How to Reinvent Your Business to Jumpstart Revenue Growth

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.

Topics: Revenue Growth Strategy Strategic Revenue Growth Action Plan SMART Revenue Revenue Development Action Plan

The Best Sales Compensation Plans to Combat Turnover

Resources on the most effective sales compensation plans typically focus on maximizing revenue. The goal of these efforts is to incentivize salespeople to sell more to drive revenue growth. And while revenue generation is a goal inherently shared by all for-profit companies, a new goal is emerging these days. Today’s tight labor market has companies reconsidering their goals, causing them to prioritize employee retention.

Why is retaining employees emerging as a top business priority? The simple answer is that employee turnover is a growth killer. Churn is expensive and disruptive. High employee turnover costs money and time when new employees must be recruited, hired, and trained. It distracts management, pulling their focus away from other revenue-generating activities. It takes a toll on the loyal employees that choose to stay, making them more likely to burnout. It damages a company’s reputation, making it more difficult for them to attract top talent. For all these reasons, churn stalls growth initiatives.

In that light retaining employees is an intrinsic component of building and sustaining revenue. And yet, structuring your sales compensation plans to combat turnover requires a different approach than a revenue-maximizing approach.

Topics: Sales Strategy

Accelerate Your Revenue Growth in 7 Steps

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!

Topics: Revenue Growth Profit Strategy Strategic Revenue Growth SMART Revenue Revenue Generation Planning Revenue Development Action Plan

Why Does a Professional Services Firm Need a Chief Revenue Officer?

Anyone who has ever been responsible for revenue generation at a professional services firm understands that their revenue model is fundamentally different than a product-based company because they are selling an intangible. And while it is a common misconception that their sales cycles are longer, services companies do face many distinct revenue hurdles that often lead to broken revenue strategies.

What kind of unique revenue challenges do professional service firms have?

How do their revenue strategies differ from other industries?

Can a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) add value to service firms?

Topics: Sales Strategy Strategic Revenue Growth CRO Chief Revenue Officer

B2B Revenue: Handling Supply Chain Disruptions

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?

Topics: Profit Strategy B2B SMART Revenue Revenue Generation Analysis Planning Forecasting Revenue Development Action Plan

Your Revenue Resiliency Toolkit

“The ability to withstand unpredictable threat or change and then to emerge stronger.”

This is how the team at McKinsey & Company defines resilience in their recently published an article on what they call The Resilience Imperative. They elaborate further that resilience is going to be more important in the coming decade than ever before when they explain, “Catastrophic events will grow more frequent but less predictable. They will unfold faster but in more varied ways. Disruption is becoming more frequent and more severe.”

Resilience can be financial, operational, technological, organizational, or reputational in nature but the greatest resiliency comes when an organization can anticipate and respond to threats across all categories to dynamically adapt as needed. Obviously, this kind of resiliency does not just fall into place – it is the result of careful planning to develop a revenue resiliency toolkit.

Topics: Revenue Growth Profitability Profit Sales Leadership B2B Sales Assessment Strategy Strategic Revenue Growth Action Plan B2B SMART Revenue CRO Chief Revenue Officer Revenue Generation Planning Revenue Development Action Plan Change Management

Understanding Revenue Operations

The term “Revenue Operations” is soaring in popularity these days. In fact, Chief Revenue Officer, VP of Revenue Operations, and Director of Revenue Operations are among the fastest growing job titles right now on LinkedIn.

But what is Revenue Operations?

Does your business need it?

And, if you do, how do you establish a Revenue Operations framework?

Revenue Operations (or RevOps for short) is an approach that aims to align sales, marketing, and customer service teams to give them the tools and resources needed to drive predictable revenue. As Bhaskar Roy explains in an article on the rise of Revenue Operations, “RevOps treats revenue not as a fortunate outcome of a quality product, but like a mirror of the supply chain — a pipeline that needs to be powered by optimized business processes.”

Topics: Revenue Growth Profitability Profit Sales Leadership B2B Sales Strategy Strategic Revenue Growth Chief Revenue Officer Revenue Generation KPI Business Development Planning Revenue Development Action Plan

Rebounding after a Downturn: How to Restart and Move Forward

“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.” – William Durant

During a downturn unemployment can rise and economic uncertainty can abound in both B2B and B2C arenas. Consumers and businesses will continue to spend, although what they consume will likely change. Businesses will make purchasing changes based on supply chain availability and selling changes based on necessity. In some instances, these changes can be temporary, but more than likely they will be further magnified as things start to pick back up again.

While an economic recovery will almost certainly happen slowly, your business needs to be poised for revenue growth ahead of time to quickly seize opportunities as they arise. So, how will your business capitalize when the economy starts swinging upward again?

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?
Topics: Profitability Leadership Strategy Strategic Revenue Growth Planning Forecasting Revenue Development Action Plan Change Management