Hey!

Chris here. Welcome to Blueprint—the newsletter to help you build a winning engineering team.

Most business owners feel like they don't know where to start when it comes to growing revenue. There are a bajillion things that need to be done, and it can become overwhelming fast.

I know because I've been there. It can feel like you don't have any control and are stuck waiting for the phone to ring.

But there is something you have control over: the system you build and the inputs you feed into it.

If your goal is to grow revenue in 2026, you need to stop hoping and start building.

Here's the exact playbook we use, broken down into 6 actionable steps. 👇️ 

📒 DEEP DIVE

The 6-Step Playbook to Grow Your Revenue in 2026

The exact system we use to turn content into customers and customers into revenue.

Step 1: Build Reach

This is the foundation of everything else. Without reach, you have no one to convert into leads. Without leads, you have no pipeline. You need an audience first.

What to do:

• Choose your primary platform and commit to it. (For B2B, the answer is obviously LinkedIn. X and YouTube work well as backup channels.)

• Set a content target and stick to it consistently.

• Mix formats: Long-form (podcasts), short-form (60-90 second videos), and written posts.

Why this works:

People don't follow brands, they follow people. Being a founder in today's world is a celebrity position. If you're not staying top of mind, you are being actively forgotten.

I got an immediate bump in inbound leads when I started doing this. Not from strangers, but people who already knew me and just forgot I existed.

Key metric:

Monthly reach.

Step 2: Convert Reach Into Leads

Once people know who you are, the next question is: how do we convert reach into leads?

You need a way to capture contact information and move people from passive audience members to active, engaged prospects.

What to do:

• Start a newsletter that targets your exact audience. For me, that's CTOs and founders.

• Make the value proposition clear. In my case, that's letting me keep you from making a bunch of mistakes.

• Use the newsletter to provide middle-of-funnel trust. Give them real, tactical advice they can use immediately.

Why this works:

Your content should repel some people. If they're not your customer, you want to know that early.

The newsletter filters and qualifies. It creates trust with the right people and pushes away the wrong ones.

Key metric:

Conversion rate from reach to qualified leads.

Step 3: Move Leads Into Your Pipeline

By this point, you've built an audience and captured their emails. Now you need to figure out who's actually a fit for your business. 

This is where you separate tire kickers from serious buyers, and make sure you're only spending time on people who can actually become customers.

What to do:

• Create a qualification process: Name, email, 3 questions.

• The questions should screen for fit. You're trying to make sure they're the type of customer you want.

• Set up a simple way for qualified leads to book time with you or your team.

• Have a clear next step ready, whether it's a demo, trial, or consultation call.

Why this works:

You want to repel the wrong people early. When I get on a sales call, the lead should feel like they know me because they've been consuming content and reading the newsletter for weeks or months.

The conversion from cold lead to warm conversation becomes easier because you've already done the work of building trust at scale.

Key metric:

Conversion rate from qualified leads to sales calls booked.

Step 4: Activate New Customers Quickly

Customers come to us with emergencies on their hands, so we have to activate that same day. 

Your activation process doesn't need to be that fast, but it does need to be intentional. The faster you prove value, the stronger the relationship becomes.

What to do:

• Define what activation looks like for your business. What's the milestone where a customer is truly "using" your product or service?

• Build a process to help customers hit that milestone as fast as possible.

• Set clear expectations during the sales process about what happens next.

• Deliver exactly what you promised, when you promised it.

Why this works:

Speed to value builds trust faster than anything else. The faster you can prove you solve their problem, the stronger the relationship becomes.

And because our track record is so strong (we have 0 failed projects), we can be confident the customer will be happy as long as we deliver on our promises.

Key metric:

Time to activation and/or activation rate.

Step 5: Expand Revenue Through Retention

Too many businesses focus all their energy on getting new customers and neglect the goldmine sitting right in front of them: their existing customers. 

What to do:

• Identify where you're strongest in the customer lifecycle.

• Use that strength to support where you're weak.

• If customers love you, turn them into your acquisition engine with a referral system. Existing customers who refer new business get X hours free or a Y% discount.

• Referral system or not, make it easy for happy customers to send business your way.

Why this works:

Your best customers are the most credible salespeople you have. They already trust you and probably want to tell people about you. You just have to give them a reason to do so.

Key metric:

Referral rate and/or customer lifetime value.

Step 6: Track Everything With Leading and Lagging Indicators

You can't improve what you don't measure. But many businesses measure the wrong things.

A leading indicator is something you can control. A lagging indicator is something you cannot force.

The difference matters because you can only act on what you control. Revenue is a lagging indicator—you can't force it. But content creation, email sends, and sales calls? That's a different story.

What to do:

• For each step above, identify one leading indicator (what you control) and one lagging indicator (the result).

• Leading examples: content posted per month, emails sent, calls scheduled.

• Lagging examples: reach numbers, conversion rates, revenue.

• Build a rolling forecast and track what you expected versus what actually happened.

• Adjust your targets based on real performance data.

Why this works:

It allows you to align expectations with reality. You might raise or lower expectations, but either way, you're staying connected to what's actually happening in your business, not what you wish was happening.

Key metric:

All of the above.

BEFORE YOU GO…

You can't force revenue to appear, but you can control your inputs.

You can control how much content you put out.

You can control whether you start a newsletter.

You can control your qualification process, your activation speed, and whether you turn customers into referral engines.

The system works because it's built on exactly these areas.

And while the path won't be straight up and to the right—it's always a staircase—you learn valuable lessons at each step that help you keep climbing.

If you can execute on these areas consistently in 2026, everything else will follow.

Talk soon,

Chris.