6 areas of focus to drive growth

"We have to get back to basics."

It's incredible how often you hear people this quote when it comes to selling...

…In my experience, this often comes from a place of frustration. The drivers and triggers are simple to predict:

1. Declining Profit and EBIT
2. Declining revenue
3. Decreasing market share
4. Adverse customer feedback
5. Losing work, you used to win
6. No plan to win, just winning on luck
7. Inconsistent and ad-hoc (or chaotic!) sales processes
8. No defined GTM strategy and initiatives
9. Reduced run-rate or revenue from top clients
10. More competitors winning work in your clients

Too often, companies don't know the basics, are not defined and certainly do not set expectations or train or coach sales teams. This is a fast track to directly contributing to the triggers above that lead to disaster and leadership frustration!

Would you like to know the 6 foundations for growth?

Regardless of industry, role or focus areas, I've implemented 6 foundation components for growth for many years now. Use these to:

• Brainstorm what you define and agree as each
• Explicitly define the measurable metrics and quantifiable elements of each
• Define the goals for the role
• Establish how you will measure progress and results towards the goal

I've used this for GTM planning, aligning teams, and defining expectations and performance goals for any specific role. The 6 can be modified, regardless of whether it's a business development manager, account director, partner manager, marketing manager, or any other role.

My tips:

• Keep the language and titles the same for the 6 foundations
• Introduce this vocabulary into your corporate lexicon
• Work out how you measure the goals weekly, fortnightly, monthly and quarterly
• Align Position Descriptions, Role Expectations and Compensation against the 6

Make the Number: This is whatever you define the number is for the goal or team. It could be revenue, utilisation, ACV, ARR, margin - any or all of these, but you must define it and set a clear expectation of 'what the number is' and how you measure it. I'm constantly shocked when I ask people to start with the numbers and tell me what the expectation is, that targets are not defined or communicated. Everyone should and must know 'what the number' is.

Grow the Pipeline: To make the number, you must grow the pipeline. It's a fundamental expectation, and as we know - the ONLY future indicator of the health of your business is the pipeline, its size, how fast it is growing, its mix and most importantly, its velocity of movement. Clearly define measurements and metrics for the expected pipeline growth, whether a dated and old-fashioned 3xThe Number (target) or something more scientific based on conversion rates. Either way, my recommendation is to also include 'pipeline growth' as a target within a specific period (monthly, quarterly) and ensure you include rules around wins and losses. Do you have the 'grow the pipeline' metric defined and communicated to your sales team today?

Forecast Accuracy: Growing your pipeline is one thing, but every responsible business that measures and reports with compliance or a solid revenue operations team MUST have a forecast process. The forecast comes into different areas based on your business - for example, it could be ACV or MRR, and for a services business, it could be revenue (based on projects) vs bookings (total new project values being closed/won). You need to define the metrics and expectations for forecasting. I strongly recommend a variance; the norm is typical -/+ 5% but can vary based on industry and team maturity. Without a doubt, none of this makes sense if you don't set the expectations and have a weekly or fortnightly forecast cadence where forecasts are rolled up to the business.

Plan your Business: A goal (make the number/pipeline growth/forecast accuracy) is a wish if you don't have a plan. This is where most sales teams fall short and is worthy of its own article. In short, you must KNOW your business and PLAN your business. What does this mean? It starts with a territory plan on who you will target and how, but a solid Account Plan and Opportunity Plan will achieve growth. The Account Plan (or Growth Plan) defines your strategy for an account on 'how to protect the base from competition and grow within the account'. The Opportunity Plan (or Win Plan) defines how you will 'Compete and Win' by defining your close plan (a set of dates to an agreed closure with the client), competitors, and key selling messages that underpin your documented strategy in the plan to progress the opportunity to closure. Sales methodologies play a huge part here, BUT this is where human behaviour comes in. Just as the account and opportunity plans are people (stakeholder-based), it's your people that if you have poor management and no sales operations cadence, then people won't do the planning. Planning shouldn't be heavyweight, but it needs to be done and not put away. It should be lived in during deal reviews, account reviews, etc. Do you have a solid process, and most importantly, can you jump into your CRM right now and see an accurate and up-to-date account plan and a solid strategy (opportunity plan) that underpins every opportunity in your forecast? Has it been tested for situations that can arise and all scenarios considered? Is there evidence of this? You need to define which accounts and opportunity plans exist, how accurate they should be, and the review cycle to ensure you maximise the chances to compete and win through a solid, agreed, and well-considered plan.

Delight the Customer: This is where you define your expectations of people and how they interact with customers. This can be very broad-based on different industries and roles, but an example is as simple as the time to contact new inbound leads or enquiries or how you engage with customers. Remember that adage that you should never turn up at a house party without a bottle? How can you turn up at a customer meeting and leave them with something memorable (not wine, but perhaps compelling content)? More recently, I've used this to define engagement expectations - for example, face-to-face customer meetings vs teams or Zoom! Put yourself in the customer's shoes and tangibly set the expectations you have on your teams to delight the customer - what do your competitors do? Do you send a cake at the contract signing or project kick-off? Define what would truly delight your customer at EVERY interaction and how you measure this (CSAT/NPS). The bottom line is how you can create ‘wow’ moments for your customers.

Be Different. Be Memorable. Closely aligned with #5, delight the customer. How can you be different and memorable? How can you stand out from the people they see before and after you? Think about your personality, approach, who you are, and your values—exactly what can you do to be memorable beyond this sales pursuit and something that offers value and authentic connection to the stakeholders beyond your sales cycle and, hopefully, well beyond your current employer?

Remove the Subjectivitiy and Bias

One of my pet hates is when other people (leaders, managers, C-suite) have views on sellers when they haven't seen them in action or aren't across the metrics. It becomes a subjective view based on an opinion or bias and nothing more.

Since using this six-component framework, I've constantly placed facts in front of others that change perspectives—if you not only define and set the expectations but also measure against these six, then you are armed with the facts and evidence to have data-driven insights into performance instead of biased views.

Closing Thoughts

These 6 foundations of growth are fundamental to your success regardless of what you sell. In my experience, I've always kept #1 to #4 the same, and #5 and #6 can be customised. However, lately, I've been having a lot of focus and traction with #5 and #6. Feel free to adapt to your own business needs.

Suppose you don't have these components and expectations distilled into your DNA, vocabulary, job descriptions, and role expectations. In that case, you will live in a world of ad-hoc chaos. When you define quantifiable metrics and expectations for each of these 6, communicate them to your teams, and arm them with the proper training and tools, then you truly will create a systematic revenue and growth machine that's focused on people doing the right thing and what's expected of them by you.

If anyone is interested in a workshop planning worksheet to define the goals, please send me a direct message at any time.