How to 2-3X your Topline Revenue.

According to DemandSage, there are over 33 million small businesses in the United States in 2023. THIRTY-THREE MILLION! The SBA (Small Business Association) defines a small business with revenues ranging from $1M to over $40M+ and employment from 100 FTEs to over 1,500 FTEs.

Is your business 1 of the 33 million? If so, I’m going to challenge your intentions of growth with a simple question.

“Why do you want to grow?”

I am part of a monthly Peer Executive Coaching & Networking group. During a recent meeting, one of our group peers was presenting the growth challenges that his company will be facing over the next 1-3 years.

• Successorship

• Business Maturity

• Process Improvement

The best question that came from our greater group during the Q&A portion of our peer’s presentation was, “Why do you want your organization to grow?”

Finding the “why” will make leadership’s initiatives and directions more tangible for the employees. It will also help set a course for accomplishing the growth goals, naturally. There has to be a purpose… a why. And once there is, most worker-bees will identify with part of, or all of that purpose, and proceed to fall in line and support the heck out of the direction.

And that’s when your rocket ship blasts off!

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Follow a defined roadmap for success… and scale!

Whether you saw my tweet thread from last week or not, I wanted to start a conversation around scaling and growth tactics.

Are you looking to increase your topline revenue by 2-3X? Here’s the framework on how you do that:

^{Business Objective}

You start with defining a Business Objective.

Are you wanting to:

• Increase Topline Revenue?

• Reduce Expenses?

• Grow Margins?

Whatever it is for your business, you have to start by defining an actionable Business Objective.

^{Business/SWOT Analysis}

Find a consultant to take you through an analysis of your current business. If you haven’t completed a SWOT analysis before, you’ll look at the STRENGTHS of the company, WEAKNESSES, define the OPPORTUNITIES, and understand any THREATS.

In order to grow a business, a deep and wide understanding of the core organization needs to be completed.

^{Establish Metrics for Success}

This is a loaded area. Sales metrics? Operational metrics? Production metrics?

They’re all important to define so you can build a roadmap for growth using data as the engine. Speaking about SALES, growth is simply a backward math equation once you know your business (and industry’s) metrics.

Two examples:

• Closing percentages (of current prospects)

• Conversation rates (for new meetings, new revenue opportunities)

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^{Create your SALES plan and strategies}

The best SALES teams are the one’s that drive results through a selling process.

Here’s a simple example of a workflow plan:

Within each stage of the SALES process, you define execution-based tasks. These are developed from an understanding of your greater strategy as well as understanding your industry’s unique qualities.

^{Align (or create?) a Customer Engagement roadmap}

A Customer Engagement roadmap should be a continuation of your selling process. There is always a unique handoff from SALES to Ops/Production; your roadmap and processes should mirror that.

Here’s a simple example of a workflow plan:

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^{Evaluate Leaders/FTEs/SALES reps}

As the saying goes, “The leaders that got your company to $X million aren’t always the right experts to scale your business to $Y million.”

During times of growth and scale, it’s important to evaluate the current staff and identify the strengths/weaknesses of each department lead. As you look at growth, you should be aware of how your leads compare to others within your organization.

• Issue personality assessments

• Begin, or redefine your employee review process

• Bring in a consultant to guide and lead your department leads

Look to begin succession-planning for key positions now, anticipating certain levels of growth and future needs for a different level of employee(s).

^{Redraft your Marketing Strategies}

So, you’ve done all of this work, and then you find yourself still marketing old messaging to the marketplace! If you’re looking to scale, redrafting your marketing strategies is a no-brainer.

• Do you need to refresh your logo/brand due to new/updated products?

• Are you selling/distributing/operating into new market segments?

• Have your buyer personas and demographics changed?

Most times, updated websites and social engagement strategies can do the trick. But in other instances, a complete overhaul might be necessary.

^{Consider Acquisitions}

The double-edged sword with acquisitions is depending upon size and location, they can do more harm (to your established culture) than good.

I worked for an organization that went from being a $1.5B company to almost $20B in less than 8 years, all via acquisitions.

Negatives:

• Culture disruptor

• Employee turnover and retention

• Unorganized chaos with massive integration challenges

Positives:

• Quick topline or territory growth; ability to connect geographies

• Buying out a competitor to increase market share

• An influx of new employees/talent

^Execute

Where the rubber meets the road; you’ve got your plan, now it’s time to work the plan!

Don’t forget that all good plans morph and change as time evolves. New strategies, plans, and/or processes will need simple tweaks once a new organizational flow begins. What’s great in theory isn’t always the best applicable solution once work begins.

And don’t forget to have fun… and design your execution to be aligned with your why. Because after all, you want to grow and scale for a reason, right?

The moral of the story? ‘Growth’ and ‘Scale’ have turned into business buzzwords over recent history. But how you define growth and scale, with your why, is what separates the good from the great companies!

It doesn’t take a business, marketing, or finance genius to tell you that topline growth comes with challenges. Thought you prepared for all of the doomsday scenarios when you laid out your strategy? Ha. That’s nice.

This is business! Our companies will always be impacted by predictable and unpredictable market behaviors. The companies that scale the most efficiently understand that growth isn’t a point A to point B equation.

However, with the right team and messaging, almost anything is possible.

Sales Tweets of The Week!

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