What to do differently in 2024 to secure profitable revenue growth. As human beings, our fight-or-flight instinct is powerful. This inherent response buried deep within our DNA is designed to keep us safe from harm, protecting us from danger and eliminating threats to our survival.
Whilst we aren’t faced with a sabre-tooth tiger our determination to survive is as strong.
For businesses to secure profitable revenue growth, we must make a decisive commitment. To accept and embrace this Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world.
One thing is for sure, the constancy of change is the only course we can comfortably predict. But as leaders we aren’t in the business of comfort, we’re in the business of profitable growth and thankfully there are signs to guide us. In fact, the recent past leaves clues for revenue growth in 2024.
As we start a new year, I’m sharing my thoughts on what businesses can do to secure profitable revenue growth. We know that revenue growth is more than sales. If we simply top up revenue with new clients and lose them just as quickly, we’re running hard just to stay in the same spot and that doesn’t deliver the kind of profitable growth you need.
Let’s explore the 3 key focus areas for revenue growth impact: Integration, Transformation, and Process Efficiency through automation and AI.
Integration of revenue growth functions under one leader
According to McKinsey, companies that unite their sales and marketing under one role achieve 1.8x increased revenue growth compared to companies without it.
I’m seeing a shift towards the integration of the three revenue-generating teams; sales, marketing, and customer experience, to fall under the leadership of a revenue growth officer.
A single leader can drive a united front, working towards mutual goals, identifying synergies and implementing efficiencies across the business. By eliminating silos, customers can be better qualified. Target market analysis can be shared quickly. Sales teams can reach the right people with more relevant insights and deliver better results. It puts the customer front and centre.
If you think the role of chief revenue officer is just for large organisations, think again. It’s applicable to scale-up businesses too.
Action: Consider the options, risks and benefits of uniting the revenue generating functions of marketing, sales and customer success under one leader. How about giving sales and marketing the same revenue target?
Creating Transformation for Customers
Your number one focus should always be the customer. As leaders, we must never lose sight of this fact, and ensure our people don’t either. So, when I hear of companies focusing on KPIs I know that it’s unlikely they’ll achieve the growth they desire. KPIs are simply the baseline, you must think strategically.
Go beyond the KPI’s and lock in partnership status with your customers.
The most effective way to do this is to understand your client’s strategic goals and intentions. Then, through collaboration with them, create a transformation which helps your customer to achieve their goals faster and more efficiently.
I know from experience that developing this type of revenue growth strategy that’s fully aligned with the strategic intentions of your customer is an easier, and more sustainable approach. It can also increase the lifetime value of your clients.
Never forget, your competitors’ sales teams are circling your customers every single day, looking for an opportunity to prise them away from your business to theirs. Therefore, a strategy to become an integrated partner to their business is an essential one.
Action: Understand the strategic goals and intentions of your clients and create the concept of a transformation to help them achieve it.
Process efficiency through automation and AI
Automation and AI have arrived and are reshaping nearly every sector of our economy, so it’s not even a question of IF you should embrace it, the question is HOW?
If want to keep the customer at the forefront of your revenue growth strategy and secure new clients, then we need to ensure we have a personalised approach. If you don’t evaluate options to automate key processes, your business will lose out. A lack of automation and AI will place a cost burden on companies making them less competitive in the market.
Think about companies that use it successfully. I recently discovered DJ X on Spotify. In short, my personal ‘DJ’ named X selects music personalised just for me. It’s based on my music history and current taste.
However, the one thing it doesn’t do is take my mood into account – perhaps that’s coming next!
My point is thinking about what your future and current clients want. Even better anticipate needs through historical data, current activity and buying behaviours. Streamline the processes and personalise engagement with automation and AI.
I recommend some practical steps to get started.
- Evaluate the marketing, sales and customer success processes. Identify time-consuming, laborious and repetitive tasks for automation.
- Map out the journey from prospect to client including the touchpoints which build trust in your brand. Automate processes that enhance these touchpoints, ensuring a cohesive and satisfying journey.
Action: Explore the bottlenecks in your processes and evaluate how automation and AI can increase efficiency.
At the end of the day, if you want to secure profitable revenue growth, you’ll have to be less risk-averse and take decisive action.
A measured, strategic approach based on a winning, scalable formula will ensure you can achieve a consistent and sustainable performance.
Never lose sight of the fact that your customer is at the heart of your business. Utilise every resource in your arsenal including a modern sales methodology and process to not only secure them but to retain and grow them to partnership status.
The integration of revenue generation functions under one leadership combined with the use of AI and automation will accelerate your ability to build out a highly efficient and scalable revenue growth process to ensure you’re not only competitive but profitable.
