Why shiny objects kill growth

This lesson explains why chasing new tactics, tools, and trends — shiny objects — is one of the most common reasons growth stalls. You will learn how to recognise shiny object syndrome in yourself and your team, and how to build a filter that keeps you focused on what compounds.

1.3 Trial & error of Random Rick

In this lesson, we'll explore Rick's experiments to grow Pipeline Ninjas, a HubSpot CRM agency. At the end of this lesson, we'll see what we can learn from his approach.

Random Rick is energetic, eager, and full of ideas. He's excited to start this new job and is ready to make an impact at Pipeline Ninjas.

This is the same starting point for all three growth marketers, allowing us to compare their approaches fairly. But Rick doesn't know this model exists, so he's going to figure it out by himself.

Let's have a look at how Rick prepares before he starts doing experiments.

He wants to get into the data side first. He browses Google Analytics, but how does he interpret this data? He looks at marketing data, sales data and he's overwhelmed and confused by the sheer volume of data. He decides to move on, he doesn't have time for this anymore.

He starts reading blogs on growth marketing to find ideas. He's trying to absorb as much information as possible, but it's so much. Where should he start?

Next he decides to go on YouTube to see if he can find practical information on what to do.

By the end of two weeks, Rick is overwhelmed. Instead of feeling confident, he's more confused than before. But he doesn't want to waste time, so he jumps into experiments anyway—hoping that something will work.

Rick starts with cold outreach and decides to use Lemlist to A/B test different subject lines and email copy to see if he can improve open and click rates. He's hoping this will lead to more leads and ultimately, more customers. He sees some positive results! His open rates double from 20% to 40%, and click rates improve from 6% to 12%. This is encouraging, but Rick hasn't considered the bigger picture.

Next, Rick decides to try out a new scheduling tool called Lemcal. He's read that it can lead to higher booking rates, so he switches over from Calendly, hoping to see an immediate improvement.

Rick turns his attention to the landing page. He thinks it looks a bit outdated, so he uses Unbounce to redesign the entire page. He changes the layout, colours, and visuals, aiming for a more modern and engaging look.

Rick then explores lead activation. He sets up a basic email sequence in HubSpot to nurture leads and keep them engaged. He's not expecting much from this, but surprisingly, activation rates increase by 20%.

For his next experiment, Rick focuses on the proposal process. He's heard good things about PandaDoc, so he switches to this platform, hoping it will help him, and the sales team, close more deals.

Rick circles back to cold outreach and uses Lemlist again. He wants to see if he can scale his earlier A/B testing results by further improving subject lines and CTA placement.

Let's have a look at Rick's results.

He's looking at the data, but he's clearly not happy. He's worked hard, but is it paying off?

This graph shows Rick's revenue growth. What do you think about his results? Would you be happy? The graph at least is going up. Let's analyse it.

Here's the Solid Growth System again. As you can see, Rick achieved 40% revenue growth, but it was uneven. He saw only 1% growth in engaged sessions, 26% in the marketing funnel, and 10% in the sales funnel, with 0% growth in contract value.

What can you learn from Rick? His experience highlights several common pitfalls.

This donut chart shows the distribution of lead channels. Rick's cold outreach efforts, despite his A/B testing, only targeted a tiny fraction (0.2%) of the total traffic. This explains why his improvements didn't significantly impact overall revenue.

He didn't know where to start with the data but asked for help. He needs to ask for help to get insights from data. When I coach growth teams even half an hour will give a lot of clarity and then they can continue for a week again. So don't be afraid to ask for help because it will give you clarity and you will know what to do instead of struggle by yourself.

Rick's biggest downfall wasn't a lack of effort, but a lack of direction. He jumped from idea to idea without a system for prioritising which ones were most likely to drive growth. This scattered approach led to wasted time and energy. A structured process for idea prioritisation is essential. This could involve scoring ideas based on potential impact, ease of implementation, and alignment with overall business goals. Without this, you're essentially throwing darts in the dark.

Rick's experiments were often reactive and haphazard. He didn't follow a structured process for planning, executing, and analysing his work. This made it impossible to learn from his successes and failures. A structured process provides a roadmap. It ensures that you're testing hypotheses, tracking results systematically, and iterating based on data. This brings predictability and efficiency to your growth efforts.

Rick's experiments often felt like a shot in the dark. He didn't always define clear goals, identify the right metrics, or control for external factors. This made it difficult to determine why an experiment succeeded or failed. Setting up experiments for success requires careful planning. This includes defining a clear hypothesis, selecting the right tools and techniques, tracking relevant metrics, and documenting the entire process. It also involves incorporating customer research before launching experiments to ensure you are addressing real pain points. This way, you're not just hoping for results; you're setting yourself up to learn and improve.

We've seen Rick's preparation, and he was overwhelmed. He jumped back and forth without any consistent results, and we've seen the learnings from Rick's work.

Here are some questions to reflect on the lesson: 1) Do you know how to get insights from data? Who can help you if you have questions? 2) Can you think of a time when you executed without a clear plan? What was the outcome? 3) How can a structured approach like the Solid Growth System help you avoid the pitfalls of Rick's approach? In the next lesson, we'll look at Specialist Steve's structured approach, but he eventually will hit a growth plateau. I'll see you in the next lesson.

Rick hears about the latest growth trend and jumps on it. Influencer partnerships, product-led growth, TikTok advertising, conference sponsorship. He's tried them all. His team is exhausted, his budget is scattered, and nothing ever gains momentum because he's always moving on to the next thing. Hard work isn't moving the needle because the work isn't connected.

This article walks through why shiny objects kill growth. You'll see how scattered tactics burn out teams, waste budget, and prevent any single channel from reaching its potential. More importantly, you'll understand what happens when a team decides to build systems instead.

Rick starts his new role at Pipeline Ninjas with genuine enthusiasm. He knows the company needs to grow, and he's determined to figure out the right approach. Like most marketers in his position, he decides to begin by "getting up to speed" with the data.

He opens Google Analytics 4 and immediately faces a wall of metrics. Sessions, engagement rate, conversion events, user acquisition reports. He clicks through the interface, looking at traffic sources, bounce rates, demographic data. But how do you interpret all of this? Which metrics actually matter? He's drowning in data without a framework to make sense of it.

Next, he pulls up the marketing dashboard in HubSpot. Lead conversion rates, email open rates, form submissions. Then the sales data. Pipeline value, win rates, average deal size. Each system has its own dashboard, its own way of presenting information. After an hour, Rick is more confused than when he started. He closes his laptop and decides to move on. He doesn't have time for this.

Instead, Rick turns to external resources. He starts reading blog posts about growth marketing, trying to absorb as much information as possible. One article says to focus on retention. Another says acquisition is everything. A third argues that you can't grow without fixing your product-market fit first. Every piece of advice makes sense in isolation, but how do they fit together?

He moves to YouTube, hoping for more practical guidance. He watches a video about scaling Facebook ads, another about optimising conversion rates, a third about building a content engine. By the end of week two, Rick has consumed dozens of articles and videos. He's taken notes, bookmarked resources, and created a list of potential tactics to try.

But he doesn't feel more confident. He feels overwhelmed. The sheer volume of information has paralysed him rather than empowered him. He's got 50 ideas and no way to decide which one to pursue first. So he does what most marketers do in this situation: he picks something that sounds good and starts experimenting, hoping that momentum will create clarity.

This is where Random Rick's approach begins to break down. Without a framework to filter information and prioritise actions, preparation becomes procrastination dressed up as research. Rick has spent two weeks learning, but he hasn't learned the most important thing: where to start.

Random Rick's story isn't about a lack of effort or intelligence. He worked hard, tried multiple approaches, and even generated 40% revenue growth. His failure was a failure of system, not capability.

The lesson is clear: without a framework to prioritise experiments, you're optimising randomly. You might get lucky and work on something that matters. You might waste months on things that don't. Either way, you won't know the difference until after you've spent the time and money.

Rick needed three things he didn't have: visibility into which metrics actually drive revenue, a method to prioritise which metrics to work on first, and a way to measure whether his experiments were moving the needle on what matters. Without these, even his successes were accidents he couldn't reliably repeat.

But what if you're not Random Rick? What if you're an expert in your field, with a structured approach and proven tactics? Surely that's better? In the next chapter, we'll meet Specialist Steve, who has all the discipline Rick lacks. And we'll see why even that isn't enough.