The Revenue Growth Generation Trinity

The Revenue Growth Generation Trinity

By Ben Pattison

Enduring Growth Requires Analysis, Scrutiny and Synchronicity.

________________________________________________________________________________

Entities of all sizes sporadically lose sight of themselves. Commonly, this is because they get bogged down in the day to day running of the business or organisation and forget to test whether internal and external assumptions are correct or a fantasy.

From household name brands seeking to improve reputation and patronage in market to key NFP’s trying to increase revenue in the face of inflation and changing attitudes, it all comes back to awareness and strategy.

Leaders in operations, sales and marketing often have a complementary palate of transferable skills but can find it difficult to create inter-departmental visibility and cooperation to ensure that the organisation is working in synchronicity, from a sales-marketing and revenue generation capacity.

Generally, in the face of stagnant revenue stubbornly refusing to rise with expectation and investment (or lack of), scrutiny is applied to inputs to try and begin to understand where efficiencies can be found and whether removing deadwood and replacing systems is the answer. Whatever the case, the bottom line must be protected and rightly so.

In extreme cases of stagnant revenue or brand/market confusion, a common assumption can even be that the entity is being poorly run or operated, putting senior leaders in the firing line. Put simply, regular product and operational scrutiny is pivotal to performance, culture and longevity.

Fortunately, in many cases of negative growth or declining revenue, the entire operational stuntedness can be diagnosed by addressing three key areas:

1.        Unique Value Proposition

2.        Relationship between Sales and Marketing

3.        Activity

Only through vigorously addressing these areas can effective frameworks, models and systems be formulated to facilitate and administer growth.

1.

Having a precise understanding of the Unique Value Proposition of any entity is critical to both its salespeople and marketing people doing their jobs correctly. Leaders must ensure that both these teams and the market know exactly what you stand for.

As time goes by and markets change, we cannot assume our preferred customer knows all about us when this is based simply off convention, not analysis. This means knowing your competitors and being honest about your offering is crucial. Critically, it also means assessing if your UVP matches your brand, or vice versa.

2.

The Relationship between Sale and Marketing is often misunderstood. It’s always amusing when companies have two distinct departments that never collaborate when these two disciplines are largely two sides of the same coin. When a shared mission and vision of both departments aren't aligned, dysfunction of both ensues.

Intellectually they combine behavioural science, creative thinking and market/stakeholder analysis. In a practical sense, they are relationship facilitators, market manipulators, image curators and communication crafters. They’re far more similar than some would like to admit.

And someone who has mastered both should generally have oversight over both.

3.

As we arrive at Activity we can start to determine if our teams are undertaking their individual roles and duties adequately. The first real test is to look back at previous and current plans to see if they truly added-value: did they consist of positive action and activity, or just more admin? Was the extra reporting conducive to productivity and results?

While having organisational visibility is key for all strategic decision-making and good governance, bogging staff down in unnecessary admin can not only create the illusion of an impactful employee, but it can also mean the real work isn’t being done.

If you would like delve deeper into these questions for your business or organisation, Wellsteed Advisory can help you decipher your organisation’s pain points and devise practical solutions for growth at every tier. Even better - if you're not quite ready to engage - we'll send you a checklist expanding upon each of the points above with hard-hitting questions to get you thinking carefully about your operation.

When you'[re ready to engage, whether it’s increasing revenue generation, refining and enhancing UVP and UVP communication, optimal marketing and sales team interaction or simply giving the business a DNA-level brand and sales/marketing analysis, we will equip you with the right knowledge and tools to implement actions that will help you achieve growth.

Last Thought:

Coming up with solutions always starts with asking the right questions. Your analyses, diagnoses and prescriptive responses all start with the strength and depth of your questions.