Chris is a SCORE colleague and a marketing and sales maven. We are super fans of each other’s work. The following post was published by Chris on his blog on March 27, 2018, and is chock full of valuable advice.
One of the dilemmas we face as executives, marketers or sales professionals that care about B2B revenue growth, is how to spend our time and money. Should we work on project A, which will take one week to complete and create X value, or should we work on project B, which will take a month to complete and have 5X value? It is usually not easy to decide, because we cannot accurately measure the return on investment (ROI) on dollars spent or the return on effort (ROE) on time spent.
Mel Robbins is the author of an interesting and impactful book titled, The 5 Second Rule. As of the date, I am writing this, the book had 807 mostly positive reviews on Amazon and an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. While Ms. Robbins makes many great points in the book, the overarching theme to me is that it is a failure to take action that causes failure. We want that better job, that life partner, that next level of education, etc. but we are stuck in the analysis zone – usually focused on the reasons why something will not work. Taking that five seconds to grab the application, pick up the phone, say hello to that stranger, or whatever, can put us on a better trajectory.
The same holds true for marketing and sales revenue growth. You don’t have to do everything, but you do have to do something. Action almost always trumps inaction and there are things that you can do in 30 minutes or less to add value and create positive momentum. Here are some examples:
Make that phone call or send the email you have been avoiding. It will help get the situation resolved and more important, ease your mind about whether you should take action.
Spend 5-10 minutes completing an online brand assessment, and 20-25 minutes pondering the results and deciding what to do next.
Create a new offer that will compel more of your prospects to buy.
Conduct a blind shopping test of your own products or services, so that you know exactly what your buyers are experiencing.
Strategize how you could change your revenue model to achieve 10 percent more revenue than currently forecast.
Call or meet with one of your underperforming sales reps and ask how you can help them be more successful.
Make a few extra prospect calls or write a handful of quick emails to resurrect or revitalize cold deals.
Revise the “About Us” copy on your website to make it more compelling.
Do some online research to find one or more lucrative channel partners.
Ask for some frank feedback from your customers, partners, exec team or peers about your performance and potential areas for improvement.
Remove at least one barrier that is preventing revenue growth. Visit here for some ideas on how to do this.
Start writing the script for a 2-minute online explainer video. These short videos are a great way to educate prospects and move them to the next part of the buying process.
Interview a customer for your next online case study.
Use SurveyMonkey to collect customer satisfaction data.
Begin that Udemy or Skillshare course in an area that you have been putting off. Good examples include sales management, copywriting, SEO, pay-per-click or whatever you need to learn to become better at your job.
Send one or more thank you notes (handwritten if possible) to customers, partners, employees, or whoever makes your world better.
These are 16 revenue growth action steps you can take right now or whenever you have 30 minutes. I’m sure you can think of several more. If so, please share. I’d love to hear your ideas. And sometimes you can accomplish more in a highly focused half-hour than endless pondering about a future strategy. In other words, when in doubt, take action. If your company is missing its revenue growth targets, read here for a novel approach to meeting your objectives.
