My activities are called as soon as they are called – tracking, mentoring, and coaching startups. The names change, but the essence remains: the tracker helps the business grow faster. I have worked with hundreds of startups. He blew his ten thousand hours. And during this time, many practices have already accumulated, which is time to share.
While preparing the “School of trackers “I, of course, talk a lot with trackers, and one of the things I hear is, “what should I learn, I already know all this customer development of yours.” And this is logical: by helping startups or businesses, the tracker teaches founders and clients a lot.
But another thing I always hear is the need to systematize knowledge. You can know something, not know something, but almost no one has a unified system where this knowledge and practices could be put.
The tracker needs to work at different levels and consider many different factors. At my work, it is worth missing some of the levels, as the quality of work immediately drops. A team comes to my traction rally and tells me what they did with the tracker: they optimized the funnel for several weeks, pulling out conversions.
We figure it out – no matter how they pull these conversions in their current form, the process will not allow achieving scalable sales. Well, that is, they did not look there.
And these areas of attention are many. If any of them fall out, the teams do not achieve results, and the tracker companies in Pakistan need to bring more value to take a lot of money and work with strong clients.
I put my vision of how the tracker does not miss anything important in working with startups, and I put it in a five-level pyramid. Try to break down what you do with the business into these levels. Where do you feel confident, and what do you miss?
Level 1. Strategy. When we work with startups in the early stages of development, we use typical template strategies – a traction map or more canonical models (for example, Steve Blank’s business models).
If this is a complex startup, then we use the appropriate methods for formulating strategies.
Level 2. Tactics. Organizing the team’s work with the tracker, getting into the weekly rhythm, and building the structure of interactions during the week. Moving from occasional “on demand” meetings to a rigid structure with traction rallies and test meetings.
At this level, the tracker monitors the relationship between the current activities of the company and the implementation of its strategic goals. Here, the strategy of the actions of the tracker itself is developed (the tracker should always have its strategy regarding the team) and supervised.
Level 3. Formation of the structure of the session. That is a traction meeting, a weekly meeting, a strategic or diagnostic session, or a selling meeting. It uses diagnostic methods, feedback tools, and activity planning.
We work with all methods known to us – customer development technology, segmentation, sales methods, analytics, and so on. They allow you to identify problems, find solutions, and plan activities.
Level 4. Well-established communication. The tracker needs to properly organize communication. It is not to sell your position or strategy but to help the entrepreneur or client make decisions. Please do not fall into the directive management of the company, but help it achieve maximum results on its own.
Level 5. Transmission of values. Through well-established communication, we transmit the following values to the entrepreneur:
- Awareness. The entrepreneur is honest with himself and ready to leave his comfort zone.
- Meaningfulness. He asks himself, “to what?” does what make sense to do?
- Responsibility. He takes responsibility for himself and his business and does not shift it to trackers, investors, partners, teams, or clients.