Strategy Six: Fully Align to Revenue Growth
Why isn’t revenue growing at your company?
Many companies are simply not lined up internally or externally to achieve consistent growth.
The most common strategies to raise top line numbers are increasing prices, adding new clients, selling more volume, having current clients buy more frequently and selling new products into the client base. But there is a lot more to growth than those five paths.
Why isn’t revenue growing at your company? Use my list to gain alignment and focus as part of the solution.
Failure of the CEO to share companywide revenue goals and strategies with all employees. Managers must translate to employees their role and responsibility in achieving goals plus hold employees responsible for their portion of making the goal.
Lack of clear sales goals. Do results stand as hard goals with deadlines or are soft (marshmallow) goals the norm? Who actually owns these numbers? Are the right people being held accountable for the results?
Support staff distanced from client interaction and client need. The impact of inaction or delay in taking care of clients is scary; I’ve seen that some in support roles simply do not care what happens. Failure to follow through endangers revenue and relationships with clients. Lack of accountability, discipline and sharing in the financial rewards encourages these damaging behaviors to remain unchanged.
The niche of the business and the competitive advantages of the company cannot be articulated, even internally. No one can explain why the company is a better choice than the competition.
Lack of prospects. A sales person can’t be successful without a full pipeline of possible clients. This manifests itself when there is a lack of a company-wide prospecting plan, and system, including on-going follow-up and follow through.
Too many internal meetings with sales people during prime selling time. Prime time is when prospects and clients are available. Every internal meeting held is yet another excuse that can be used by sales for not achieving revenue goals.
Outdated, poorly designed or no marketing materials. This includes print, website and social media. When you have no “leave behind” you are soon forgotten.
Unprofessional sales behavior. Being late, missing appointments, lack of follow through lead the list. This is also manifested in how someone dresses, acts, and talks when representing the company; other elements include lack of personal and professional development plans; lack of account prioritization; confusing action with results; being afraid to prospect, present, ask for the order, and dealing with objections to buying.
Failure by sales management to make data-based decisions about under-performing sales people. Instead of being results-focused in meetings to improve the numbers, managers coddle, make excuses and fail to pull the trigger because they have not documented what is not happening and/or have fallen into the “friend trap” or believe that a turnaround is just around the corner. It rarely is.
Failure of management, including the CEO, to listen to the valid concerns from sales. In my experience, management is sometimes so biased against sales they cannot discern between what a valid concern is or isn’t.
Revenue growth does not happen in a vacuum, and hope is a flailing strategy. Sharing plans and strategies, getting alignment throughout the company and holding people accountable may be basic, but in successful companies, it works.
Ken Keller is an executive coach who works with small and midsize B2B company owners, CEOS and entrepreneurs. He facilitates formal top executive peer groups for business expansion, including revenue growth, improved internal efficiencies and greater profitability. Email: Ken.keller@strategicadvisoryboards.com. Keller’s column reflects his own views and not necessarily those of the SCVBJ.