Your business usually tells you something is wrong long before the numbers catch up.
Customers go quiet. Referrals slow down. Sales cycles stretch. Teams start questioning the dashboard. These signals may seem small, but they often point to a bigger problem that leadership has yet to name.
John “JR” Ross joins Maartje van Krieken to talk about how leaders can read the market more clearly and catch trouble earlier. Drawing on his experience at PepsiCo, PosiGen, and JDR Growth Advisory, JR explains why customer behavior can reveal problems long before they reach the boardroom.
Where should leaders look first? Often, the answer is in the customers who have not left but are becoming less engaged. Their behavior can expose weaknesses in the value proposition, customer experience, product, distribution, or the way the company understands its market.
Those signals can reveal internal problems too. Are leaders aligned on the biggest issue to solve? Does everyone trust the data? Are teams working in silos when the real problem crosses departments? Growth can hide these cracks for a long time.
The takeaway: pay attention earlier. Talk to the customers who are quietly disengaging, look closely at the data your team no longer trusts, and act on what you learn before the cost of waiting gets higher.
One simple question can reveal a lot: Who is your company’s most successful customer, and would every team give you the same answer?
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Customer Silence as an Early Warning Sign
05:31 How to Spot Market Signals Before a Crisis
10:09 Leadership Alignment and the “Room Problem”
14:30 What Happens When Leaders Stop Trusting the Data
18:53 The Cost of Delayed Business Decisions
31:08 How to Identify Your Most Valuable Customer
Connect with John Ross:
Connect with John on LinkedIn
Subscribe to John’s Substack
John D. Ross, who goes by ‘J.R.,’ has spent twenty years in rooms where the numbers stopped cooperating for growth brands.
At PosiGen he led growth and strategy while the company scaled to 36,000 customers across 15 states and $375M in home services revenue. Before that, nearly a decade at PepsiCo, including Global Director of Customer Partnerships and Chief of Staff to the CMO. Today he runs JDR Growth Advisory out of New Orleans, serving as fractional CMO to growth stage companies between $5-30M in ARR.
His work starts with a diagnosis, not a pitch. Most leaders who call him believe they have a marketing or communications problem. What they usually have is a room problem: three smart people with three different theories, a dashboard nobody trusts, and one GTM question nobody will say out loud. Confusion inside a growth stage business is never harmless. It shows up in CAC before it shows up in the board deck.
He has coached 60+ founders through the Tulane Innovation Institute and The Idea Village, and speaks at SXSW and New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. In 2027, J.R. will begin teaching at Tulane University a class focused on “Strategies for a Career in Entrepreneurship”.
Connect with Maartje van Krieken:
Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn
Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website
Visit The Business Emergency Room website
Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube
Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack
Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction.
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