Recent sudden policy changes related to tariffs and immigration are helping to exacerbate the widespread economic uncertainty that US businesses are currently weathering. With talks of a recession on the horizon and increased market volatility, many of today’s business leaders at organizations of all sizes have opted for a “wait and see” approach in their tactical operations and overall strategy. These business leaders are curtailing spending on everything from hiring and marketing to R&D and CAPEX to hold onto more cash for whatever may be coming next. The result is a survival-minded collective pause nationwide while they try to assess the lay of the land and wait out today’s unpredictability.

And while this cautiousness is understandable, it’s also counterproductive for long-term growth because a tactical pause of this kind can be a revenue strategy-killer. So, to answer our own question, no – your revenue plan cannot withstand a short-term pause!

There are few places in today’s business landscape where failure is celebrated, except perhaps Silicon Valley, where the “fail fast and fail often” motto has come to dominate corporate thinking over the last decade. Coined by author John Maxwell, the original quote is actually, “Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.” Of course, this is an important distinction because simply failing for the purpose of failing is clearly a foolish strategy for businesses to adopt.

And yet, there’s something to be said for the idea of letting go of the negative perceptions around failure to develop failure tolerance as an organization because, as we all know, failure is inevitable!

The temptation to oversimplify their sales and marketing strategies has always been a trap for organizations looking to fast-track growth. However, the last few years have ushered in increased competition, added cost constraints, and intensified pressure to integrate technology, culminating in a whirlwind that has heightened the temptation to simplify regardless of the business impact.

I’m seeing this phenomenon more and more these days – organizations that want to use a one-size-fits-all approach to their strategic sales and marketing plans to try to improve their ROI. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t simply fail to give them an advantage over their competition, it also fails to produce the results they are looking for at all. Quite the opposite, oversimplifying is a waste of precious organizational resources – time, talent, and money.

An article in the March-April 2023 edition of the Harvard Business Review titled Beware a Culture of Busyness had a very strong message to share with readers: “Organizations must stop conflating activity with achievement.” It explains why busyness has become so valued in organizations these days as well as the significant damage that results from prioritizing and rewarding busyness. If you get a chance to read/listen to the article and want to share your thoughts with us, feel free to do so.

We would like to add our own thoughts based on what we have seen from helping B2B companies achieve strategic revenue growth for almost two decades. In our efforts to help move organizations away from a busyness culture we’re discussing the dangers of being busy, who is to blame for today’s busyness culture, and how to evolve to increase profitable revenue.

There is an old adage in business: “If your business isn’t moving forward it’s standing still, and your competition is gaining on you.”

This time of year I have a lot of conversations with business leaders about how they can get their business moving in the right direction. The CEOs I talk to tend to fall into one of two camps – either their organizations are in decline (their sales have fallen off and they need help bringing them back), or they have plateaued (their growth has gone stagnant, and they need help jumpstarting it).

In either scenario if business leaders choose not to do anything, they will just continue in the circumstances they are in. They will either continue declining until they fail, or they will remain plateaued until their competitors overtake their market share and then they will fail. The outcome is the same, although the time horizons will differ. If, however, these business leaders decide to take the steps needed to reinvent their organizations, they can achieve the outcomes they desire now and continue to evolve in the future.

There is plenty of advice available for business owners and CEOs of struggling companies to help them right the ship. But what if your “problem” is simply just that you are doing well and need to figure out how to take the next steps to grow revenue?

Every day I work with organizations that are succeeding, but they are stuck where they are. Their current revenue figures have plateaued, and they are unable to get to that next level. The issue they need to tackle is not staying afloat, it is figuring out how to increase their speed to win the race.

How do companies that have their business model figured out and are on sure footing propel themselves forward to that next leap in revenue growth? This revenue growth guide will give you the tactical advice you need to build a growth strategy to take your company to the next level!

Back in 2012 Forbes dubbed the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) “the CEO’s new secret weapon,” highlighting the importance of this role in C-suite leadership. Over the last decade the way we view revenue has evolved, paving the way for the CRO role to expand and flourish. In fact, Stephen Hurrell has forecasted that, “By 2023, almost one-quarter of organizations will establish a Chief Revenue Officer leadership role, focusing on all channels of revenue, not just direct sales.”

Anita Little explains the business rationale behind the rise in CRO roles when she says, “Businesses are realizing that to stay agile, strategic, and most importantly, sustainable, they need a CRO who can fold marketing, sales, and customer success into one seamless revenue machine.”

However, whether a company employs a CRO or not, it is still crucial to understand how revenue has evolved. Staying ahead of your competition requires a firm understanding of how to evaluate revenue, where digitalization has changed revenue generation, who should be included in revenue conversations, and what strategic revenue planning looks like in a post-pandemic world.

Globalization has given B2B companies access to a seemingly endless list of suppliers and buyers, lowering prices and shortening delivery times. That is, until a disruption is introduced into the global network that ripples through the system.

Some disruptions have a more limited scope (only affecting certain industries or regions), while others have a more widespread effect. The pandemic has been the widest reaching business disruption of our time, and it is not going to be resolved anytime soon.

In fact, over the last few months “supply chain” has quickly become the new trending topic that everyone is talking about. However, most B2B companies have been dealing with supply chain woes for almost two years now. And with no end in sight, they are feeling the pressure to get even more strategic with how they approach supply chain disruptions.

So, how should you handle today’s ongoing supply chain disruptions… and tomorrow’s?