Building a better growth plan

‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ - not actually Albert Einstein

Melissa Askew @ Unsplash

If the business world wants one thing, it's growth. Through the years I've been involved in the building and execution of many different growth plans. And why not? Pretty much every problem a business has can be solved by selling more, right?

The problem is that many growth plans aren't set up for success. Too many of rely on wishful thinking that growth will just show up because we want it to. Why do so many people do the same thing and expecting a different result? What should they be doing to deliver growth for the business?

Below are a few things that you might want to look for in any growth plan you're putting together. You certainly don't need all of them, but if you've not included at least some of them, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment.

Customer upsell/cross-sell

In just about every growth conversation I've ever had, one of the first topics of conversation is about "low hanging fruit". This is a conversation I dread as it tends to dominate and ultimately not be that productive.

Of course it's highly attractive idea. We have customers. They know us and our products. They'll surely want to buy more from us. That will be faster and easier than selling to new customers. Job done!

The problem with this is that it never properly considers that existing customer base as a market segment. What are their business needs? What challenges do they have? Are we able to help them with our current products? After all, you might have a great relationship, but if you can't help them with the problems they have today, your chances of selling them more is pretty low.

That said, talking to your customers is always a great idea! You know them. They know you. But do they know and understand the breadth of your offerings? If you tell interesting stories about how other customers are getting value could that create a new opportunity? Definitely!

Do customer events, product user groups, executive dinners, newsletters, social posts, and regular sales meetings with customers "just to catch up" rather than to hard sell.

But never assume that just focusing on customer upsell and cross-sell will deliver growth. The low hanging fruit may look easy to pick, but won't normally feed the whole village.

New product

Another favourite "easy option" that turns out to be incredibly hard to deliver.

I've known many sales teams who use the mantra, "we could sell more if we just had some new products to sell." Again, it's obvious, right? I know my customers. I have the relationships. They've already purchased the products we have. If I have new products I have new opportunities to sell.

Invariably if you follow this approach, create a new product, and provide it to these sales teams, you immediately end up in a significant round of exception handling. "The product doesn't have the features my customers need yet. I don't know how to sell that. Where is the marketing for it? Where are the sales materials? I can't sell it to my customers without existing references."

It is possible to do a really great product launch that creates demand for the new product, whether it's a brand new product than anybody can purchase, or an add-on product targeted on some or all of your existing customers. But this is a long term growth solution and not something you can just dream up and execute overnight.

Designing and building the product is the hard part and takes time. But it also needs to be packaged, proven with early adopters, have clear product messaging based on customer needs, marketing launch activities, sales tools, pricing, sales enablement, and maybe delivery through in-house services or partners.

A great way to deliver growth long-term, but never the quick fix that some sales teams think it is.

New markets

This is another "big ask" for growth programmes. For me, this is the old adage of "the grass is always greener". Also known as "this market is too hard to sell in, so I'll sell in this market instead." I've seen this done organisationally but also individually, where a single sales rep or team decides on their own that they should sell into a new vertical or region.

The problem with taking a sales-led new market approach to growth - whether a new vertical or a new geographic region - is that selling a solution in a new area is typically just the tip of the iceberg. That first deal is sold in that new market and then the questions start to appear. Is the product available in the local language? Do we have a template for that vertical? Is there a data centre closer to the client? Can we support in local language? Where's the localised product collateral? When is the website being updated? The customer doesn't want to pay the costs of flying in services people so can we find a local implementation partner? Can we have customer marketing events there? When do we get local advertising?

Selling into a new market can never be just about the selling. Opening up a new market is a combined effort across sales, marketing, product, services, support, and partnering. It also involves customers. To be successful in any new market you'll need to prove the value of the offering with early adopters who demonstrate that the products you're selling successfully in other markets also work in theirs - with all the specific functionality, security, and compliance needed within their region or vertical.

Better selling

Customer upsell, new products, and new products. Those are the big glamourous ways that tend to dominate growth conversations but often don't lead to much actual new bookings and extra revenue in the short term. All great things to do for long term growth and organisational development so please invest in them! But they're just not practical if you need to deliver growth today.

The boring fact is that the best way to grow in the short term is to do what you're already doing, but better.

Higher close rates. Strong pipe building. Faster pipe velocity. Shorter sales cycles. Reduced discounting. Larger deal sizes with more products per deal.

Better training, sales tools, and attention to detail can drive these. None are fun or exciting but they can all, on their own or in combination, make a significant short term impact to the top line. They are also all hard to do because they require good data, great process, detailed reporting, and a willingness to really put in the extra effort to deliver on the improvements. But just a couple percentage point differences in a few of those areas will deliver growth through stronger booking.

Improved sales coverage

Another area that I find leaders can ignore when looking for growth is sales coverage and overall sales effectiveness.

At the start of any sales period there is a reality about the status of the current sales team. How many open sales roles are there? How many took on their roles within the last 6 months and are still ramping? How effective are the current team at selling? What's the maturity and opportunity level in the current sales territories? How busy are the sales team with current deals or customer issues? Are you expecting any short term voluntary or involuntary exits?

A territory without a rep will get you zero. A territory with a new rep will get you some. And a territory with a long-term ineffective rep will always disappoint.

If you don't have a sales team with the capability and capacity to do more, your growth plan can't deliver. Again, this is the detailed boring work of really looking at your people and looking at the numbers. Will reps who've previously failed to meet targets suddenly be able to do more? How quickly can you onboard new reps and make them productive?

These issues impact both your ability to move quickly and your ability to achieve your growth goals. So ensure you have the right people in the best territories with all the tools they need to deliver the growth you're hoping for.

Effective marketing

It amazes me the extent to which many growth plans start and end with sales. Marketing, including great product marketing, should be at the heart of any growth plan because it's that core ability of being able to make a very clear argument to a prospect that "if you purchase product X you'll get benefits Y & Z."

Growth plans always deliver more when sales and marketing work hand in hand. Marketing helps to provide clear messaging and delivers a regular drum-beat of content to the target audience. Sales are there, trained up and ready to engage the moment a prospect looks interested. Cold calling from inside sales into the same target market in the weeks following the initial campaign launch brings more accounts into the campaign in an effective way.

From there the engagement can be done by sales with direct meetings, inside sales with online presentations or demos, and marketing with events, webinars, and informative microsites. It's a wide range of options that give accounts and individuals ways of engaging that are right for them and keep them connected.

This creates the proper full funnel of activity from high level reputation and awareness of the solution, through engagement and education by marketing and sales, into the opportunity cycle for the full buying group at the customer.

CASE STUDY - Upselling to CFOs

One of the best growth campaigns I've ever been involved with was a targeted programme to sell a new product to existing customers via the CFO. Working closely, marketing and sales identified the CFOs of each of the companies in the target group, and built custom outreach from both marketing and sales in parallel. We were able to track contacts directly with those CFOs, add nearby colleagues to the communications, and ensure we had very high engagement across the target customers (circa 90%).

Once engaged sales and marketing worked together to educate customers on the new offer using a benefits-first approach (product details came later), allowing us to create real opportunities and extend the buyers-group in each account.

The entire campaign, executed in just 6 months but planned well in advance, created impressive short term pipeline and ultimately (after a long sales cycle due to the nature of the offer) excellent bookings and revenue.

Great tracking

I've alluded to this previously and it's not exciting, but the reality is that you'll always struggle to drive growth consistently if you're not tracking activity at each step.

Which accounts are we targeting?

Do we know who we're trying to talk to in each account?

Are targets engaging with marketing content by reading and clicking?

Is retargeting bringing them back?

Is inside sales managing to speak with targets?

Are we adding relevant adjacent contacts over time?

What's the total account coverage achieved?

How many accounts have opportunities?

At what stage and velocity?

With what close rate?

It's only with this attention to detail that you'll really be able to drive the growth you're hoping to achieve. Keep on top of the data, drive activity across sales and marketing, and you'll be able to deliver your growth goals.