Why Revenue Operations is More Important in Times of Economic Uncertainty

What if you walked into a doctor’s office, and without discussing your symptoms, he or she offered a course of treatment and presented a diagnosis – would you feel comfortable?

Yet, when crunched for limited resources of time and money, especially in an uncertain economy, all too often businesses initiate knee-jerk decision-making and cost-cutting without undergoing a full revenue operations diagnostic process, applying analytics, and evaluating a range of treatment options first.

History proves this course of action negatively affects revenue, just when visibility and sales are needed the most. That’s why revenue operations is more important in times of economic uncertainty – you must continue to have a rev ops plan and a presence to show stability and be there for your customers, or they’ll find someone else.

So, how do you keep the lights on and continue to grow revenue? With the following steps to revenue growth in any economy.

When asked, “What do you think about a recession?” Walmart Founder, Sam Walton, responded, “I thought about it and decided not to participate.”

First Determine What Needs to Stay & What Needs to Go

During periods of economic upheaval, every decision becomes more stressful. Business leaders often engage in reactionary cutbacks, such as putting a hold on hiring salespeople or customer support, canceling contract services, or stopping marketing and lead-generation activities altogether – to the long-term detriment of their company. 

“But I need to cut my advertising,” you say. Well…maybe or maybe not.

Effective management discipline calls for continually revisiting revenue-related metrics before you cut back or make any quick decisions. Start by running a comprehensive revenue diagnostic to assess where you are succeeding, identify opportunities for improvement, and lastly, isolate what is a losing proposition – what is not working. Now you’re in a position to re-examine your expenditures in those areas based on data rather than perception. 

Assess These 5 Revenue Operations Data Points

1. Begin by looking at your lead generation channels.

1. Identify each channel.
2. How much money and time are you spending on each?
3. How many leads are being generated?
4. How many leads close and become customers?
5. What is the return on investment?

2. Then assess the conversion rates at each step of the sales process.

From lead generation efforts, lead qualifying, to sales interaction and conversion – where is the most impactful opportunity for improvement to be made?

3. Next, look at retention and attrition.

All too often companies place more value on continually getting new customers when a 1% growth in current customer sales earns more than a 1% increase in new sales due to customer acquisition costs (CAC). Once they’re “in the door,” keep them “in the store.” Work to keep current customers happy; your attrition rate will slow as revenue grows.

4. Time to focus, focus, focus!

Perform a comprehensive review of revenue across all customers for the past 2-3 sales cycles. This will tell you who to focus on and target with your limited resources for the most profitability.

5. Finally, identify offerings and alignment.

I have discovered, in many years of helping companies become profitable, about 70% of the time, leadership is out of touch with who their customers truly are and what they want. The potential, targeted customer is often based on a reflection of themselves, the “sexy” status customer who gives their brand a boost (but less ROI), or it’s based on old, outdated information. This leads to mistakes in targeting and product/service offerings. Take a step back and use data to identify if your lead offerings – the money makers – are in line with:

1. Who your customers are and what they are buying – not what you think they’re buying or might want to buy.
2. Digital search patterns that indicate what your buyers are searching for.
3. What industry analysis shows are your leading indicators.
   

Now You Have the Tools & Data to Save Money, Make Money  

Now you have what you need to make informed revenue operations decisions. Based on data, you can save time and money and increase revenue by eliminating your most poorly performing lead-generation and sales-channel activities. And – here’s the fun part – you can dig into your successes and do more of that, along with continuing to market yourself when it seems everyone else has stopped. 

Whatever you do, do not stop marketing and let up on your digital footprint. Why take your brand out of the market and send the message that you’ve succumbed to the volatility of the economy? Over 100 years of history proves companies that maintain a presence and project stability in weak economic times actually increase sales and market share over their competitors.¹

“When a brand loses its ‘share of mind’ with consumers, there’s the potential of losing current – and possibly future – sales. In contrast, an increase in ‘share of voice’ typically leads to an increase in ‘share of market,’ and an increase in profits. – Brad Adgate, Forbes Contributing Writer

Revenue Operations is Critical to Success in Any Economy

Revenue operations is critical to success in any economy, but it can be challenging to find the time and resources to accomplish the diagnostics and data compilation and pinpoint solutions. Atomic Revenue can help, we're one of the top business consulting firms. Our wicked-smart team and our data dashboard services assess, align, and produce revenue operations results for our clients – clients in every industry, in every part of the nation, in any economy. Let’s keep this economy strong and your business profitable together – contact us today for your free revenue operations assessment.

^1.A Critical Review and Synthesis of Research on Advertising in a Recession.

About the Author

 Joel Emery is a Sales Systems Architect at Atomic Revenue and principal of Ignite Strategies, LLC. Joel drives innovation and collaboration, thinks critically, and aligns diverse perspectives to expand revenue streams and achieve common goals. He is also an expert in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Joel’s effective strategies to engage customers and employees and increase revenue support Atomic Revenue’s mission and our clients in obtaining customer success and revenue growth.