THERE IS MORE TO YOUR GROWTH STRATEGY THAN MARKETING
When we talk to clients, prospective clients, and other industry professionals we have seen a common theme: narrow focused growth initiatives, specifically building a growth plan that is almost wholly a marketing plan. Sometimes it feels like, and sounds like, Marketing is the answer to growth prayers. And we are here to tell you there is more to your overall revenue and growth strategy than just marketing. Marketing is just ONE portion of your holistic growth plan. Don’t forget your friends in sales, pricing, distribution and finance to help you achieve those revenue goals.
The Big Picture
You know the saying, “Can’t see the forest for the trees”. And we want to encourage you to keep the blinders off and look at the whole picture. When building your growth plan, start with your company goals first. Building Objectives and Key Performance Indicators that directly support your overarching goals will help with team alignment and pursuit of your company vision. Here is a great article on KPI 101 from Forbes.
Breaking It Down
Consider how each team and team member can directly contribute to those goals. Your teams should directly and indirectly support your revenue initiatives, if you are focused on growth, so you all are working towards the same goal. Sales, Pricing, Distribution, Marketing and of course Finance should have goals designed to directly impact your top and bottom line initiatives. We highly recommend having cross functional alignment with each initiative so their inter department initiatives are not competing for company resources.
Mutually Beneficial when Sales and Marketing Align
Your sales team is an essential role in achieving your growth goals. And in addition to brand awareness, your marketing team should be generating high quality leads. So it sometimes gives us a chuckle when companies think they just need their marketing plan. If you gather all of the leads, who is going to close the deal? Pro Tip: Think through your entire guest journey and every department or team member that touches that guest along the way.
It's good to remember sales and marketing should be a symbiotic relationship and cannot work in silos. Ideally, sales should provide helpful and insightful data and details to marketing to help enable the sales team with the tools and leads they need to close deals faster and with higher revenue. Marketo shares 5 Ways Sales can Help Marketing in an article HERE.
PRICING:
In addition to your sales and marketing teams, take a moment to reflect on how your product or service is priced. When was the last time you reviewed your pricing strategy. And was it a cohesive decision as part of your growth strategy? I love the analogy that Hubspot used in their article HERE, “A good sales team is like a high powered engine, but pricing your product poorly is like sticking that engine in a lawnmower instead of a Lamborghini”.
P.S. We recently had a company selling their services for the same price from when they opened TEN YEARS AGO! Yikes! Talk about leaving money on the table...
DISTRIBUTION:
Our last point, for now, on creating a holistic revenue and growth strategy is to make sure you know where and how you are reaching your customers. Consider if you are selling your product or service on platforms known for discounts or take a large cut of your sale, could there be another avenue to reach your right customer, at the right price, at the right time?
WE ARE HERE TO HELP
At TIENNE Consulting, our company's mission is to create a holistic and creative revenue strategy that delivers results. When you need fresh eyes and a big picture perspective on your revenue and growth plan give TIENNE Consulting a call and we will help deliver and execute a comprehensive plan to help your company go from merely surviving to THRIVING.