10 Things You Wish Your Boss Knew About Growth
You’ve heard the saying, “the higher you climb, the harder you fall.” It’s true in all aspects of life and companies—including large ones. Unfortunately, sometimes even bosses lose sight of revenue growth. Perhaps your boss is busy with operational issues or a special project. In short, the distraction disrupts the multidisciplinary, multi-dimensional, and non-linear processes for growth. And that’s the basis of our list of ten things you wish your boss knew about growth.
Problem: Most people want to excel at their jobs. Moreover, they want to succeed as a part of something larger than themselves. Of course, that includes revenue generation and growth. So, how could a team re-focus their bosses on that aim?
Opportunity: The first step is to understand different aspects of revenue growth. In other words, awareness allows teams to gather information. As a result, they can partner with their bosses on the growth path.
Resolution: Learn the ten things you wish your boss knew about regarding growth. In short, the more you know, the better asset you are for your boss and the company. So, consider revenue growth as part of your job—no matter your function! Knowledge is power.
1. Every Lead is Not a Prospect
Some people think every lead is a prospect. Wrong! If you make sales, you know not only how to get leads but also to qualify them. So, how do you do that? Well, in three key ways. First, you need to know if the lead has real buying intent. If the lead expressed true interest and it seems like they have the budget, then go for it!
Second, look at their needs. If the lead expressed they want a solution and have you it, that’s a good prospect. Finally, evaluate the effort it takes to close the deal. Look at how much work it takes to make the lead a customer and if you could do what’s required. Sometimes, even if you want the business, you can’t meet their demands.
2. Growth is Not a Linear Experience
It’s vital to realize growth isn’t a linear experience. Sometimes, people like to think that if you create a plan, then everything follows. But that’s just not the case. All we have to do is think about the pandemic, which threw how things ‘used to be done’ out the window. By now, everyone in business should know that growth isn’t linear. Everyone, including you, has to be agile and go with new data and information—as it happens. However, some people don’t get it. And that’s why data information is a must.
3. Revenue Targets Without New Opportunity Targets Can Hide Eroding Pipeline Development Activities
Company leaders may focus on revenue targets and not new opportunity targets. In other words, they focus too much on what they have already accomplished. For example, they focus on a singular product and keep trying to drive revenue growth only for it. Instead, companies should expand other offerings.
Further, companies may never set goals to develop pipeline opportunities. It’s a missed opportunity, and it ignores what the market may want from the business. If you lack focus on new opportunities, the reality is your company may miss out on the next big thing. And as a result, the company may eventually not achieve its revenue targets. So, how will you step in to support your boss in realizing it?
4. The Buyer’s Journey is Fluid
The buyer’s journey is fluid. It’s not a one-stop-shop, and to capture your audience, you have to communicate with them on their terms and in their environment. So, perhaps it’s time to put a plan to support your boss in this matter. For example, it may mean finding out how the customer starts their journey with your company. Do they begin by researching you? Do they then switch over to reading reviews on a mobile app? Or do they watch videos on social media concerning your products? What plan can you create to ensure your brand’s available for this seamless transition? If you want to capture customers at various stages of the buying process, then you need to be fully immersed in the digital transformation.
5. Team Selling is Increasingly Important in B2B Sales
With the advent of the digital era, it’s much more challenging to reach potential buyers. In short, getting leads is multi-dimensional. So, having a team of people reach out to leads in different ways substantially increases sales growth. Do you support your boss in the efforts?
When a knowledgeable team understands the product and value proposition, they’re more likely to sell it effectively. Identifying early high-value leads is one of the most critical skills. Lead scoring allows businesses to prioritize leads based on sales criteria. In turn, it helps companies to focus on those most likely to turn into customers first—those most qualified.
6. Marketing, Sales, and Service Need to Become ONE Go-to-Market Team
Perhaps your company’s full of silos. You know the ones. The places within companies where little fiefdoms exist and information doesn’t go past certain people. If this sounds like what’s happening at your company, you need to consider a change. Business is multidisciplinary. And marketing, sales, and service need to operate as one unit. And the easiest and most practical way to approach it is by creating a revenue operations (RevOps) structure in your business.
7. Reverse Engineer the Buying Journey of Your Best Clients
One of the best ways to support a boss to focus on revenue is to reverse engineer the buying journey of your best clients. It means looking at their lead generation, conversion rates, and how deals got closed. It’s essential to take a good look at your sales funnel and break it down into steps. Is there anything you can do now to improve this process? And what would you do if you were in charge? In sum, developing a plan with metrics is an excellent way to convince a boss about massive growth.
8. Your Greatest Source of Sales Enablement Ideas Come from Objections
If you’re a top salesperson, you know your best source of revenue growth ideas comes from objections. Well, think about it. Every objection from a lead is information you need. And as you overcome each objection, you figure out how to get to the close. So, do you understand how valuable objections are to company growth? Have you helped your boss translate the objections to improvements of your products or services? Sure, it’s counterintuitive. But the more objections you get from prospects, the better.
9. You Can Only Sustain Revenue Growth by Investing in Your Team
Is your culture stalling your revenue growth? Wait! Don’t be so quick just to blame your boss. Think about it. Along with bringing in new clients, does the company invest in the team? Is there a culture of innovation and learning? The reality is that the digital era requires something vital. Multidisciplinary teams must continuously adapt.
People must grow, and instead of companies not investing in development opportunities and shifting the responsibility to workers, executives must invest capital into their teams. Helping them see it might be a company culture issue may be a step in the right direction.
10. Streamlined Technology Will Increase Collaboration Across Teams
One of the biggest complaints of leaders is that some don’t embrace streamlined tech. So, come up with the language and plan that makes sense. It’s a missed opportunity when companies don’t have the right seamless technology framework to communicate across teams. Moreover, it leads to frustration and wasted time.
With the right digital tools, your company can communicate seamlessly with employees, vendors, and customers—anywhere. The reality is that leading companies shifted from synchronous collaboration to asynchronous communication. As a result, more communication is happening. And companies are moving to operate all day and night for the customer wherever and whenever they need.
Final Tips for Supporting Your Boss and the Company
Hopefully, our list of ten things you wish your boss knew about growth has your creative juices flowing. Still, perhaps you’re wondering, well, that’s all good, but how? The following tips should help you support your boss and the company’s efforts.
Get on your boss’s calendar. The reality is that to support your boss, you have to know what keeps them up at night. So, find out their pain points to inform you how to help them.
Don’t just give your boss problems. One of the best tips is not to bring issues to your boss—without recommended solutions. If problems exist, figure out how to solve them and take all the information to your boss.
Be thoughtful with your planning. The chances are your boss is a busy person. Therefore, when you present plans, make it a point to present clear thinking. And, of course, always back your ideas with data.
Align with other team members. Something you want to do is to support the teardown of silos. In a complex information era, data has to filter throughout a company. So, use your influence to align people to work together and present improvements to your boss.
Be open to feedback and input. Stay curious once you speak to your boss, especially about a big plan. In other words, get out of the way. Don’t be stubborn and inflexible. Instead, listen, internalize the input, and adjust accordingly.
In sum, use this list as a springboard to galvanize your company. It doesn’t matter if you’re a junior professional or with years in the business. Be a team player. Support your boss. And see how your influence and leadership can help create revenue growth.
Ben Stroup is Chief Growth Architect and President at Velocity Strategy Solutions where he helps leaders design, develop, and deploy smarter business growth strategies. Ben is a futurist, disruptor, and data champion. He leads a team that takes a structured learning approach to business challenges, which allows them to assist leaders in bridging the gap between ideas, innovation, and revenue—taking ideas from mind to market.
Velocity Strategy Solutions is an on-demand, next-generation business strategy and management consulting firm which provides clients with a relentless focus on data, execution, and results that positively impact the bottom line. Velocity delivers integrated people and revenue strategies combined with a disciplined approach to growth architecture that elevates the capacity of leaders, teams, and organizations to succeed and win more.