRR is a five-stage framework (acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue) that gives a product team five separate numbers instead of one vague growth conversation, so they can see which stage is limiting growth.GrowthBullseye frameworkThe Bullseye framework is a method from the book Traction for choosing which of 19 customer acquisition channels a startup should test first, running cheap tests on a few, and putting the team's effort behind the one that works.GrowthCold start problemThe cold start problem is the launch stage of a networked product, when too few users are on it for anyone to get value; Andrew Chen's five-stage model shows how to get past it and what comes after.GrowthExperimentation programAn experimentation program is the set of metrics, tools, trust checks and team roles that lets a company run dozens of A/B tests a month and act on results it can trust.GrowthFour fitsThe four fits is Brian Balfour's growth framework that checks whether a company's market, product, acquisition channel and business model line up with each other, because product-market fit alone does not explain why some products grow fast and others stall.GrowthGrowth accountingGrowth accounting splits the change in active users or recurring revenue into what was gained (new, resurrected, expansion) and what was lost (churned, contraction), so a team can see whether growth comes from a healthy base or from refilling a leaky one.GrowthGrowth loopsGrowth loops is a way of modelling growth as a closed cycle in which what one group of users produces (invites, content or revenue) brings in the next group, so a team can find and strengthen the one or two cycles that compound.GrowthGrowth modelA growth model is a small set of equations, usually a spreadsheet, that calculates an output metric such as active customers or revenue from the input metrics a team can change, so you can see which lever moves the result most.GrowthGrowth team structureGrowth team structure is how a company organizes the people who work on growth: who they report to, what they own and which skills sit on the team.GrowthHADI loopThe HADI loop is a four-step cycle, hypothesis, action, data, insight, that turns a growth plan into a weekly rhythm of testing instead of a single plan reviewed once a quarter.GrowthICE scoringICE scoring rates each growth idea on impact, confidence and ease, so a team can decide in minutes which experiment to run first.GrowthMarketing flywheelThe marketing flywheel is a growth model in which satisfied customers, lower costs or wider selection feed the next round of growth, so a company builds momentum by removing friction instead of refilling a funnel.GrowthMinimum detectable effect and sample sizeThe minimum detectable effect is the smallest lift an A/B test is built to catch; together with the baseline, the significance level and power it fixes how many users the test needs and how long it must run.GrowthNorth Star MetricThe North Star Metric is the one number that best captures the value customers get from a product, paired with three to five input metrics that teams can move week to week.GrowthProduct-market fitProduct-market fit is the point where a product satisfies a real market well enough that customers keep using it and pull it forward, and the Sean Ellis 40% test and retention curves are the two common ways to check it.GrowthRICE scoringRICE scoring ranks product and growth ideas by multiplying Reach, Impact and Confidence and dividing by Effort, so a team can compare very different ideas on one number.GrowthRoadMap change management methodRoadMap is the change-management framework behind Growth Lab: it turns a company's growth goal into a sequence of decisions and experiments a team can run week by week.GrowthSequential testing and Bayesian A/B testingSequential and Bayesian testing are ways to read an A/B test before its planned end: sequential methods adjust the significance threshold so repeated looks keep false positives at 5%, and Bayesian methods report the probability that a variant is better, which does not by itself control false positives.GrowthViral coefficient (K-factor)The viral coefficient, or K-factor, measures how many new users each user brings in, so a team can predict how far word of mouth and invites will carry growth and which lever to pull next.

Acquisition

Channels, offers and campaigns that bring in new customers.

16 frameworks

AcquisitionAccount-based marketing (ABM)Account-based marketing is a B2B strategy that treats a short list of named companies as individual markets, instead of running one campaign for a broad, anonymous audience.AcquisitionAffiliate marketing and partner programsAffiliate and partner marketing is a way to sell through other people's audiences and pay them a commission only when their referral turns into a lead, a sale or recurring revenue.AcquisitionAudience temperature (cold, warm, hot)A way to sort the people you advertise to by how much contact they have had with you, cold, warm or hot, so each group gets a message and an ask it is ready for.AcquisitionBid strategy and value-based biddingA bid strategy is the rule an ad platform follows when it prices each auction; value-based bidding feeds it what each conversion is worth, so it buys profit instead of form fills.AcquisitionCreative testing frameworkA creative testing framework is a fixed routine for finding ads that sell: test different ideas first, then different versions of the winning idea, in randomized splits, and replace ads before they wear out.AcquisitionDark socialDark social is the sharing of links through private channels such as messaging apps and email, which reaches your site without a referrer and so hides inside Direct traffic; this page shows how to estimate it.AcquisitionDemand generation vs demand captureA way to split B2B marketing into two jobs, creating demand among buyers who are not looking yet and capturing demand from buyers who already are, so each gets its own channels, content, metrics and budget.AcquisitionFacebook ads account structure (paid social)Paid social account structure is how you arrange campaigns, ad sets and ads so the platform's delivery system gets enough conversions per unit to learn, and so reports stay readable.AcquisitionGeo-lift testingGeo-lift testing measures what an ad channel adds by changing spend in some cities or regions and comparing their sales with a counterfactual built from regions where nothing changed.AcquisitionGrand slam offer and offer architectureOffer architecture is the deliberate design of everything a buyer gets, risks and gives up in one deal, so that saying yes is easier than saying no.AcquisitionIncrementality testingIncrementality testing is a controlled experiment that shows how many sales a channel caused, as opposed to how many it was credited with, by comparing people or regions that saw the ads with a group that did not.AcquisitionLead magnetA lead magnet is a free piece of content or a small tool traded for a visitor's contact details, and it only works when the trade is obviously worth it.AcquisitionMedia mix planningA media mix is the set of paid channels a brand uses and the share of budget, reach and time each one gets, planned so the channels do different jobs instead of competing for the same buyers.AcquisitionRetargetingRetargeting shows ads to people who already visited your site, used your app or gave you their contact details, so you can bring back the ones who left before buying.AcquisitionTOFU MOFU BOFU: the paid media funnelA way to plan paid advertising in three stages, top, middle and bottom of the funnel, so each campaign gets the objective, format, offer and metric that fit how close its audience is to buying.AcquisitionUnified marketing measurementUnified marketing measurement runs marketing mix modeling, attribution and incrementality experiments as one system, with clear jobs for each and experiments used to correct the other two.

Content and SEO

Content, search and AI answers that bring customers who are already looking.

17 frameworks

Content and SEOAI share of voiceAI share of voice is the share of AI answers, across a fixed set of prompts and many repeated runs, in which a brand is named or cited, compared with its competitors.Content and SEOContent decay: scoring and fixing declining pagesA routine for finding the published pages that are losing search traffic, scoring every page on value and trend, and deciding which to update, merge, redirect, keep or remove.Content and SEOContent pillarsContent pillars are a short list of recurring themes a brand publishes about, so every post in the editorial or social calendar has a clear job and a clear home.Content and SEOContent repurposingA way to turn one substantial piece of content into several pieces in different formats, and to publish the copies without creating duplicate-content problems in search.Content and SEOContent-led growthContent-led growth is a go-to-market model in which published content is the main way buyers find, trust and choose a company, so it works only when the content is better than what rivals publish and the product behind it is already wanted.Content and SEODigital PR link buildingLink building is the work of getting other websites to link to your pages, and digital PR is the part of it that earns those links by giving journalists and editors something worth citing.Content and SEOE-E-A-TE-E-A-T is the set of four qualities (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust) that Google's human search quality raters use to judge whether a page deserves trust, with trust at the centre.Content and SEOEntity SEO and the Knowledge GraphEntity SEO is the practice of making your brand, people and products unambiguous to search engines, so they can match what the web says about you to one known thing in their knowledge graph.Content and SEOGenerative engine optimization (GEO)Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of editing a page so that AI answer engines cite it more prominently, a term and a benchmark introduced in a 2023 academic paper.Content and SEOllms.txt & AI-readable contentllms.txt is a proposed Markdown file at a site's root that gives language models a short description of the site and a curated list of clean pages.Content and SEOOriginal research contentOriginal research as content is the practice of publishing data nobody had before, from a survey, your own records or a new analysis of public data, with its method, so that others cite you as the source.Content and SEOProgrammatic SEOProgrammatic SEO builds many landing pages from one template and a dataset, each aimed at a narrow long-tail search, and works only while every page adds something Google's scaled content abuse policy can see.Content and SEOTechnical SEOTechnical SEO is the work that lets search engines find, render and index a site's pages and pick the right URL for each, so the content you publish can compete in results at all.Content and SEOThought leadershipThought leadership is a way to position a company through the original ideas of its founders and experts, so that buyers trust it before they are ready to buy.Content and SEOTopic clusters and pillar pagesA topic cluster is a group of interlinked pages on one subject: a broad pillar page and focused cluster pages that link to it and to each other, so readers and crawlers can see how the content fits together.Content and SEOTopical authorityTopical authority is an SEO term for the idea that a site covering one subject deeply and accurately is more likely to rank for it; Google documents a topic authority system only for news, and the site-wide model comes from practitioners.Content and SEOZero-click search strategyA zero-click search strategy accepts that many searches now end on the results page, sorts your queries by how likely they are to send a visit, and builds growth on being quoted, remembered and findable instead of on clicks alone.

Sales

Qualifying, running and closing a sale, especially in B2B.

17 frameworks

SalesB2B buying committee and the buying journeyA B2B purchase is decided by a group of people with different roles, who work through a set of buying tasks in no fixed order, and a seller wins by serving the whole group.SalesBANTBANT is a four-question checklist, budget, authority, need and timeline, that a salesperson runs through early in a conversation to decide whether a lead is worth pursuing right now.SalesBow-tie modelThe bow-tie model draws the customer journey of a recurring-revenue business as two funnels joined at the signature, so acquisition and everything after the sale (onboarding, impact, expansion) are measured as one system.SalesChallenger SaleThe Challenger Sale is a B2B selling approach from Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson's 2011 book: the rep teaches the buyer something new, tailors it to each stakeholder and takes control of the deal.SalesLand and expandLand and expand is a sales model in which a vendor wins a small first deal in one team and then grows revenue inside the same customer through more users, more teams and more products.SalesLead scoring modelLead scoring gives every lead a number that ranks who sales should contact first, built either from hand-set rules for fit and behaviour or from a model trained on past wins.SalesMEDDIC and MEDDPICCMEDDIC is a six-part checklist for complex B2B deals, Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain and Champion, that a seller keeps updating until the deal closes.SalesMQL vs SQLMQL and SQL are the two labels for a lead before and after sales takes it on: marketing qualifies the first, sales qualifies the second, and the written rules between them decide how much pipeline you get.SalesProduct-led salesProduct-led sales lets a free or self-serve product do the early selling and sends people only to the accounts where usage, company fit and buying signals point to a bigger deal.SalesRevenue operations (RevOps)Revenue operations is an operating model that joins the operations work of marketing, sales and customer success under one plan, one set of definitions and one data set, so the company manages the whole path from first touch to renewal as one process.SalesSales capacity planningSales capacity planning is the arithmetic that turns a revenue target into a number of salespeople and a hiring calendar, after allowing for ramp time, attrition and the share of quota reps actually deliver.SalesSales enablementSales enablement is the work of giving sellers what they need to sell well and keep selling that way: onboarding, training, coaching, content and tools, tied to a revenue goal.SalesSales forecasting methodsSales forecasting methods are the five common ways to estimate next quarter's revenue (pipeline-weighted, stage-probability, run-rate, judgmental commit and statistical), plus the error measures that show which one to trust.SalesSales process stagesSales process stages are the ordered checkpoints a deal passes from first contact to a signed contract or a recorded loss, defined here by what the buyer has said or done at each one.SalesSandler Selling SystemThe Sandler Selling System is a seven-step, low-pressure sales method from Sandler Training: agree the rules of the call up front, find the pain, budget and decision process before you present, and end every call with a yes, a no or a dated next step.SalesSolution sellingSolution selling is a sales method in which the rep diagnoses a buyer's problem before proposing a product. Mike Bosworth built it at Xerox and published it in 1995.SalesSPIN SellingSPIN Selling is a question method from Neil Rackham's 1988 book for large B2B sales: ask about the buyer's situation, problems, the consequences of those problems and the payoff of fixing them, so the buyer states the need.

Funnels and CX

Conversion, friction and what a customer feels at each step.

16 frameworks

Funnels and CXBehavioral economics in marketing funnelsBehavioral economics in funnels means designing the steps where a visitor chooses, pays or cancels around how people actually decide, using levers such as defaults, anchors, framing and the number of options, and testing each one.Funnels and CXCialdini's principles of persuasionCialdini's principles of persuasion are seven psychological levers (reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity and unity) that explain why people say yes, and a checklist for writing offers, pages and sales conversations that use them honestly.Funnels and CXConversion rate optimization (CRO)Conversion rate optimization is the practice of raising the share of visitors who complete one chosen action by researching why they do not, testing fixes and keeping only what the data supports.Funnels and CXCustomer journey analyticsCustomer journey analytics joins event data from every channel on one person ID, so a team can see the paths customers actually take, where they stall and which sequences end in an outcome.Funnels and CXExperience management (XM)Experience management (XM) is the practice of collecting how customers and employees feel, joining it to the operational data a company already holds, and using the combined view to decide what to fix.Funnels and CXFogg behavior modelThe Fogg behavior model says a person acts only when motivation, ability and a prompt come together at the same moment, so a missed conversion has three possible causes you can check one by one.Funnels and CXFriction auditA friction audit walks one customer journey step by step, collects evidence of where people struggle, doubt or leave, and ranks the causes so a team fixes the costliest first.Funnels and CXHook modelThe Hook Model describes a habit-forming product as a four-step loop of trigger, action, variable reward and investment, and gives a team a checklist for designing repeat use and an ethics test for deciding whether it should.Funnels and CXHow to calculate CSAT and CESCSAT and CES are two short survey scores taken right after one interaction: CSAT measures how satisfied the customer felt, CES measures how much effort it took, and read together they show where an experience breaks even when the outcome was fine.Funnels and CXLIFT modelThe LIFT model is a six-factor checklist from Chris Goward that helps you judge a web page from the visitor's side and turn what is wrong with it into test hypotheses.Funnels and CXNPS scale and Net Promoter Score formulaNet Promoter Score is a loyalty metric built from one 0-to-10 question about recommending a company, reported as the share of promoters minus the share of detractors, and best used as a signal to investigate rather than as a verdict.Funnels and CXPAS copywriting formula and AIDAPAS, AIDA and 4U are short copywriting formulas that give a page, ad or email a fixed order of moves, so a writer starts from a structure instead of a blank screen.Funnels and CXPeak-end rule in CXThe peak-end rule says people judge a past experience mostly by its most intense moment and its last moment, so a service team can change how a visit is remembered by fixing the worst point and redesigning the ending.Funnels and CXService blueprintA service blueprint maps one service from the customer's side and the organization's side in a single diagram, so a team can see which hidden step causes a problem the customer feels.Funnels and CXSocial proofSocial proof is the tendency to treat what other people do and say as evidence of what is right, which is why ratings, reviews and honest usage numbers can lower the doubt a buyer feels.Funnels and CXZero moment of truth (ZMOT) and moments of truthMoments of truth are the points where a customer forms the judgment that decides what they do next: before buying (zero), at the choice (first) and in use (second).

Retention

Keeping customers, growing their value and bringing them back.

15 frameworks

RetentionAha moment and activationThe aha moment is the point where a new user first sees a product's value, and activation is the share of sign-ups who reach a measurable action that marks it, found from retention data and then tested for cause.RetentionChurn prediction model (predictive churn modeling)Predictive churn modeling uses past customer behavior to estimate who is likely to leave in a set window, so a retention team can decide where to spend its effort before the loss happens.RetentionCohort analysisCohort analysis groups customers by when they started and follows each group over the same ages, so a team can see whether newer customers stay, pay and behave better or worse than older ones.RetentionCustomer data platform (CDP)A customer data platform is software that collects customer data from many systems, matches it to one person and makes that profile available to marketing, analytics and service tools.RetentionCustomer health scoreA customer health score combines usage, support, engagement and sentiment signals into one number or color per account, so a customer success team can see who needs attention before a renewal is at risk.RetentionCustomer lifecycle marketingCustomer lifecycle marketing matches each message to the stage a customer has reached, so a new signup, a regular buyer and a lapsing customer each hear something different.RetentionCustomer onboarding frameworkThe onboarding framework is a staged process that takes a new customer, client or patient from sign-up to a first real result and a routine of use, with one owner and one clock for each stage.RetentionCustomer successCustomer success is a proactive discipline for making sure a customer reaches the result they bought a product to get, tracked through onboarding, health scores and renewal so a team can act before churn instead of after it.RetentionNet revenue retention (NRR)Net revenue retention measures how much recurring revenue a group of existing customers pays today compared with a year ago, after counting expansion, contraction and churn, and ignoring every new customer.RetentionNext best actionNext best action is a decision method that picks, for one customer at one moment, the single contact with the highest expected value from a set of possible actions, after rules and contact limits have removed the ones that are not allowed.RetentionReferral program designReferral program design is the set of choices about who gets rewarded, for what action and how much, so that existing customers bring in new ones at a cost lower than other channels.RetentionRetention curves and the smile curveA retention curve plots the share of a starting group still active at each age; its shape shows whether a product has a core of lasting users, and the smile curve is the rare shape where lost users return.RetentionRFM analysisRFM analysis scores every customer on how recently they bought, how often and how much, so a team can sort a customer base into segments and decide who gets which message.RetentionTrigger emails and behavioral emailsA trigger email is a message sent automatically when a person does, or fails to do, something the system can detect, such as leaving a cart or stalling in onboarding.RetentionWin-back campaignsA win-back campaign is a planned effort to bring lapsed customers back, built on a segment, a reason for leaving, an offer and a holdout group that shows how many came back because of it.

Analytics

Measuring what happens, and trusting the numbers you measure.

13 frameworks

AnalyticsCausal inferenceCausal inference is the set of methods that estimate what a change actually caused, using a comparison group or a model of what would have happened otherwise, when a randomized test is not possible.AnalyticsData maturity modelA data maturity model is a staged scale that rates how well an organization collects, manages and uses data, so a team can see where it stands and which gap to close next.AnalyticsEnd-to-end analyticsEnd-to-end analytics links ad spend to visits, leads, calls, CRM deals and revenue, so channels are judged by money earned.AnalyticsEvent tracking planAn event tracking plan is a shared spec of which user actions a product logs, what each one is named, and what properties it carries, so analytics from different teams and tools count the same thing the same way.AnalyticsFunnel analysisFunnel analysis tracks how many people complete each step of a defined sequence toward one outcome, so a team can see exactly where a process is losing people and which step to fix first.AnalyticsGoodhart's lawGoodhart's law says a measure stops being a reliable guide once people are pushed to hit it, because they start working on the number instead of the result it was meant to track.AnalyticsLeading vs lagging indicatorsLeading and lagging indicators are two kinds of measures: the first move before a result and help you steer, the second report the result after it has happened.AnalyticsMarketing attribution modelsAttribution models are rules that decide which marketing touchpoint gets credit for a sale; the classic rule-based ones divide credit by position or timing, which makes them useful for reporting and unreliable as proof of what worked.AnalyticsMulti-touch attribution and data-driven attributionData-driven attribution fits a model to converting and non-converting customer paths, then splits credit by each touchpoint's estimated contribution; it is a better descriptive tool than fixed rules, and still not proof of cause.AnalyticsServer-side tracking and consentServer-side tracking sends measurement events from your own server to analytics and ad platforms instead of from the visitor's browser, which gives you control over what leaves your site but leaves consent duties where they were.AnalyticsSimpson's paradox and metric trapsSimpson's paradox is a pattern where a trend in the combined data reverses once the data is split into groups, and it sits among a family of metric traps that make an average say the opposite of what is happening.AnalyticsStatistical significanceStatistical significance is a verdict that a measured difference is too large to be easily explained by chance alone, usually because its p-value falls below a threshold set in advance, most often 0.05.AnalyticsTime series forecasting: methods and accuracyTime series forecasting predicts a metric such as demand or revenue from its own history, using decomposition, exponential smoothing, ARIMA or Prophet, scored on unseen data.

Finance

Unit economics, margins and the cost of one operation.

18 frameworks

FinanceBreak-even ROAS and DRRROAS is revenue per unit of ad spend and DRR is ad spend as a share of revenue: the same ratio turned upside down, used to check whether advertising pays for itself.FinanceCAC payback period: formula and benchmarksCAC payback period is the number of months of gross profit from a new customer needed to earn back what it cost to win them.FinanceCapital allocationCapital allocation is the decision about where a company puts the cash it earns: back into the business, into acquisitions, out to owners, against debt or into its own shares.FinanceCash flow and the 13-week cash flow forecastCash flow is the record of cash moving into and out of a business, split into operating, investing and financing activities, and it tells you whether the company can pay its bills even when the profit line looks healthy.FinanceCohort-based LTVCohort-based LTV values a customer by following real groups of customers acquired in the same period and projecting how many will still be paying in each future period, instead of dividing margin by one average churn rate.FinanceContribution margin formula and ratioContribution margin is what's left from one sale after variable costs, the money that covers fixed costs first and turns into profit only after fixed costs are paid.FinanceCustomer-based corporate valuationCustomer-based corporate valuation forecasts how many customers a firm will win, keep and earn from, then runs that revenue through a standard discounted cash flow model to estimate what the whole company is worth.FinanceEconomic value added (EVA)Economic value added is operating profit after tax minus a charge for all the capital a business uses, so a team can see whether it earns more than its capital costs.FinanceFinance FrameworkThe Finance Framework is how we set up money movement for a company operating across several instruments, regions and capital routes, from the first analysis to a workflow that runs itself.FinanceFinancial model for growthA financial model for growth is a driver-based spreadsheet that links marketing and sales inputs to revenue, costs and cash, so a team can see what a plan does to the bank balance before it spends the money.FinanceLTV:CAC 3:1 rule and the LTV:CAC ratioThe LTV:CAC ratio divides the profit a customer is expected to bring over their lifetime by what it cost to win them, and the 3:1 rule of thumb asks for at least three dollars back for every dollar spent.FinanceMarginal CAC and diminishing returnsMarginal CAC is the cost of the next customer a channel can win, which rises with spend and tells you where extra budget stops paying back.FinanceOperating leverageOperating leverage describes how much faster operating profit moves than revenue because part of the cost base stays fixed, and the degree of operating leverage puts a number on it.FinanceProfit and loss statement (P&L)A profit and loss statement lists a business's revenue and costs for a period, step by step, down to the profit left at the bottom.FinanceRule of 40The Rule of 40 is a benchmark for software companies: annual revenue growth rate plus profit margin should add up to at least 40%, which ties how much you may lose to how fast you grow.FinanceSaaS magic numberThe magic number divides the annualized revenue a company added this quarter by what it spent on sales and marketing last quarter, to show how much growth each sales dollar buys.FinanceSaaS metrics (MRR, ARR, burn multiple)SaaS metrics are the small set of numbers that show how big a subscription business is, how much of it stays, and how much cash each new dollar of recurring revenue costs.FinanceUnit economicsUnit economics is the profit one unit of a business earns, such as a customer or an order, set against what it cost to win that unit, so a team can tell whether growth makes money or burns it.

Pricing

How to price, package and charge for a product.

14 frameworks

PricingCompetitive pricingCompetitive pricing is the practice of setting your price in relation to what rivals charge, and deciding how to respond when they move, without crossing the legal line on coordinating prices.PricingDecoy pricing and price anchoringPrice anchoring and the decoy effect are two ways the prices and options placed next to an offer change which one a buyer picks, and how much they will pay.PricingDynamic pricingDynamic pricing is changing the price of the same offer over time in response to demand, remaining stock and the market, inside limits you set in advance.PricingFreemium modelFreemium is a pricing model that gives away a working product free and charges for a paid tier, and it only pays off when the free tier is cheap to serve and the paid tier solves a problem the free version leaves open.PricingGood-better-best pricingGood-better-best tiering sells one product in three packages, each with more capability and a higher price, so buyers sort themselves into the tier that fits their need.PricingMonetizing InnovationMonetizing Innovation is Simon-Kucher's method for pricing a new product before it is built: ask customers what they would pay while the product is still a concept, then design the product around that answer.PricingPrice elasticityPrice elasticity of demand is the percentage change in the quantity customers buy divided by the percentage change in price, and it tells you whether a price change will raise or lower your revenue.PricingPrice increase playbookA price increase playbook is a sequence for raising prices on an existing customer base: segment it, decide who keeps the old price, give notice that the law and your customers can accept, and measure churn against a holdout.PricingPricing powerPricing power is a company's ability to raise prices without losing enough customers to make the rise a mistake, and it is the clearest sign that a business has an advantage rivals cannot copy.PricingPricing waterfallThe pricing waterfall charts every deduction between list price and the cash a seller keeps, so you can see which discounts, rebates and costs of terms leak the most.PricingProduct bundling and packagingPackaging and bundling decide which products and features are sold together, in which sellable units and at what price, so that the total a seller collects rises when buyers value parts differently.PricingSubscription business modelA subscription model charges customers a recurring fee for continued access to a product or service, so revenue is measured as monthly recurring revenue, churn and customer lifetime value instead of one-off sales.PricingUsage-based pricingUsage-based pricing charges customers for what they consume, measured by a meter such as messages, gigabytes or compute seconds, so revenue rises and falls with customer activity.PricingValue-based pricingValue-based pricing sets the price from what the product is worth to the customer, found by pricing their best alternative and adding the money value of every difference, instead of starting from your cost or a rival's price.

Operations

Processes, roles and the reporting rhythm behind a company.

24 frameworks

Operations5 whysThe 5 whys is a root cause technique in which a team asks why a problem happened, then asks why about each answer, until it reaches a cause it can fix.OperationsBPMN process mappingBPMN is a small, standard set of shapes, events, activities, gateways, sequence flow, pools and lanes, for drawing a business process so a manager and a developer read the same diagram.OperationsBusiness process automationBusiness process automation is the practice of handing the repeatable steps of a process to software, and the discipline is choosing which processes to hand over first and proving the payoff.OperationsCapability maturity modelThe capability maturity model is a five-level scale for how predictable and controlled an organization's processes are, from improvised work at level 1 to continuous improvement at level 5.OperationsEisenhower matrixThe Eisenhower matrix is a two-by-two grid that sorts tasks by urgency and importance, so a team spends its week on what moves the business instead of whatever feels loudest.OperationsEntrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) is a set of management tools from Gino Wickman's book Traction that gives a leadership team one vision, a weekly scorecard, 90-day priorities and a fixed weekly meeting.OperationsFractional leadership modelThe fractional leadership model is a way to staff a senior role, such as CMO, CFO or COO, with one experienced person who gives the company part of their week while serving other clients too.OperationsIshikawa diagramAn Ishikawa diagram, also called a fishbone or cause-and-effect diagram, puts one problem at the head of a spine and groups its possible causes on branches, so a team can see every suspect before it tests any of them.OperationsKaizenKaizen is a management approach in which everyone in the company improves the way work is done through small, continuous changes, starting from a written standard.OperationsKanbanKanban is a way to make work visible on a board and cap how much is in progress at once, so work flows to done instead of piling up half finished.OperationsKPI treeA KPI tree is a diagram that breaks a company's top-level goal into the KPIs that drive it, and each KPI into the metrics and named owner behind it.OperationsLean management principlesLean management is a way of running work that starts from what the customer values, removes every step and wait that adds nothing to it, and keeps improving the flow, a system that grew out of the Toyota Production System.OperationsOperating model designOperating model design is the work of choosing how processes, people, structure, technology, locations, suppliers and management routines fit together so that a strategy gets delivered every day.OperationsOperating rhythmAn operating rhythm is the fixed schedule of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings and reports that tells a company what to decide, and when.OperationsPareto principle (80/20)The Pareto principle says a small share of causes produces a large share of results, so ranking causes by size shows where effort pays most; the 80/20 split is a rule of thumb, not a law.OperationsPDCA cycle (Deming cycle)PDCA is a four-step cycle, Plan, Do, Check, Act, for testing a change on a small scale and keeping it only if the results show it works.OperationsProcess miningProcess mining rebuilds how a business process really runs from the event logs of its software systems, then checks it against the intended process and shows where time and rework pile up.OperationsRACI matrixThe RACI matrix is a table that gives every task in a process exactly one owner, plus a clear answer for who does the work, who is asked and who is told.OperationsScaling Up (Rockefeller Habits)Scaling Up is Verne Harnish's management system for growing companies: four decisions on people, strategy, execution and cash, a one-page plan and a fixed meeting rhythm.OperationsScrum for marketing: roles, events and SprintsScrum is a lightweight framework in which a small cross-functional team delivers work in fixed-length Sprints of one month or less, with one prioritized backlog, five events and three commitments.OperationsSIPOCSIPOC is a one-page map of a process that lists its suppliers, inputs, process steps, outputs and customers, so a team agrees on scope before it draws anything detailed.OperationsSix Sigma / DMAICSix Sigma is a method for cutting defects by measuring and reducing variation in a process, run as projects that follow the five DMAIC phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control.OperationsTheory of constraintsThe theory of constraints says every system is limited by one constraint, so improving anything else changes little; you find that constraint, squeeze it, line everything else up behind it, and only then add capacity.OperationsValue stream mappingValue stream mapping draws every step of a flow from request to delivery, with the time work spends being done and the time it spends waiting, so a team can see where the delay really is.

Goals and execution

Turning goals into plans, budgets and weekly follow-through.

15 frameworks

Team

How people work together, and what stops them.

18 frameworks

TeamADKAR modelADKAR is Prosci's model of individual change: five elements a person needs in order, and a way to find the first one that is missing.TeamBelbin team rolesBelbin team roles is a model of nine behaviours a team needs covered, used to talk about who contributes what and where a team has a gap.TeamCompetency modelA competency model is a short list of the knowledge, skills and behaviours a role needs, each described at set proficiency levels, so a team can hire, train and promote against the same standard.TeamFive Dysfunctions of a TeamThe Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a model that explains team underperformance as five stacked problems, trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results, each resting on the one below it.TeamGalbraith Star Model (organizational design)Organizational design is the deliberate choice of structure, processes, rewards and people so that a company can carry out its strategy, and Jay Galbraith's Star Model is the standard way to check that these five policies fit together.TeamHiring scorecardA hiring scorecard is a one-page definition of a role in terms of its mission, the outcomes the person must deliver and the competencies they need, written before anyone is interviewed.TeamHolacracy and teal organizationsHolacracy is a written rulebook for running a company through roles and circles instead of managers, and a teal organization is Frederic Laloux's name for companies built on self-management, wholeness and evolutionary purpose.TeamKotter's 8 step change modelKotter's 8 steps are a sequence for leading organizational change, from creating urgency to making the new way the default, with a literature review that backs most steps but not the whole model.TeamMarketing team structureMarketing team structure is the way a company divides marketing work among people and suppliers: what each group owns, who it reports to and which work stays in-house.TeamPerformance review frameworksPerformance review frameworks are the systems a company uses to judge how people work and tell them: annual reviews, check-ins, OKRs, 360 feedback, calibration and forced ranking.TeamPsychological safetyPsychological safety is a team's shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks such as admitting a mistake, asking for help or disagreeing, which Amy Edmondson linked to learning and performance.TeamRadical Candor frameworkRadical candor is a feedback model from Kim Scott that asks a manager to care personally about a person and challenge them directly at the same time, and names the three ways of failing at it.TeamSales compensation plan and motivation systemsA compensation and motivation system sets what people are paid, what the pay is tied to, and which non-cash conditions keep them working well, so that the behavior being rewarded is the behavior the company wants.TeamSituational leadershipSituational leadership is a management model that matches how much direction and support a manager gives to how able and committed a person is on one specific task.TeamSpan of controlSpan of control is the number of people who report directly to one manager, and the choice of that number sets how many managers, layers and meetings an organization needs.TeamSpotify modelThe Spotify model is a 2012 description of how Spotify organised engineering into autonomous squads, tribes, chapters and guilds, now best read as a case study.TeamTeam TopologiesTeam Topologies is an approach to organization design that sorts teams into four types, limits how they interact to three modes, and sizes each team's work to its cognitive load.TeamTuckman stages of team developmentTuckman's stages describe a team's development as forming, storming, norming, performing and, when the team ends, adjourning, so a leader can name what a new group is going through and respond to it.

Product

Deciding what to build, in what order, and why.

2 frameworks

ProductDouble DiamondThe Double Diamond is a four-stage design process that separates finding the right problem from finding the right solution, so a team knows when to widen its options and when to narrow them.ProductMoSCoW method (MoSCoW prioritization)MoSCoW prioritization sorts requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have and Won't have this time, so a team can agree what a fixed deadline and budget will deliver.

Brand

How a company is recognised, remembered and chosen.

14 frameworks

BrandAaker brand equity modelThe Aaker brand equity model breaks the value of a brand into five groups of assets, so a team can see which ones it owns, which ones are weak and where to invest.BrandBrand archetypesBrand archetypes are twelve recognisable character types, from the Hero to the Sage, that a brand plays consistently so people remember it and know what to expect.BrandBrand architectureBrand architecture is the plan for how a company's brands relate to each other, so every new product gets a name, a role and a clear link to the parent, or a clear distance from it.BrandBrand health trackingBrand health tracking is a survey of category buyers, repeated on a fixed schedule, that measures how a brand sits in their memory against competitors, so a team can see whether its marketing is building the brand and catch problems before sales move.BrandBrand Key modelThe Brand Key is Unilever's one-page model for defining a brand, running from the market and the consumer through benefits and proof to a single discriminator and a brand essence.BrandBrand platformA brand platform is a short internal document that fixes a brand's purpose, positioning, personality, values and promise, so that everyone who writes, designs, sells or serves for the company works from the same decisions.BrandBrand positioning mapA brand positioning map, or perceptual map, plots customer ratings of a brand against its competitors on two attributes that matter, so a team can see where the market is crowded and where it might be open.BrandDistinctive brand assetsDistinctive brand assets are the colours, shapes, logos, characters, sounds and taglines that buyers link to one brand, measured by fame and uniqueness so you know which ones to use, build or drop.BrandGolden Circle (Simon Sinek's Start With Why)The Golden Circle is Simon Sinek's model of three nested rings, why, how and what, that tells a company to explain its purpose before its methods and products.BrandKeller brand equity model (CBBE pyramid)Keller's customer-based brand equity pyramid breaks brand building into four steps and six blocks, from being recognised to being loved, so you can find the level where your brand stalls.BrandMessaging framework (messaging hierarchy)A messaging hierarchy, often drawn as a message house, ranks what a company says: one core message, a few supporting pillars and the proof under each, so every team tells the same story in the same order.BrandPersonal brand frameworkA personal brand framework is a step-by-step way for a founder or executive to choose what they want to be known for, prove it in public and check that the reputation helps the company.BrandPESO model: PR strategy and earned mediaA PR strategy is a plan for winning coverage and mentions you do not pay for, built on the PESO model of paid, earned, shared and owned media and on Grunig's four models of how organizations talk to the public.BrandStoryBrand framework (SB7)StoryBrand is a messaging framework that casts the customer as the hero of a short story and the company as the guide who helps them win, so every page and pitch says the same clear thing.

Research

How we study a market and a customer before we plan around it.

16 frameworks

ResearchCompetitor teardownA competitor teardown is a step-by-step audit of one rival's funnel, ad to support, that turns vague competitive worry into a short list of what to copy, what to beat and what to ignore.ResearchConjoint analysisConjoint analysis is a survey experiment that shows buyers complete product offers, records which ones they choose, and works out how much each feature and each price level adds to or subtracts from the decision.ResearchContinuous discovery and the opportunity solution treeContinuous discovery is Teresa Torres's method for product teams to talk to customers every week and map what they learn on an opportunity solution tree, so that each build decision traces back to a customer need and a measurable outcome.ResearchCustomer journey map (CJM)A customer journey map lays out what a customer does, thinks and feels at each step toward a goal, so a team can see where the experience breaks instead of guessing from the org chart.ResearchEmpathy mapAn empathy map is a one-page canvas on which a team records what one person or customer type sees, hears, says and does, and then infers what they think and feel, so everyone works from the same picture of that person.ResearchEthnographic researchEthnographic research is a way of learning about customers by watching them in their own homes, shops and offices, so a company decides from what people do rather than only from what they say in surveys.ResearchJobs to be done (JTBD)Jobs to be done is a theory of why customers buy: people hire a product to make progress in a specific situation, so you study the situation and the struggle, not the customer's profile.ResearchJTBD switch interviewThe switch interview is the jobs-to-be-done research method from Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek: you rebuild one recent purchase as a timeline, from the first thought to first use, to learn what pushed, pulled, worried and held the buyer.ResearchKano modelThe Kano model sorts features by how they change customer satisfaction, so a team knows which ones it must get right, which ones pay back in proportion and which ones can set it apart.ResearchMaxDiff analysisMaxDiff is a survey method that shows people small sets of items and asks them to pick the best and the worst in each, producing a ranked score for every item on one shared scale.ResearchNeeds-based segmentation (cluster analysis)Needs-based segmentation groups customers by what they want from a product, using cluster analysis or latent class models on survey data, so the segments come from the data instead of from assumptions.ResearchOutcome-Driven Innovation (ODI)Outcome-Driven Innovation is Tony Ulwick's survey-based method for finding which of a customer's measurable needs are important and poorly met, so a team knows what to build and for whom.ResearchResearch OpsResearch Ops is the shared operating layer behind customer and user research: recruiting, consent and data rules, repositories and tools, set up once so every study can run faster and safer.ResearchThe Mom TestThe Mom Test is a set of rules from Rob Fitzpatrick's 2013 book for running customer conversations that produce facts instead of polite lies, and for telling a real buyer from a friendly listener.ResearchVan Westendorp price sensitivity meterThe Van Westendorp price sensitivity meter is a four-question survey that shows the range of prices customers find acceptable for a product, and where inside that range resistance to the price is lowest.ResearchVoice of the customer (VoC)Voice of the customer is a method for collecting customer needs in the customer's own words, sorting them into a hierarchy, ranking them by importance and turning the top ones into product, service and process decisions.

Decisions

Mental models for thinking a choice through before making it.

5 frameworks

DecisionsFirst principles thinkingFirst principles thinking breaks a problem into the basic facts you can verify and rebuilds the answer from them, instead of copying what others already do.DecisionsInversion thinkingInversion is a decision-making move that asks what would guarantee failure before asking what would produce success, then turns each cause into a safeguard.DecisionsIssue treeAn issue tree is a diagram that splits one key question into smaller questions, level by level, until each branch is small enough to answer with data.DecisionsMECE frameworkMECE, short for mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive, is a rule for splitting a problem or a total into parts so that every item falls into exactly one part.DecisionsPyramid PrincipleThe Pyramid Principle is a method for structuring a memo, report or presentation so that the main point comes first and each group of supporting ideas sums up the ideas beneath it.

Workflows where AI is built in and measured against a real number.

1 framework

AIHuman-in-the-loopHuman-in-the-loop puts a person between an AI system's output and the action it triggers, so someone can check, approve or correct it before it happens.

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