Truth #7 Generate revenue today.

Generate revenue today. You have to make a penny before you can pinch a penny. Revenue is the lifeblood of the enterprise. The dumbest move made is cutting marketing and sales budgets when faced with an industry downturn. Way too many CEOs take revenue generation and customer relationships for granted. Generating revenue is a risky, unpredictable exercise that cannot be planned or programmed with accuracy or consistency. Generating revenue is an exploitative, opportunistic exercise that demands superior competitive maneuvering in order to survive and thrive. Every “click” of value-add revenue must be sold for two “clicks” of operating margin. Resources spent on long term branding and awareness campaigns are wasted unless they are tied directly and measurably to immediate and short term revenue generation initiatives.

BACKGROUND

In 1999 I was visiting a company recently acquired by a client. I was there to assess the integration synergies between the two sales and marketing organizations. The company, which was more than 75 years old had stopped growing and put itself up for sale in order to cash out the equity holders. I sat down with the CEO of the company and outlined the purpose of my visit. My first request was to meet with the head of sales. He looked at me perplexed and said:

"hmmmm, we don't have anybody in charge of sales, but we do have Carol my VP of partner relationships (not her real name), she's responisble for all of our partner initiatives".

I told him that I would like to start with Carol then.

My first and only meeting with Carol was pretty rocky. I was simply trying to diagram their sales process and had hoped that Carol could give me the information. Instead I got an interesting lecture on sales. Carol told me that:

"first, we don't have customers or clients we have partners. Second, we do not sell. Selling is a dirty word. Instead of selling we collaborate with partners for whom we try and grow their business. Third, we do not have sales reps, sales managers or a vp of sales. We have me and as I said my job is to grow the business of our partners."

I could sense that I had hit a nerve with Carol and that I probably wasn't going to get the information I needed. I decided to try one more question which was:

"who is responsible for asking for the order?"

Once again I was foiled by Carol who lectured me further that:

"nobody should ever ask for an order. This was not civilized and puts our partner in an uncomfortable position."

She concluded with:

"our partners award us business based upon how well we perform for our partner. There is no reason to ask for the order."

With this I politely moved on to other topics.

Carol's company had been in the doldrums for several years. One of the reasons why my client had purchased the company had been their benign approach to business development. The reason I highlight this experience is because it was perhaps the single greatest violation of my generate revenue today rule.

A continuing theme you will get from me is my opinion that the sales and marketing suite needs more competitive instincts and fewer nurturing instincts. See the problem with Carol's approach was that while she was sitting back and waiting for her partners to reward her with business her competition was in there ransacking her marketshare.

Don't get me wrong, helping to grow a customers business is important. And yes if you do that well then there is a good chance the customer will reward you with more business as long as everything else you offer is competitive (there's that nasty word again!). BUT this is where I get extreme heartburn. I want my sales force focusing on growing my business NOT my customers business. If my sales force brings in a deal where I'm required to sacrifice my business in order to grow my customers business I say no. Actually I say no F@#KING way.

Most of my experience has been gained with start-ups and turnarounds where you don't have the luxury of sitting back and waiting for a customer to give you business. Or waiting for a customer delight strategy to actually deliver sustainable loyalty. Or waiting for a branding campaign to actually generate incremental revenues. Come to think of it, I have yet to see any of these initiatives pay off in larger more established enterprises with the resources to be patient. Which brings me back to the essense of this truth... every single day you should be focused on those efforts that will bring in revenue today. Not tomorrow. What is focused? 80% of your time and resources should be focused on today.

What are your thoughts?