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Ryan here… | Last week, I was in a planning session with one of our portfolio companies. | They'll finish 2025 at about $5M, and they set a goal I hear all the time… | "We plan to double our sales in 2026." | It's a solid goal. The challenge is that most teams chase it without a plan for how doubling actually works, so everyone pulls a different lever and hopes for the best. | So, in this article, I'm sharing The 2X in '26 Playbook…the same decision sequence I shared with my own team that will enable them to double their sales next year. | I'm breaking down: | The 4 questions you must answer to 2X sales without breaking the business Why sequence matters more than effort when you're scaling past $5M How small gains (20 - 30%) actually compound into a double, and… The real math behind "doubling" sales in 12 months or less
| If doubling in 2026 is on your whiteboard, this is the edge you've been looking for. | Let's get into it… | P.S. I'm looking for 5 business owners who want to work 1-on-1 with my team and me to install a custom "operating system" before the end of 2025, so your business can scale and so you can exit the day-to-day. Click here for the details. |
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Quick Hits |
Here's some other content from the Scalable network, plus some other cool stuff I liked and thought you might like, too: |
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The 2X in '26 Playbook™ | READ TIME: 3 min. 51 sec. |
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Last week, I was in a strategic planning session with one of our portfolio companies. |
They'll finish 2025 with around $5M in revenue. |
It's a solid business. Real team. Real traction. |
Their goal for 2026? |
Double sales to $10M. |
It's a reasonable goal. It's also one I hear constantly from founders at this stage. |
The problem is that most teams set a 2X target without a shared playbook for how doubling actually happens, so I walked them through the 2X in '26 Playbook… |
…the same decision sequence we use across our companies to double revenue without doubling risk or chaos. |
It's just four steps and four simple questions: |
Step 1: Can We 2X Our Inputs? |
This is always the first question…and it should be. |
Inputs are the top-of-funnel levers that reliably create qualified demand…things like: |
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For this company, we chose to start with ad spend. |
The mistake most teams make is trying to double everything at once and assuming the outputs will stay the same. |
(Spoiler: they never do.) |
Instead, we modeled a modest, 20% increase in ad spend on the single channel that had consistently produced qualified customers. |
Our assumption was simple: We believed we could increase spend by 20% without materially impacting lead quality or conversion rates. On the other hand, if we doubled ad spend, we'd risk attracting lower-quality leads that would convert at a lower rate and invest at a lower cost-per-sale. |
So that's where we chose to start… |
Not a new channel. Not a new "funnel." Just a little more volume (20%) through a path we already trusted. |
Step 2: Can We 2X Our Average Customer Value? |
Average Customer Value (ACV) only moves three ways: 1) customers buy more, 2) stay longer, or 3) buy higher-value outcomes. |
At planning time, this business looked like many others at this stage: |
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Instead of chasing more leads, we focused on creating a higher-value solution for the customers we already had. |
We call these "10X for 10% Offers." The idea is simple: build a premium solution priced meaningfully higher than your core offer that only needs to convert with a small percentage of your best customers to move the math. |
For this business, we modeled a 30% ACV increase—from $5,000 to $6,500—driven by a $30,000 premium service that only needs to convert with 5% of the customer base to hit the target. |
With the modest input increase from Step 1, customer count moved from 1,000 to 1,200. |
Revenue at that point: 1,200 × $6,500 = $7.8M |
No new audience. No new channels. No new chaos. |
Step 3: Can We 2X Our Conversion Rates? |
Most founders think conversion is about persuasion. |
It's not…it's about throughput. |
So we didn't try to double any single conversion metric by rewriting the home page or rolling out a brand-new sales script. |
Instead, we mapped the entire Growth Engine (a simple flowchart that shows how customers actually happen), then brainstormed a list of small tweaks and micro-optimizations that could be made throughout the funnel. |
Things like clearer: |
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We estimate these changes will produce a 25% improvement in conversion efficiency across the engine. |
That same activity level now results in 1,500 customers, not 1,200. |
Revenue becomes: 1,500 × $6,500 = $9.75M |
Same audience. Same core offer. Same sales process. |
Step 4: Can We 2X Our Audience? |
The final step is audience expansion…and we save it for last because it's the riskiest. |
It's expensive. It introduces unknowns. And it's where identity drift usually starts. |
So we were careful. |
We tested a slightly broader problem statement to appeal to a slightly larger market. |
Same story. Same outcome. Same positioning. Bigger pond. |
If we're right, that small expansion should add another 5 - 10% in volume…enough to comfortably push the business past $10M. |
No repositioning. No identity drift. No rebranding risk. |
How Sales Actually Double |
Here's what doubling looks like when you stack small gains in the right order. |
This company currently has: |
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Now let's look at what happens when we follow the playbook instead of trying to force a single lever to 2X sales. |
Step 1: Inputs up 20% |
We're not doubling ad spend or headcount…just making a modest 20% increase to the ad budget. That takes us from 1,000 customers to 1,200. |
Step 2: ACV up 30% |
We introduce a higher-value offer…a premium tier…that increases average customer value from $5,000 to $6,500. |
Revenue at this point: 1,200 × $6,500 = $7.8M |
Step 3: Conversion efficiency up 25% |
We simplify pricing, speed up onboarding, and clarify qualification rules. Throughput improves, so the same input volume now produces 1,500 customers. |
Revenue becomes: 1,500 × $6,500 = $9.75M |
Step 4: Audience slightly broader |
We move upmarket…just a bit. Same problem. Bigger buyer. |
If we're right, that adds another 5 - 10% in volume. |
That takes us comfortably past $10M…without doubling ads, staff, or stress. |
None of these moves are dramatic on their own, but stacked in the right order, they compound. |
And that's how doubling actually happens. |
⚡️ Action Step: Write these four steps on a single page and plug in your real numbers. Identify the first lever you can improve by 10–20% in the next 30 days, then work through the rest to build your own 2X in '26 Playbook. |
Give it a shot and let me know how it works. |
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Ryan Deiss Co-Founder and CEO, The Scalable Company |
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P.S. I'm looking for 5 business owners who want to work 1-on-1 with my team and me to install a custom "operating system" before the end of 2025, so your business can scale and so you can exit the day-to-day. Click here for the details. |
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