The process of customer acquisition is critical to success, but often many leap first without a process in place. Without direction and strategy, the early stages of customer acquisition may be misdirected, resulting in lost time, money, and resources, as well as shaky profits. This is especially true for new businesses trying to get a foot in the door as they compete with well-established companies. The wrong customer acquisition strategy can be costly.
The most successful Chief Revenue Officers are not afraid to think outside of the box. To have big, out-of-the-box ideas, a company must have employees who are not intimidated by creativity, innovation, and inventiveness.
How things have changed: The competitive marketplace has been disrupted with key trends over the last several years. The disruptions and new trends require companies to create repeatable and predictable revenue that scales:
Who has their finger on the pulse of revenue growth (for both marketing and sales) across the entire revenue process – from prospects to leads to pipeline to revenue?
The person who can lead the way with a new kind of analysis and execution crucial to the business in today's business world is the Chief Revenue Officer, or CRO.
Chief Revenue Officers (CRO) and Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) share a common goal: to improve a company’s brand architecture and positioning, thereby driving leads, sales, and profits. For companies that already have a solid marketing platform - and even for those that do not - understanding how to provide strategic leadership to accomplish this goal can be difficult. The following considers how to leverage customer research in order to improve your position as a leader and enhance brand architecture:
Sales forecasting is not simply a necessary evil mandated by finance. The best sales leaders use revenue forecasting as a tool to manage the business, support strategic decisions, and allocate resources. Estimating sales accurately for the upcoming 12 months gives your organization foresight into where your income is really coming from and when. Sales forecasts drive decisions related to:
Even with great leadership, as your business grows you may notice the increasing tension between working “in the business” – your day-to-day operations – and working “on the business” – developing future revenue strategy, creating policies to support business performance and dealing with compliance issues.
Eventually, your company will benefit from ‘outside’ executives and/or ‘independent’ directors whose experience will help you work “on the business”. They can bring valuable experience to guide your organization through different revenue growth stages.
When someone gives a referral, it is an honor and a gift. Every company wants and needs more referrals to grow profitable revenue. Referrals convert better, close faster, and have a higher customer lifetime value than any other type of lead.
More and more buyers are avoiding salespeople during the buying process. Sales reps, according to Forrester, tend to prioritize a sales agenda over solving a customer’s problem.
If organizations don’t change their outdated thinking and create effective sales models for today’s digital era, Forrester warns that 1 million B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service e-commerce by 2020.
Salespeople must adapt to new culture and the new world of media to research, prospect, and network by sharing educational content and answering questions. As a result, they’re able to build relationships until prospects are ready to buy. "Solve the customer's problem" must become a mantra.
A revenue growth plan dependent 100% on referrals will probably remain a dream, but achieving greater referral success doesn’t have to be out of the realm of possibility. If have satisfied customers who find value in your product and services and if you have a high Net Promoter Score – you may be closer to a referral engine than you think.
Each year annual sales quotas and long-term goals are set. While they are important, when too focused on the end game, it is easy to take your eye off the pipelines. To keep new leads coming into the pipeline, also set manageable prospecting goals.