The 3 Essential Ways Every Business Actually Grows

Most leaders are convinced there's one missing ingredient between where they are and where they want their business to be. They're wrong.

You've been there. Staring at your business metrics, wondering what magic formula will finally unlock the growth you know is possible. Maybe you need better marketing. Or a new product launch. Perhaps it's time to restructure operations or hire that star salesperson everyone's been talking about.

Here's the hard truth: there's no easy button for business growth, because growing a business is not one-dimensional.

Most leaders expect their business to produce fruit year-round, but they don't take the time to put down roots and build a solid trunk. Why? Because those efforts don't feel connected enough to the immediate harvest they're craving.

The result? Top-heavy, fragile businesses that are propped up instead of strong and resilient.

Think Like a Tree

The healthiest trees that produce the most fruit are balanced between three essential components: the roots, the trunk, and the branches. Similarly, the healthiest businesses that consistently grow have mastered three interconnected elements that work together as a living system.

Organizations are organisms that require the right ecosystem to flourish. And leaders of growing organizations need to develop a "Green Thumb" for their business—the ability to care for these parts interdependently so their company can reach its unique potential.

The 3 Essential Ways to Grow Your Business

1. Build a Cohesive Team (The Roots)

Your team's health is the root system of your business.

This isn't feel-good HR speak—it's practical reality. The one thing most likely to topple or grow your business is the health and cohesion of your team. If your roots aren't strong, more fruit could actually topple your business. The very same products and projects essential for growth will only put more strain on your organization if your team isn't healthy at its foundation.

Why team health matters:

• Every investment you make in team cohesion produces results in every other aspect of your business

• Operations and results aren't independent from team health

• Problems like lack of trust or unhealthy conflict are like weeds—they just get worse the longer you let them grow

Practical step: Pick one organizational health focus every quarter and weave it into the actual operations of your business. Don't let team building be a one-off retreat activity—make it part of how you work.

2. Develop a Clear Strategy (The Trunk)

Having a clear growth strategy is like the trunk of your tree.

You only have so many resources in your business. There are only so many growth strategies you can implement at a time. And here's the reality: every strategy you implement pulls resources from another place in your business.

Strategy provides focus:

• Unless your whole team is clear on where you're going and how you'll get there, your team will never offer close to 100% of their unique contribution

• About 20% of the strategies you're trying produce about 80% of the results

• Good leaders have the courage to focus on what actually matters most and be ruthless with pruning what isn't productive

Practical step: Take 30 minutes and list every strategy or project your company is currently implementing. Then use intuition and analytics to identify which 20% are most important. Brainstorm how you can maximize the impact of that 20% by cutting away the less productive strategies.

3. Master Marketing + Communications (The Branches)

Good marketing is how you drive results—acquiring new audiences and converting them to engaged customers.

This is your branches—how you reach out into your environment, gather resources (customers), and produce fruit (results). But marketing without healthy roots and a strong trunk is just branches flailing in the wind.

Effective marketing requires:

• Content delivered to the right audiences on the right platforms with the right frequency

• A clear and compelling message that puts your customers and their problems at the center

• Systems that allow you to scale without burning out your team

• Integration with your strategy so every marketing dollar works together toward your goals

Practical step: Audit your current marketing efforts. Are they aligned with your core strategy? Do they communicate a clear, compelling case for why customers should choose you? Are they sustainable with your current team capacity?

The Interdependent Reality

Here's what makes this framework powerful: every part is interdependent. Marketing isn't independent from your team's health. Strategy isn't independent from your ability to communicate it clearly. And nothing is independent from leadership.

When you try to fix one area in isolation, you create imbalance. It's like trying to grow a tree by only watering the branches—it doesn't work.

But when all three work together:

• Your team executes strategies they actually understand and believe in

• Your marketing communicates authentic value because your internal culture supports it

• Your strategy succeeds because you have the people and systems to implement it

• Your growth becomes sustainable instead of sporadic

Developing Your Green Thumb

A "Green Thumb" leader understands that:

1. Creates team health as the number one priority — because everything else depends on it

2. Clarifies plans and strategies so every resource invested works together toward common goals

3. Learns to make a compelling case for the business to accelerate customer conversion

This isn't about perfecting each area in sequence. It's about nurturing all three simultaneously, understanding that growth happens through the health of the whole system.

Your Next Step

Look at your business right now. Which of the three areas needs the most attention?

• Are your roots weak? Team dysfunction, unclear roles, or communication breakdowns holding you back?

• Is your trunk unstable? Too many competing priorities, unclear direction, or strategies that aren't producing results?

• Are your branches struggling? Marketing that doesn't convert, messaging that doesn't resonate, or systems that can't scale?

The temptation is to focus on whichever area feels most urgent. Resist that. Start with roots (team health), then trunk (strategy), then branches (marketing). A tree grows from the ground up, and so should your business.

Growing a business is fun and hard simultaneously. It requires people and product working together, strategy and execution in tandem, clear leadership done in a collaborative way where there's both autonomy and accountability.

But when you stop chasing silver bullets and start nurturing your business like the living organism it is, something remarkable happens. You don't just grow—you flourish.

Your business has unique potential. It's time to develop the green thumb to reach it.

Ready to stop chasing growth and start cultivating it? The strongest businesses grow from the ground up—roots, trunk, and branches working together as a living system.