Growing revenue to a deadline? Its time to break the rules

For companies that need to grow to a deadline, usual sales and marketing rules may not apply. Maintaining an aggressive growth trajectory or aiming to tackle a steeper curve is rarely as simple as more of the same. It is the time to start step growth thinking.

Traditional thinking states ‘the simpler the business model and the more automated the sales cycle, the faster the business can grow’ exemplified by SaaS businesses like Salesforce. But for many B2B businesses the limitations of their own business model, particular a heavy reliance on people to deliver the product, offer or service means that growth can be unintentionally stunted and despite huge promise companies find themselves scaling instead of growing.

We help businesses achieve growth by challenging the norm, looking at problems differently, then radicalising marketing’s approach to growth; making it possible to achieve exceptional results. We call this step growth.

Step growth aligns the whole business to focus on the future, helping you to achieve short term goals and long term ambitions based on three factors speed, strength and direction.

Speed

All companies and investors love fast growth. Often growth is visible but the speed of growth is an issue, the growth is incremental rather than exceptional. There are often fundamental business and market reasons why more of the same won’t result in more growth. Marketing mechanisms, human behaviour and a business’ ability to scale engagement usually mean that increasing the speed of growth is possible but not using the same techniques as before, it needs to be examined at the other end of the telescope.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE – A client behind on growth figures was looking to significantly grow sales revenues from a basket of related products. We shifted part of their sales focus to a high value integrated solution, focused on a clearly identified target group of existing customers. The result was a 20X average revenue per customer increase and long term contract revenues.

Strength

The strength of growth is a critical factor in realising and exceeding valuations. Strategically focusing sales and marketing to deliver larger, longer and more valuable revenue from customers pays off immediately on the balance sheet and significantly at event time. Strengthening the sales runway and the future trajectory is vital to create a platform for continued long term, high rate performance.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE – A client looking to significantly grow sales revenues in packaged services to B2B infrastructure customers was operating with a small existing salesforce, near capacity. Scaling the team was difficult as the specific industry knowledge required by sales people meant growing the team to provide the necessary revenue leap would take too long. We created a new industry model for the packaged services

and then enabled a partner network to promote the model as part of their offering. This approach drove new, high value, multi-year qualified business into the sales team without the need to grow it’s personnel.

Direction

Focus comes from accurate data, defined customer journeys and a clear value proposition to bring clarity that ensures all the company’s suppliers and resources are being focused on the most lucrative goals. This narrowing of the target, of the budget and of improving communication in the marketplace, improves not only tangible results but also the value of the intangibles in the company (brand, exec reputation, market leadership etc.).

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE – A client with a successful product track record needed to enter a new major market with no market visibility. We researched the industry needs and created an issue-based value proposition that capitalised on trends and complimented their existing offer. We profiled the top 1000 influencers in the marketplace and used direct and social selling campaigns to grow demand and drive leads. The result was contracted business from all target companies inside first year and revenues 24% ahead of target.

Step growth is specifically designed to help companies who are growing to a deadline to not only meet targets and valuations but also to build a platform for growth in the next phase of the company’s life.

Free measurement of your growth potential
To find out how our free Step IQ™ tool can impact your Due Diligence process and help improve your existing investments/business growth, visit StepIQ.Powershift.co.uk and build a Step IQ™ today. Alternatively, get in touch with [email protected] to discuss a free site visit.