Press Room

Sept 7th, 2010 - Increasing Revenue in a Tough Economy

With the shaky economic climate and the consumer’s reluctance to spend, most businesses have focused on cost reductions as a way to survive the current crisis. But once you’ve done everything you can to cut expenses, you have to focus your efforts on growing your top line – sales revenue. Think about it, most companies in your industry have been severely weakened by the economic downturn. Many of them have pulled back on their sales activities. So anybody who actively grows their business now will reap huge rewards as the economy turns. The weak players in your industry may not survive.

As you consider ways to increase your revenue, you might want to pull the best people in your office together and ask yourselves these questions.

How can we increase the dollar size of each order?
How can we increase the number of times our customers buy from us?
How can we increase the number of customers that buy from us?

Your goal is to develop a number of strategies you can use to improve the top line. Each strategy must be specific, measureable, have a time-line, and assigned to someone who is responsible for making it happen. Some will lead to the results you want, others will not. But by developing the discipline of constantly looking for better ways to build your revenue your company will grow.

In addition to asking the questions, business organizations must be proactive in their approach to increasing revenue. Companies can no longer continue as the “best kept secret” in their marketplace taking “orders” from an old established client base. Companies can no longer afford to keep weak sales people who produce marginal results. Today’s competitive environment requires every company to engage in developing both marketing and selling systems that properly promote and propel the business towards the achievement of its objectives.

The systems my partner Pete and I feel are critical for increasing revenue can be summarized as follows.

Marketing Systems
The recent promotion of social media as a tool of business has encouraged new dialog on how best to promote a business within its target market. We’re all striving to “brand” our business so it helps our efforts to grow our revenue. Pete and I don’t profess to be experts in this subject. Our town is full of people that excel at that. But our experience has taught us there are two major objectives of this process. First, to communicate identity, that is who we are and what we do. Second, to build credibility, that we are experts in a particular area. We have identified four areas which businesses must develop.

The Story	Great companies develop clarity about the things that set them apart from the competition. They know if they don’t properly differentiate themselves, they could be viewed as a commodity and then everything is about price. Once identified, these differentiators should be built into a story which is taught throughout the organization till it becomes part of the culture, influencing all the interactions with customers.
Database	One of the top sales people in the country told me the key to selling more was the database. The database is your list of customers and prospects. As he went on to say, he always sold a consistent percentage of the people in his database. So he increased his sales by constantly adding new names to the database.
Contact System	Today there’s no better way to maintain your database then through the use of a CRM such as Salesforce.com. Properly used this software keeps a running history of your contact with customers and prospects, alerts you to important events, and allows you to set up marketing campaigns for promoting your business.
Marketing Campaigns	As I indicated earlier, properly done marketing campaigns build your brand and enhance your credibility. In the best of all worlds your efforts become a positive virus with people forwarding your information to others who they think will find it useful. The use of social networking by large companies, like Dell, indicates there are benefits every business should be exploring.

Selling Systems
For most of our clients the products or services they offer are sold through their sales force. When Pete and I meet a company where the sales results are below expectations we often find limited sales training, a lack of supervision, and compensation that bears no relationship to performance. The key to improving sales results is to improve in these areas.

Recruiting	Strong sales organizations are constantly on the lookout for good sales people. They recognize that some of their sales people will never make it, others will lose interest, and some will join the competition. So to avoid keeping weak players in a territory, these organizations develop the habit of constantly recruiting.
Training	The best organizations spend a lot of time and money training their sales people so when these sales people are in front of a customer they know what to do get the order. Training is designed to teach the selling basics, product knowledge, and what it is about their company that differentiates it from the competition.
Supervision	All great sales organizations incorporate supervision as part of the planning process. Supervision vary by sales person with higher levels given to newer sales people and less given to proven performers. But each of these organizations found supervision to be an invaluable tool. First, it helps determine if the sales people are doing enough of the right type of activities, such as prospecting and closing. Second, it ensures each sales person has an effective strategy for advancing the sales opportunities in their pipeline. Finally, it provides a mechanism to help sales people identify and correct problems when the “batting averages” goes down.
Compensation Plan	Companies with strong sales teams have compensation programs that reward performance. Good sales people are a unique breed. They like an environment where their compensation is directly tied to their achievement. Every time we find an organization with marginal sales results we typically find sales people that are content to live on the salaries they’re paid. While these were clearly the wrong type of people to be in sales, it also illustrates why it’s important to link compensation to performance.

That hits the highlights. There is nothing unique in the subjects I’ve covered. They focus on the basics and represent good business practices. But as Jim Rohn once said, “Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.” Good luck and good hunting.

Bob