Make It Big Workshop: Unlocking a Growth-Driven Mindset

Selling online has never been easier. With numerous ecommerce platforms, marketplaces and even social commerce platforms at your fingertips, any retailer can quickly spin up an ecommerce site and develop a solid customer base.

The tricky part? Maintaining consistent growth.

Amid a saturated market and economic uncertainty, taking your business to the next level means having not only the right strategy, but also the right mindset.

At this year’s Make it Big conference, we wanted to explore the top strategies to help merchants rise above the competition, drive conversions, retain customers and, most importantly, increase revenue — and it all starts with a growth-driven mindset. 

Klaviyo and Groove Commerce’s Key Takeaways at Make It Big 2022

In this workshop, Rachel Garcia, Senior Director of Small Business Marketing at BigCommerce, sat down with Andrew Bialecki, CEO of Klaviyo, and Ethan Giffin, CEO and Founder of Groove Commerce, to discuss what it means to adopt a growth-driven mindset.

Here are a few key takeaways from this session:

How can a retailer achieve a growth-driven mindset?

Ethan Giffin: “There are a couple of parts of this that are important to think about. The first is having a strategy. Take the time to research and understand what it is that you want to accomplish. 

“Then, you have to actually take action from that strategy. That’s actually the biggest hurdle we see at times — overcoming analysis paralysis and actually moving into a growth mindset. After you’ve put together your strategy, after you’ve planned, it’s time to put your feet on the ground and move forward. Don’t be afraid to really modify and refine what you’re doing as you’re moving toward your goals.” 

Why does a growth-driven mindset matter?

EG: “You want to scale rapidly. Often in this industry, people will start to scale very quickly. You want to make sure that you’re moving along with that, right? You want to maximize profitability as quickly as possible, but you want to make sure you have controlled growth. I can tell you from firsthand experience, it’s not good to grow if the wheels are going to come off. So you want to make sure that you have all your standard operating procedures documented. You want to make sure that you can handle the growth that you’re trying to achieve.

“You’ll break your team if you move too fast. So it’s really about making sure that you’re scaling rapidly, but also controlling the growth to make sure that you can handle it organizationally.” 

Focus on retention: Engage your audience.

Andrew Bialecki: “Consumers don’t want to have to choose between lots of brands. They want great products from brands they trust, and they want to go back to them over and over. I think we’re moving to a world where each of us is going to have our favorite one or two brands and each product category, and we just go back to them for advice, for content and certainly to buy.

“In the physical world, that’s kind of hard to do. The store brand you love might not be physically close to you or might be inconvenient, but shipping logistics have changed a lot. Now, products and consumers are closer than ever. That means we can go back to the brands that we love. So how can you delight and be valuable to customers before they buy and after they buy it?”

Owning your growth: Start with your site.

AB: “Where do you build relationships? Historically, on the Internet, we thought, ‘Well, there’s social media platforms, or I can build relationships with consumers through marketplaces.’ Our belief is that the most durable place to build customer relationships is on your own properties, such as your website, your email or text message list or your mobile app if you have one. Those are properties that you get to own.” 

“How can we have a growth mindset but do it on our terms so we get to own that growth? More and more often, you can take more creative control and economic control if you’re acquiring customers and building direct relationships with them, so you don’t have to pay that tax over and over again.”

Adopting and implementing the mindset: Don’t get bogged down.

EG: “There’s no straight line with the growth-driven mindset. You’re going to have a curve overall, so there are going to be setbacks. You’re going to have underperforming weeks and underperforming days, but you don’t want that to fester. 

“You want to make sure that you’re really fostering your team to grow and move forward. You want to think about how far you’ve come, not necessarily why you haven’t reached where you want to go.”

Pushing forward.

AB: “We like to say two things at Klaviyo: Be iterative and be ambitious. At the end of day, marketing is all about experimentation — not all the experiments are going to work. And be ambitious — have big dreams and lots of ideas. A growth mindset is often about being curious and putting ideas you have in motion.”

The Final Word

If you missed this session with Klaviyo and Groove Commerce or would like to watch it again, now you can! Register for free today for easy access to all Make it Big sessions, now available on-demand through the end of the year. 

Plus, check out our Ecommerce Growth Hub for more resources — including an in-depth guide, merchant success stories, articles and more — designed to help you scale your online sales.