In two recent surveys Revenue Growth was the #1 challenge for small business owners.  In 2015 Experience on Demand admnistered a survey across the United States to over 100,000 small businesses and Achieving Growth/Increasing Sales was rated the #1 small business challenge by Owners/CEOs.  In the 2015 State of Small Business Report by Wasp Barcode Technologies, Growing Revenues was also the #1 Business Challenge.

Hope is not a strategy.  Therefore, a company needs to get ready before they execute. Therefore, How to Achieve Revenue Growth will be a three part series.  Part I – Assessment and Get Ready, Part II – Sales Strategy and Metrics and Part III – Sales Planning and Execution.

PART I- ASSESSMENT AND GET READY

The first self-assessment tool is a SWOT Analysis.   This should be done by the entire sales organization with an anonymous survey followed by a workshop to review the results, prioritize the ideas and develop action plans.  Below is the SWOT tool.  The questions are:

Internal

• What are the Strengths of our sales organization? What actions do we need to take to build upon our strengths? Examples: Sales Leadership, Process, Customer Relationships, Customer Retention.
• What are our Weaknesses, our development needs?  What actions do we need to take to address our weaknesses? Examples: Lack of sales strategy, Lacking CRM Technology and Salesforce Turnover.

External

• What are our Opportunities to increase sales?  What actions do we need to take to seize our opportunities? Examples: New Territories, New Products and Services, Expand Geography, Partnerships and CRM Technology.
• What are the potential Threats/Risks we need to anticipate?  What actions do we need to take to mitigate / minimize the impacts of the threats? Examples: Competitive, Economic Slowdown,  New Regulatory Requirements and Changing Consumer Habits.

Below is a standard SWOT Analysis Form.  As a sales leader, how would you fill it out?  How would your entrie sales force complete it?  Would they be similar?

Another assessment is to compare your sales organization against the championship sales best practices.  Below is a partial list of the best practices.  Please take a few minutes to assess how well your sales organization compares.  Additional questions will be in Parts II and III.

So, how did you compare?  What actions do you need to take to move your ratings to the right?

We hope this article provided some valuable tools to provide an assessment of your sales organization’s readiness for growth.

Our next newsletter will cover Part II – Developing a Sales Strategy and Metrics.

If you have any questions please contact Steve Finkelstein, Sr. Partner, Experience on Demand.  Also, if your would like to discuss how we could help administer the survey and facilitate a working session for your organization let us know.

steve.finkelstein@experience-on-demand.com
rene@renevidal.com