Most businesses start by pushing. The successful ones learn to pull.
In the beginning, every sale requires effort. You push outbound—cold calls, ads, pitches, demos. You interrupt people to tell them why they need your product. This is necessary. No one knows you exist yet.
But somewhere along the path, a shift becomes possible. If you've delivered value consistently, if your early customers become advocates, if your positioning sharpens—demand starts to pull itself toward you.
The Difference
Push means you initiate every interaction. You find prospects. You convince them they have a problem. You educate them about solutions. You close deals through persistence.
Pull means prospects find you. They arrive informed. They've heard your name from others. They come looking for what you offer. The sale starts halfway through.
Push is expensive. Pull is efficient. But you can't skip push to get to pull. The transition is earned, not chosen.
The Timing Problem
Here's where most businesses struggle: they either push too long or try to pull too early.
Pushing too long: You've built reputation and trust, but you're still cold calling. You could be investing in content, SEO, partnerships—channels that pull demand—but you're stuck in old habits. Growth slows because you're using yesterday's strategy.
Pulling too early: You launch a content strategy or inbound campaign before you've proven product-market fit. No one searches for you yet. Your brand carries no weight. You're trying to harvest before planting. Resources drain with little return.
The transition from push to pull isn't a clean break. It's a gradual rebalancing—less outbound effort, more inbound infrastructure. Less chasing, more positioning.
How to Know When You're Ready
You're ready to shift toward pull when:
- Customers mention they "heard about you" from someone else
- Repeat business or referrals make up 30%+ of revenue
- Inbound leads (even low volume) convert better than outbound
- Your brand search volume is growing month over month
- Customers arrive asking for specific offerings by name
These signals mean you've created something people talk about. Now you can amplify that momentum instead of manufacturing it from scratch every time.
The Strategy
Don't abandon push entirely. Layer in pull gradually. Measure what works. Shift resources slowly from outbound to inbound as conversion rates prove the model. It's not either/or—it's a calculated rebalancing.
What Pull Requires
Pull doesn't happen automatically. It requires infrastructure:
Content that teaches. Not promotional material. Real insight that helps people solve problems whether or not they buy from you.
Distribution that compounds. SEO, partnerships, community presence—channels where today's effort continues working tomorrow.
Positioning that clarifies. When someone hears your name, they should instantly know what problem you solve and for whom.
Delivery that creates advocates. Every customer should become someone who answers "Where should I go for X?" with your name.
The Long Game
Push is tactical. Pull is strategic. Push gets you to revenue. Pull builds moats.
The businesses that scale sustainably don't abandon push—they reduce its necessity by making pull inevitable. They create systems where demand flows toward them, where reputation precedes sales conversations, where growth becomes less about effort and more about optimization.
The shift from push to pull isn't about working less. It's about working on different things. Things that compound. Things that scale. Things that make tomorrow easier than today.