When Standing Still Is Not an Option
Growth Hacking in a Family Business Ready to Sharpen Its Focus
After 25 years in business, Nobila Casa had every reason to feel proud: 18 stores, 16 cities, €8 million in annual turnover, and a reputation built on beauty, taste, and consistency.
But in retail, standing still is never an option.
The leadership team — part of the larger Mendola Group, a €50 million family-owned business — began to feel what all maturing companies eventually do: momentum without direction.
Sales were steady, the team was loyal, but the question had changed. It was no longer “Are we doing well?” — it was “How do we grow smarter?”
That’s when we began our collaboration on Growth Hacking — a structured framework to sharpen focus, test fast, and turn ideas into measurable progress.
Losing Sight of the Client Happens to Everyone
Every company, no matter how strong, eventually gets lost in the daily labyrinth of work. Routines form, processes grow, and even the best teams start focusing inward. It happens quietly — through good intentions, through pride in our own products and systems.
Even the most client-oriented businesses can lose sight of the client. That’s where an experienced advisor becomes valuable. Not to deliver lectures or slides, but to ask the right questions — to notice the opportunities hiding in plain sight.
When I work with a company like Nobila Casa, I don’t present; I participate. I behave as part of the management team. We debate, test, and innovate together. That kind of collaboration can’t be learned from a book.
Books can help, of course, but seasoned managers would sense from miles away if I hadn’t lived this before. This is where decades of experience — real, on-the-ground experience — matter. Because what we’re fixing isn’t theory. It’s the invisible friction of everyday work.
Projects We Built
We began by mapping the Lead-to-Cash process, identifying where effort and impact had drifted apart.
There were dozens of good ideas — the challenge was to prioritize.
We focused on what would create clarity first, and momentum followed.
Redefined KPIs across the retail network — because what gets measured improves.
Optimized profitability per square meter — every inch of space working with purpose.
Designed a marketing rhythm — social media, campaigns, and merchandising speaking the same language.
Aligned sales and operations through weekly dashboards.
Trained store managers to turn numbers into decisions.
Coached the sales team to improve conversion, not just service.
Created a growth calendar linking seasonality, performance, and storytelling.
Strengthened management processes to make decisions faster and follow-up consistent.
Each project had one rule: if it doesn’t bring clarity, it doesn’t stay.
The Turning Point
The real shift didn’t happen in a meeting or in data — it happened in mindset.
One of the directors said:
“It’s irrelevant who is right — let’s test it.”
That sentence changed everything. Testing became the new normal. Ideas stopped being debates and started being experiments.The team began learning faster than the market could change.
This was Growth Hacking in its truest sense: curiosity disciplined by structure.
Results
Nobila Casa became the fastest-growing company within the ten businesses of the Mendola Group. Not because of a new product or investment, but because of redefined focus and a shared, smarter vocabulary.
Conversations changed. The way the team spoke about sales, clients, and priorities changed. And the results followed.
Growth became a process — not a campaign, not a stroke of luck — but a repeatable rhythm that everyone understood.
Why I Love This Work
I usually don’t know how my day will go at Nobila Casa.
I arrive, there will be hugs and a great coffee — that’s a constant — but after that, the day writes itself.
I might work with the designer on how to increase the profitability of a square meter. Then with the IT department to define performance indicators. With the Operations Director, I might design a new training framework. Later, I sit with the CEO to rethink how the infrastructure can serve sales better.
Every conversation is different, but all are driven by one shared intention — to make the company sharper, faster, and more human at the same time.
Insight
My role is to make it sound simple — to explain complex systems in a way that feels intuitive. But simplicity should never be mistaken for ease. The foundation of this collaboration is intellectual respect. We see each other as partners — equally engaged, equally curious. It takes everyone’s full intelligence to move the needle.
In a competitive market, hard work is not enough anymore. Reading about frameworks is not enough either — managers know instantly when experience is missing.
What drives progress is the combination of wit, competence, and the courage to redefine. That’s what keeps a company alive in a changing world.
What Comes Next
Two years of Growth Hacking built trust — not just in results, but in collaboration. Now, that trust is expanding across the Mendola Group.
Together, we are designing a transparency system that integrates all ten companies into a single dashboard — one clear view shared by management and family members alike.
It’s the next step toward a Family Office, where business and family systems meet under one governance structure, ensuring continuity for generations.
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