Do you have a focused SALES business recovery plan? Does it allow for current year goal achievement post-crisis?
Most businesses have a business continuity and resiliency plan that allows for continued operation in the event of an unforeseen circumstance, but most businesses do not have a revenue recovery plan! The pandemic crisis has forced new ways of working and impaired business performance, but companies must anticipate coming out of the crisis and being prepared for the new environment. This is the time to take advantage of the crisis by examining and addressing ineffective and unproductive elements of your revenue architecture including systems and talent.
An informal survey of CXO’s conducted by Revenue Architects over the last 6 weeks indicates that sales and marketing organizations are functioning differently through the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results confirmed that 90% have been materially impacted.
- 60% of participants stated that they have or plan to layoff/furlough part or all of their sales and marketing teams
- 50% stated they do not have a formal recovery plan to return to Pre Covid-19 performance.
- 100% stated that working remotely had a positive impact on their productivity while also representing new management challenges
- 80% indicated that it was harder to bring some staff given the reverse incentives of government programs.
Conducting business under current constraints with social distancing, remote working and the reduction of capital expenditures is a new challenge. It can be harder to sell if you are not in front of the client. Yet even before the pandemic the skills and profile of sales superstars were changing. And the B2B buyer, already digital savvy, was becoming more educated and self-sufficient using online resources to self-sell.
“If you give me a techno-savvy, Internet-friendly, google ranked, instant responding, collaborating, differentiated, social media savvy, value-driven, a value-based messaging, salesperson who uses the voice of the customer testimonials and is interested in how the customer profits…then, I will give you sales results”.
But how do we infuse these talents and skills along with sales best practices into our selling team and drive sales, take market share, and position for the upcoming market expansion?
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Full-Funnel Revenue Architecture
Account Based Marketing, B2B, Chief Revenue Officer, Closed loop Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Architecture, Revenue GrowthThe shift from the transactional sales we left behind in the 90s to today’s increasingly recurring business models like ‘as-a-service’, requires a shift in thinking about “sales process” design and the traditional vertical funnel. Today, we need a Full-funnel Revenue Architecture – a horizontal bow tie funnel that places appropriate emphasis on post sales customer success, execution and management to realize revenue performance. Predictable sustainable and accelerated revenue performance relies increasingly on the customer continuously realizing benefits and impact. Customer lifetime value and revenue realization are increasingly derived by maximizing the right side of the bow tie funnel.
Another aspect of the full-funnel approach is the greater requirement for seamless integration across marketing and sales activities and a collaborative approach between buyer and seller teams. Buyers expect efficient, effective, high quality buying experiences and they don’t care or consider whether these experience are based on your marketing efforts or your sales efforts. Buyers are in control and they choose when to access your web content, independent 3rd party review sites or when to speak 1:1 with your sales and service teams. In fact, they often interact with all of these touchpoints in different sequences and in unstructured and unpredictable ways.
Read moreMarket Segmentation: Select Markets and Isolate Audience for Engagement
Account Based Marketing, B2B, Revenue Growth, Revenue Marketing, Revenue StrategyThe universe of markets and buyers are incredibly diverse and your decisions about where and whom to target can make or break your revenue performance. A company can’t be all things to all buyers in all markets. As the competitive landscape is always changing, with more players vying for prospects’ time and attention, it is vital to select markets where you can effectively compete and win then continuously segment the market to isolate specific audiences to engage at the right time and right place with the right message.
Read moreFinancial Advisor Go-to-Market Model
Financial Advisors, Revenue ArchitectureEnvision the best ways to access your particular market segments and ideal clients.
In the Financial Advisor SMART BOOK™. we outline a strategy-led, systematic growth program with 9 proven strategies. The goal is to help advisors:
Strategy #3 – Go to Market
Tailor your go-to-market model to your firm and your advisors. A go-to-market model is based on your business model your target audience of personas and it helps you envision the best ways to access your ideal clients. Yet in addition to understadning how you might best access your particular target client segment, you should consider what is best for you and your firm. For example, what volumes do you need? How comfortable are you with outbound prospecting? To what degree are you comfortable using social media or digital marketing?
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Enterprise Funnel Math
Account Based Marketing, B2B, Chief Revenue Officer, Revenue Architecture, Revenue GrowthEnterprise funnel math exercises help align marketing and sales teams by zeroing in on critical funnel metrics like Sales and Marketing Qualified Inquiries (e.g. MQI) and Marketing and Sales Qualified Leads (MQL and SQL).
An enterprise funnel math model can help you identify the mix of tactics for for different funnel characteristics. For example, a sales-driven funnel might be designed with sales-led prospection activities and ABM tactics. A high volume lead gen funnel might be driven by Inbound Marketing or Paid SEM. Each funnel will have its own “DNA” and can be modeled top to bottom across deal stages to inform go-to-market strategies and budgeting.
Defining Your Funnels
A simple spreadsheet can help you produce a flexible working model that can be tailored to each company. To make it work, it is important to identify the right funnels or segments. The more granular your funnels are, the more accurate the funnel model will be – but too many funnels will add complexity. So, we typically identify 4-8 segments that represent distinct marketing and sales motions. Select segment that have a distinctive “funnel DNA” – not necessarily a P&L, or a geography segment. Often a funnel is centered around a product or service offering. Funnels can always be rolled up into geos, or P&Ls.
We develop Funnel Math Models with several tabs:
Read moreIntegrated Marketing and Sales Process
Account Based Marketing, B2B, Chief Revenue Officer, Closed loop Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, Methodology, Revenue Architecture, Revenue Systems, Sales Enablement, Sales ExcellenceBuyers want an efficient, effective, quality buying experience. They don’t consider whether their experience is “marketing-generated” or “sales-generated”. They choose if they want to engage with your web content, 3rd party digital outposts or marketplaces or with your sales people. They most likely will interact with all of these in different sequences and in unstructured and unpredictable ways.
Buyer engagement efforts take place all along the buyer journey and to deliver the experiences buyers expect and maximize your revenue impact, you need an integrated marketing and sales process.
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Sales Qualification Tools using FACT instead of BANT and SCOTSMAN
B2B, Revenue Growth, Revenue Programs, Revenue Systems, Sales Enablement, Sales ExcellencePost originally published in 2014
We have written a few articles about collaborative qualification and how to select and apply the right sales qualification tools – including SCOTSMAN and BANT. These tools are quite familiar to B2B sales and teams that focused on a considered sale. Yet, we see some challenges:
So what is the right approach to sales qualification? We suggest a collaborative approach using FACT.
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Chief Revenue Officer Success – The First 90 Days
B2B, Chief Revenue Officer, Revenue Architecture, Sales Enablement, Sales ExcellenceWritten with contributions from Ed Funaro
As growth focused companies realize the critical synergies required across the marketing, sales and customer success functions, they are increasingly recruiting a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to lead the way. Yet many CROs fail without a properly defined role and an adequate onboarding process. It is vital to ensure CRO success.
A Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is responsible for a company’s revenue streams. He/she has the ultimate accountability for driving revenue growth. The role is clearly cross functional. The CRO oversees and aligns revenue-generating departments: Marketing, Sales and Customer Success. It is a challenging role. The average tenure of a Chief Revenue officer working at the same company is incredibly brief – only about 18 months, according to an annual survey from CSO Insights.
The first 90 days are critical – Whether a company makes money rests with the CRO. Expectations are that the CRO will have about one quarter or 90 days to prove they can meet management’s expectations. As Michael Watkins points out in his top selling book The First 90 Days.
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Financial Advisor Smart Book: Value Propositions and Messaging
Financial Advisors, Revenue Architecture, Revenue Growth, Valued OfferingsThis post is updated. The original post was published in 2017.
Personas represent the needs and behaviors of your ideal clients and are helpful in shaping your positioning and messaging.
We recently published the 2020 Edition of the Financial Advisor SMART BOOK™. This resource is a comprehensive guide to help independent financial advisors build an ‘independent difference,’ that is, a strategy-led, systematic growth program with 9 proven strategies. The goal is to help advisors:
[Strategy 2 of 9] Valued Offering ~ Craft Market-Ready Service Offerings and Segment Messaging
You will be surprised how effective it is when you communicate offerings based on specific personas that represent the needs (or pain points) and behaviors of your best clients.
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Pivot to the NEW NORMAL – Accelerate Revenue with Tech-savvy Sales Talent and Tools
Account Based Marketing, B2B, Revenue Growth, Revenue Strategy, Revenue Systems, Sales Enablement, Sales ExcellenceDo you have a focused SALES business recovery plan? Does it allow for current year goal achievement post-crisis?
Most businesses have a business continuity and resiliency plan that allows for continued operation in the event of an unforeseen circumstance, but most businesses do not have a revenue recovery plan! The pandemic crisis has forced new ways of working and impaired business performance, but companies must anticipate coming out of the crisis and being prepared for the new environment. This is the time to take advantage of the crisis by examining and addressing ineffective and unproductive elements of your revenue architecture including systems and talent.
An informal survey of CXO’s conducted by Revenue Architects over the last 6 weeks indicates that sales and marketing organizations are functioning differently through the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results confirmed that 90% have been materially impacted.
Conducting business under current constraints with social distancing, remote working and the reduction of capital expenditures is a new challenge. It can be harder to sell if you are not in front of the client. Yet even before the pandemic the skills and profile of sales superstars were changing. And the B2B buyer, already digital savvy, was becoming more educated and self-sufficient using online resources to self-sell.
“If you give me a techno-savvy, Internet-friendly, google ranked, instant responding, collaborating, differentiated, social media savvy, value-driven, a value-based messaging, salesperson who uses the voice of the customer testimonials and is interested in how the customer profits…then, I will give you sales results”.
But how do we infuse these talents and skills along with sales best practices into our selling team and drive sales, take market share, and position for the upcoming market expansion?
Read more
Financial Advisors: Define Ideal Clients and Market Segments
Financial Advisors, Revenue Architecture, Revenue GrowthThis post is updated. It was originally published in 2017.
Independent Advisors need a strategy-led, systematic growth program.
We recently published the Financial Advisor SMART BOOK™, 2020 Edition. This latest edition has been updated and outlines the Revenue Architecture Methodology that financial advisors can use to add greater structure and predictability in their revenue engine. We introduce nine steps and advisor-specific marketing and sales strategies that are helping advisors capture client value.
The comprehensive guide helps independent financial advisors build a strategy-led, systematic growth program with 9 proven strategies. The goal is to help advisors:
Having a vision and game plan for growth is important for financial advisors to thrive in a challenging marketplace. The Smart Book™ outlines how you can achieve more predictable and sustainable revenue growth by establishing a Revenue Architecture that fits your firm. The key is to commit to a systematic sales and marketing process by following the 9 proven strategies to guide your approach.
[Strategy 1 of 9] Markets & Buyers – Define Ideal Clients and Market Segments
This may seem obvious, but we are surprised how many advisors we work with have not done a marketplace assessment, defined segments, and personas.
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