Turning Market Disruptions into Strategic Growth

The pandemic has led us to ask many questions.

“Are we really more productive working from home?”

“If this is the future of work, how do we keep making sales and growing revenue?”

And mostly, “How are some businesses thriving right now when so many are struggling and failing? How are they turning barriers and disruptions into revenue growth, and how can we too?”

The answer is antifragility.

The conversation happening at most organizations right now is centered around pivoting strategy to make up for lost revenue in 2020. When this is the topic, the focus is on simply getting back to neutral – filling in the hole that the pandemic caused when it upset the market this year and hoping that next year will provide an easier opportunity for growth.

But what if these sweeping disruptions could be a catalyst for growth right now instead? What if the conversation were about how much your business could grow instead of whether it would survive?

Strategic revenue development is a function of assessing your company’s strengths and weaknesses; filling in the necessary gaps; and optimizing the alignment between core strengths, internal structures, people, products & services, and marketing strategy; followed by ongoing measurement and plan adjustments.

One of the 37 Foundational Questions (FQ) in our Revenue Development Action Plan, is:

“Describe what your company is in the business of:
Delivering… making… servicing… providing…”

In essence, we want to know there is clarity and alignment regarding products and services. In the B2B market, a sales team needs the support to ensure messages are aligned and services are delivered as promised. Though it may appear obvious, too often there are dozens of versions. Marketing takes the description one direction, sales another… and neither serve the customer well.

Every business owner and senior executive dreams about having a great company. And as an engineer, innovator, and business CEO Elon Musk said,

Great companies are built on great products.” (The same could be said about excellent services for service providers.)

Yet, there is something else that is essential to success, something that has a significant impact on revenue. That element is a great product or service description. A great product or service description is essential because every business must be able to articulate clearly and appealingly what it makes, delivers, services, or provides. Without that, how would a buyer find, understand, get excited about, or purchase what is being sold?

As stay home orders were instituted across the country businesses were forced to rapidly adapt to changing market conditions. Employees began working remotely and sales functions went virtual to meet business and consumer audiences where they were.

While some industries surged with revenue growth overnight, other industries abruptly saw these business operation changes create barriers to meeting revenue projections. Businesses that previously relied on face-to-face and in-person interactions to sell were left scratching their heads as they tried to figure out how they could leverage their strengths to conduct sales in a new way.

We are currently in a recession that is being felt across all industries. An April McKinsey & Company survey indicates, “Consumers are feeling the impact of COVID-19, with about 34 percent noting that either their income or ability to work has been negatively impacted.” Rising unemployment and consumer economic uncertainty are rippling through organizations in both B2B and B2C arenas.  

However, consumers and businesses are still spending. How and what they are consuming is changing. Those changes will likely stick around after the pandemic is over. The same survey indicates, “The next normal has started emerging, with consumers indicating that they will adopt long-term behavioral changes that will last beyond the current situation. Consumers who have switched to new brands or retailers largely intend to stick with them, with almost two-thirds of consumers indicating an intent to continue.”

Businesses are following suit – making purchasing changes based on supply chain availability and selling changes based on necessity. Additional survey data on B2B sales indicates that “Almost 90 percent of sales have moved to a video conferencing(VC)/phone/web sales model, and while some skepticism remains, more than half believe this is equally or more effective than sales models used before COVID-19.”

Do you know how to move forward in a restart? Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you know how to control your spending without thwarting growth?
• What will you do to preserve essential customer relationships?
• Are you equipped to find revenue in new ways?
• Do you understand where new revenue opportunities exist?
• Can you change your way of thinking to adapt?

In a recent webinar Paul Single, Managing Director at City National Rochdale, explained the forecasted economic curve as being shaped like a Nike swish – with a sudden drop-off and a slow but continuous upward swoop. While the economic rebound will almost certainly happen slowly, your business needs to be poised for revenue growth now to capitalize on opportunities as they arise.

The second foundational question (FQ) in the Revenue Development Action Plan is:

What is your company’s purpose? Why are you here?”

In the early stages of creating a business there is a strong focus on developing a vision, a formal mission statement and company values. However, the company purpose is something that is often more elusive.

Most new businesses are primarily focused on generating enough revenue to be sustainable. Business owners may have a strong personal sense of why they formed the business, but that purpose is not always reflected throughout the company. As businesses grow, however, they may naturally begin to develop a purpose that drives strategic decision-making. This direction must be refined into a clear purpose statement or the company will aimlessly wander.

While creating a mission statement is typically an early step in starting a business, many mature companies have outdated versions, poorly written attempts, or are missing them altogether.

Most frequently, time is the limiting factor. Business owners and founders can be reluctant to invest the time needed and effort required to craft an effective mission statement. They wonder whether it is truly essential for growing their businesses and if customers will ever read it. These doubts can relegate creating or updating a mission statement to non-critical status, freeing up valuable time for other essentials.

However, a mission statement is a crucial document that describes the purpose of the business. It states what the business is going to do, for whom, and why. A successful organization should know the answers to these questions because they speak to the most basic elements of a business plan. As such, the company mission should essentially write itself. Yet, owners, founders, and executive leadership still struggle with formulating an effective mission statement.

Profitable revenue is the lifeblood of any organization. As such, many business owners correlate revenue with success, presuming that companies making money are, indeed, successful. However, revenue does not necessarily equate to success. While profitability, sustainable growth, and significant revenue can be components of success, true success is achieved when long-term goals are met.

The first foundational question in the Revenue Development Action Plan is “What does success look like for your organization?” This question precedes 27 more that help business owners, founders, and CEOs evaluate what is working within their organizations and what needs to be modified. Visualizing success helps identify competitive advantages, strengthen value propositions, locate gaps in existing plans and processes, recognize barriers to success, find operational areas for improvement, and seize opportunities in the market.