How to Turn Marketing Into a Measurable Growth Engine — Insights from Laura Patterson
Marketing that’s busy but not strategic is one of the fastest ways to burn time, budget, and opportunity. In a recent Scale Smart, Grow Fast episode, Laura Patterson, President of Vision Edge Marketing and creator of the Circle of Traction Framework, shared how leaders can align strategy, focus on customer value, and use data to drive measurable growth.
Preferred listening on the go? Catch the full podcast episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Start with the “Straight Line Test”
Laura’s quick diagnostic: open your marketing plan and draw a straight line from your business outcomes → objectives → programs → tactics → activities. If something doesn’t connect, it’s a “random act of marketing” — and it’s stealing your strategic capacity.
Keep the Focus on Customer Value
Growth begins with understanding:
- Who your customers are
- What they value and need
- How you’re different from competitors
From there, align sales, marketing, and customer success teams around clear, customer-centric outcomes.
Data + Instinct = Better Decisions
Experience and gut matter, but data turns decisions into confident moves. Avoid drowning in metrics by first deciding what question you want the data to answer. Then focus on measures tied directly to outcomes — like product adoption, share of wallet, or footprint expansion.
Make Plans Dynamic, Not Static
Markets shift fast. Laura recommends monthly reviews to check performance against targets and adjust accordingly. Use dashboards to see what’s working, what’s not, and where to pivot.
Use Advisory Boards for Real Feedback
Customer and technical advisory boards give you direct insight into pain points, opportunities, and what your audience values most. That feedback fuels innovation and relevance.
Document Processes to Delegate Effectively
From email campaigns to webinars, every marketing activity has a process. Documenting these makes it easier to delegate tasks without losing quality or consistency.
Key Takeaway:
Marketing becomes a growth engine when it’s aligned to business outcomes, rooted in customer value, and measured with discipline. Drop the random acts, focus your line, and review often.
Resources from Laura:
- Book: Fast Track Your Business
- Free Customer Centricity Worksheet — Vision Edge Marketing
Schedule a discovery call to uncover how Workergenix can streamline your operations, free your time, and help you scale smarter without burning out.
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Harley Green: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Scale Smart Grow Fast podcast. Growth without direction often leads to wasted time, budget, and opportunity. In this episode, Laura Patterson, President of Vision Edge Marketing and creator of the Circle of Traction Framework, shares how leaders can align their strategies around customer value, streamline execution, and make smarter decisions using data. With over two decades of experience guiding hundreds of organizations, Laura is going to deliver a clear and actionable approach to turning marketing into a measurable growth engine. Laura, how are you? Thanks for being on the podcast.
Laura Patterson: Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to share my passion with your community.
Harley Green: Tell us a bit more about what brought you to being President of Vision Edge.
Laura Patterson: I won’t spend too much time there because I’d like to make sure we spend more time on things that will be helpful and actionable for your community. If you wind the clock back just a little bit, I’m in Austin, Texas. In 1999, if you could spell marketing, you could get a job. I’d been in Austin since 1982 after working for several companies, predominantly in very early stage technology. The product I was marketing, selling, and servicing ran on a Wang 2200. I was brought here by Motorola to help bring up a new organization and business line involving marketing operations, communication, and customer acquisition.
I spent the next 14 years inside Motorola and then left to go back into software. When my phone rang many times with people wanting help with strategic and product marketing and customer acquisition and retention, it was an opportunity to jump from the frying pan to the fire and start my own firm. That was the impetus and catalyst for Vision Edge Marketing, and we’ve been at it ever since.
Harley Green: Love it. Now, tell us more about the Circle of Traction Framework. How did that come about and what is it for?
Laura Patterson: The Circle of Traction has been around since the very beginning of our company. Many of our customers have used what we call “the wheel” to make sure they have the right starting point, end point, and all the things needed to move the wheel and get traction in the marketplace. We have a book on it called Fast Track Your Business, which came from a long-time customer who brought us in at various companies to talk about leveraging the Circle of Traction. On my way out from one of those meetings, John said, “When are you going to put this in a book?” I told him probably not, having already written three books, but eventually we did. The book takes everyone through each node in the Circle of Traction with actionable guidance at every step so anyone aiming to accelerate market growth with a customer-centric approach has a framework to do so.
Harley Green: You’ve worked with a ton of companies. What’s the most common reason marketing becomes disconnected from actual business growth?
Laura Patterson: I love this question. Here’s a quick test: open your marketing plan. It’s probably in Excel or PowerPoint. Many think a list of things to do, dates, and a budget is a plan. We encourage a different view. Draw a straight line from the business result you want down through objectives, programs, tactics, and activities. If anything is off that line, we call those orphans or random acts, and they steal strategic capacity.
Every day, new things pop up and you might think you should do them. Ask where it fits on the line. If it doesn’t, it’s another random act that may not move the ball down the field. That’s a simple, practical test — and we can help you fix that.
Harley Green: These random acts can be the new shiny object — tech, pipeline, trends. How do you help people stay focused and avoid shiny object syndrome?
Laura Patterson: In marketing — and sales or customer success — ask: What business outcome will this activity help achieve? If you don’t know, it’s time to discuss. Second, what exactly will we do to achieve that outcome? Third, how will you know it worked?
In marketing, we’ve made things complicated with endless activity metrics — visits, clicks, downloads, shares — but we should be measuring impact on outcomes, not just activity.
Harley Green: Many leaders rely on experience and instinct. When does that fall short, and how does data fill the gap?
Laura Patterson: I’d never tell an experienced leader their gut is irrelevant. I use mine too. But we can make more confident, faster decisions when data supports our thinking. Without it, we might keep doing things that aren’t working. Data helps us streamline the thousands of decisions we make daily. The challenge isn’t lack of data — it’s finding actionable insights.
To leverage data, start with the question you want answered. Otherwise, you risk drowning in information.
Harley Green: In a busy organization, how do you decide which data points matter for growth versus noise?
Laura Patterson: It starts with defining what success looks like for your company. Most leaders start with revenue targets, maybe profit or margin. But marketers don’t market to “buckets of revenue” — we need specific outcomes like: how many new customers in which markets for which products, how many existing customers to retain, or how to grow share of wallet.
When outcomes are customer-centric, the right metrics reveal themselves — adoption rates, share of wallet, footprint expansion — and these can guide operational plans across sales, marketing, and product teams.
Harley Green: How does the Circle of Traction help maintain that customer-centric focus?
Laura Patterson: It starts with customer insights: Who they are, what’s important to them, their challenges, aspirations, current approach, and how you can help them do it better. This informs personas, buying journeys, and strategy — then execution.
Harley Green: As marketing grows, execution can get messy. When does it make sense to delegate tasks like reporting, research, or management to an assistant?
Laura Patterson: First, document your processes. If you want others to help — whether an executive assistant, VA, or vendor — they need clear steps. Every marketing activity, from emails to events, has a process. The more detailed your documentation, the easier it is to delegate effectively.
Harley Green: How do you keep alignment from marketing through to sales?
Laura Patterson: Without guidance, sales will do whatever it takes to make the number. Give them focus — which customers, why, and what to say. This makes them more efficient and effective, targeting the right doors to knock on.
Harley Green: You’re known for helping turn marketing into performance engines. What’s step one to making it measurable and accountable?
Laura Patterson: Tie everything to clear outcomes. I’m surprised how often marketers can’t name the three to five business outcomes they’re expected to impact. Too often, plans are just last year’s plan updated. Instead, consider current market trends, target segments, and how that impacts sales, product, and customer service.
Harley Green: Who should adjust marketing strategy in response to trends — executives or marketing leaders?
Laura Patterson: It depends on company size and talent. Smaller companies may rely on leadership or outside experts. Larger ones with seasoned marketing leaders can handle it internally.
Harley Green: How often should companies revisit their marketing plan?
Laura Patterson: Frequently, especially in times of flux. I recommend monthly reviews with dashboards showing what’s working, what’s not, and where to adjust.
Harley Green: What’s the biggest missed opportunity in gathering or acting on customer feedback?
Laura Patterson: Not having customer or technical advisory boards. These provide valuable insight and a give-and-take relationship that benefits both sides. They help you understand what customers truly value.
Harley Green: For a leader stuck in reactive marketing mode, what’s one action they can take this week toward a strategic, data-driven approach?
Laura Patterson: Start by reviewing your plan — or create one. Apply the Straight Line Test. Then ask questions with “customer” in them: Which customers are buying? How long do they stay? Which have left? This will shift your thinking.
Harley Green: How can people connect with you?
Laura Patterson: On LinkedIn, by email at , or through my book Fast Track Your Business. We also offer free downloads like the customer centricity worksheet at visionedgemarketing.com.
Harley Green: Thanks, Laura. And for those listening, if you got value from this episode, hit like and subscribe so you don’t miss future strategies to help you scale smarter. Share this episode with someone who could use it, and leave us a quick rating to help us reach more leaders.
