A target like £5m or £10m is wonderfully simple.
The route to it often isn’t.
Say you’re currently at £6m and want to reach £10m.
Where’s the £4m going to come from? It’ll likely be a combination of these, as a starting point… more new customers, better retention of existing customers, higher conversion, higher AOV, more frequent purchasing, maybe a new market, a different product mix, more full price sales, greater investment in an existing channel…
Which sounds great – all those options and all those routes to the target.
But which combo will keep your margins healthy? Will use your marketing spend more efficiently? Will keep your cashflow as smooth as poss? How much movement is realistic in each lever? Which changes compound one another, and which route plays to what the business is already particularly good at?
Which would need more investment and which have higher risk?
There will almost always be several theoretical routes to the same target.
The key question is which combination makes commercial sense for your particular business.
Look at your strengths. Look at your most valuable customers and what’s driving their value. Look at where the biggest opportunities are. Consider the quick wins and tactical changes alongside the bigger strategic shifts.
Then model it out and test the assumptions.
What happens to cash flow if the uplift takes longer than expected? What happens to margin if acquisition becomes more expensive? What happens to customer experience if sales fly but stock, fulfilment or the team can’t keep pace?
Because the aim isn’t simply to build a route that gets you to £10m on a spreadsheet. It’s to build one that makes sense for the business you actually want to have when you get there.
