Strategy 4 Saturday Blog (<4 minute read)
(Growth Drive CEO George Sandmann with Carl J Cox at his Growth Drive Summit)
I ask every first time Measure Success Podcast guest. How do you measure success in your business or with your clients?
How do you measure success with your clients?
Spend a moment and write down your answer. Reply to this email and tell me…
Right now.
If you don’t have a clear answer, send me your ideas.
The best answer will earn Measure Success Podcast swag.
How does 40 Strategy Measure Success with our Clients?
Over the past couple of years, we have adopted GrowthDrive, developed by our friend and founder, George Sandmann. We have called this $4M Strategies, because we identify the top 24 risks in a business and how it can increase a company valued at $3M to $7M. The $4M strategies are the gap between companies when we first see them and what potential they are leaving on the table.
In fact, this works for companies with zero profits or millions in profits.
Because we identify a clear valuation at the beginning of the engagement, we can measure the growth from beginning to the end.
This does not cost our strategy clients any money.
We guarantee a 3X ROI.
Can you guarantee success with your client?
The best part, is success, is not always measured with numbers.
Read this story from our client, Legal Nurse Consulting PDX, and hear the results in their words, how they earned a 7.58x ROI and much, much, more.
(Wendy Votroubek, CEO of Legal Nurse Consulting PDX)
When Strategy Turns Fear Into Focus
One of the clearest indicators that strategy is working is not a polished plan or a completed framework, but a noticeable shift in how leaders and teams experience their work. At the close of our engagement with Integrity Legal Nurse Consulting PDX, the reflections shared by the team revealed how structure, rhythm, and clarity can fundamentally change how a business operates. What stood out was not just improved results, but reduced stress, stronger confidence, and a sense of shared ownership.
Strategy stopped being something discussed abstractly and became something practiced weekly. The themes below emerged directly from the closing engagement conversation and highlight how different areas of expertise experienced that shift.
CEO / Owner: From Working in the Business to Leading the Business
For founders and owners, growth often creates a paradox, the business gets bigger, but leadership capacity feels smaller. Before this engagement, the business owner, Wendy described wanting clarity and direction after carrying too much decision-making alone for too long. Through consistent prioritization and execution discipline, that mental load began to lift and leadership space reopened. As Wendy shared, this past year has marked a fundamental shift in how she leads. Confidence returned not because the work disappeared, but because it became structured, shared, and manageable. In her words, Wendy described how she changed from being a business owner to a CEO.
“Before I met you, I was telling people I just wanted someone to tell me what to do, and how to do it. That’s what I have gotten in spades… I have the time now to work on the business, as compared to always in the business.”- Wendy Votroubek
When the CEO no longer carries everything, leadership confidence returns, and the business becomes transferable, not fragile.
Operations Manager: Predictability Creates Capacity
From an operations perspective, success showed up as predictability rather than urgency. Julie, the operations manager, emphasized how valuable it was to know, week after week, exactly what she was supposed to be learning and focusing on. That clarity allowed her to step fully into ownership of the day-to-day without hesitation or confusion. This shift did not require additional layers of process, but instead a dependable execution rhythm. When operations are predictable, capacity expands across the organization.
“It was very organized. I knew weekly what I was supposed to be learning and focusing on… now I can truly run the day-to-day things. It’s given Wendy the opportunity to do more of the business behind-the-scenes things.”- Julie Davenport
Operations don’t scale through urgency. They scale through rhythm, ownership, and clarity.
Social Media: Alignment Unlocks Impact
For social media and marketing, the biggest shift was moving from isolated execution to integrated contribution. In many small businesses, marketing professionals operate without full context, limiting both creativity and impact. Through regular meetings and shared priorities, that dynamic changed, creating space for collaboration and trust. This alignment made it easier to identify real opportunities and act on them. Marketing became a strategic lever instead of a reactive task list.
“This engagement has been really transformational… because we meet regularly, I’ve been able to understand what everyone else’s role is, how I can lean on them to leverage their expertise.”- Fractional marketing expert, Sofia Keller
When roles are clear, collaboration replaces silos, and marketing becomes a growth lever, not a scramble.
Project Management: Breaking Down the “Big and Scary”
From a project management lens, one of the most powerful outcomes was how the team’s perception of large goals shifted. Several objectives initially felt overwhelming, the kind that often stalls progress because they seem too complex to start. With a clear plan and weekly guidance, those same goals were broken into smaller, executable pieces. Progress became visible, momentum built, and confidence followed. Project discipline transformed fear into forward motion.
“Some things that we had as goals for the business seemed really big and scary… but since you had a plan and guided us through the process, it really wasn’t as scary as we thought. The results are amazing, as we’ve seen the numbers.”- Fractional operations, Flávia Marize
Project discipline isn’t about control, it’s about reducing fear by making progress visible.
Strategy didn’t remove the hard work. It made the work doable.
Finance: Measurement Creates Calm and Clarity
Financially, the engagement created something many organizations underestimate, calm. By introducing consistent measurement and clearer tracking of activities, financial oversight became proactive rather than reactive. This shift reduced pressure on leadership and created space for better decision-making. Measurement also strengthened Integrity Legal Nurse Consulting’s financial story, clarifying how money flows through the business and why decisions are made. When finances are understood, conversations become grounded instead of emotional.
“Measuring our activities has built our financial story so much stronger.”- Eileen Seely
When finances are visible, leadership decisions become grounded, and confidence follows.
The Common Thread: Willingness to Do the Uncomfortable
Across every role, the same underlying behavior surfaced repeatedly, a willingness to do uncomfortable work consistently. The team did not avoid hard conversations or challenging priorities, but they also did not try to tackle everything at once. By breaking work into manageable weekly deliverables, discomfort became temporary rather than paralyzing. That consistency built trust within the team and confidence in the business itself. Strategy did not remove the hard work; it made the hard work sustainable.
Quantifying the Impact: A 7.58X ROI
The outcomes of this engagement can be quantified, not just described. Over the course of the work, Integrity Legal Nurse Consulting PDX generated a 7.58X return on its investment in strategic capacity building and execution support. This return was driven by measurable changes in how the business operates, including improved allocation of leadership time, clearer financial visibility, reduced rework, and more consistent follow-through on priorities. Weekly execution rhythms converted strategic decisions into completed actions, limiting delay and decision churn. The ROI reflects cumulative operational efficiency gains rather than a single revenue event, indicating that the improvements are structural and repeatable. In practical terms, the business now produces more output with less friction and lower leadership strain.
Final Thought
By the end of the engagement, Integrity Legal Nurse Consulting PDX was measurably easier to run, more disciplined in execution, and more confident in leadership. Strategic capacity increased from 37% to 83%, but more importantly, the team built habits that will continue long after formal support ended. Calm replaced chaos, clarity replaced fear, and execution replaced intention. This is what happens when strategy shows up every week instead of living in a planning document.
Real strategy is visible in how people think, decide, and work together, consistently.
And it can be measured.
That’s how we measure success with our clients.
(Snow finally arrived in the NW)
