Is it possible that your revenue growth is OK, or Good, but not Great?
Could that be because your team and process are largely homegrown?
Is it possible that nobody in the company really knows what would make it great?
Or worse, that nobody knows that nobody knows? From marketing and sales VPs, through executive management, right on up to the board?
And what would that mean to generational transfer, enterprise valuation or even financial strength?
Book Your Company's Bootcamp Now to Accelerate Performance and Revenue Growth
56% of CEOs aren’t confident that their sales leaders can deliver their number.
But does the CEO have the current sales skills to step in and fix it? Often not. So they sit there...hoping.
If sales leaders are wobbly, and senior management doesn’t have the answer, who does? The board charged with oversight?
Rarely does a board of directors include independent directors with contemporary best-practice revenue growth experience.
So sales execs and executive management might have sales experience from the 80s & 90s. And board oversight may have no sales experience.
None have done it in today's markets.
The good news is there's a solution!
Industrial manufacturers optimize operations and production with process engineering, KPIs, and rigor. Let's bring that approach to sales and marketing which are often vaguely structured and much less accountable.
82% of CFOs are increasing spending on demand generation because growth is unreliable but 69% of CEOs question their marketing team’s ability too!
That's broken.
Who should take the lead in levelling up the revenue growth team? Often the sales and marketing teams are often homegrown, and most sales growth comes from existing customers. Executive management are normally veterans of manufacturing and engineering, or the same sales pedigree. And the board rarely includes contemporary sales and marketing insights.
No wonder CEOs are unsure. They might not have the right team. They might not have the experience themselves. And they often don’t have a board of directors with the skills to support management in this area.
You might be a:
A top-performing board that works effectively and constructively with management and owners is the goal. That requires proactively cultivated skills and perspectives.
Revenue growth is a strategic imperative that's often beyond appropriate board oversight.
As a board you'll learn:
I'll be honest. This may feel threatening. The board, and your management colleagues, are going to receive deep insight into the company's revenue growth capability. We'll look at strategy, marketing, sales and technology.
Some of the findings will be unwelcome.
At the same time, you'll experience two great benefits. First, you won't have to guess about why sales are unpredictable and marketing investment has an uncertain ROI. You'll know, and you'll have a framework for improvement.
Second, the board will become engaged in your success. They'll understand what they need to do to help you.
This is the real payoff. It's great if the board is more supportive and helpful - and if they work more effectively as a group. And it's wonderful for the executive team to learn how to optimize their team performance.
But the main payoff is a clear understanding of where you stand and where you can improve, a framework for doing so, and ultimately, increased and predictable revenue as a result.
Business is hard. It's a lot easier when revenue and growth are predictable. The BootCamp will give the board and management the awareness and framework you need to achieve that.
The private company revenue growth bootcamp is designed to simultaneously improve board composition, board oversight and executive management of revenue growth, and is built on a comprehensive set of diagnostics of the board, management and sales team skills and aptitudes, and in person meeting.
The Bootcamp is built around diagnostic tools and conversation. These are carefully selected and presented to help the team understand individual and organizational strengths and weaknesses; to benchmark current conditions; and to inform an action plan for improvement.
The diagnostics, and related insights include:
Board of Directors
Individual - Executive Styles and Qualities Assessment which explores how a leader ranks on 9 hard-wired leadership styles and 17 leadership qualities
Individual - Complete the ORE™ Diagnostic to quantify how each feels the company performs in critical revenue growth functions
Individual - Complete a blank board skills matrix to identify the current skills of each board member
Full Board - Leadership Capabilities and Improvement Analysis which aggregates the individual Executive Styles Assessments to understand the Board's strengths and dynamics.
Senior Management Team (e.g. CEO, President & SVPs or C-Suite)
Individual - Executive Styles and Qualities Assessment, which explores how a leader ranks on 9 hard-wired leadership styles and 17 leadership qualities
Individual - Complete the ORE™ Diagnostic to quantify how each feels the company performs in critical revenue growth functions
Individual - Complete a blank board skills matrix to identify current skills of each board member
Full Team - Leadership Capabilities and Improvement Analysis, which aggregates the individual Executive Styles Assessments to understand the Team's strengths and dynamics.
Sales & Marketing Team
Individual - Sales evaluations (appropriate version for each sales role of leadership, management, customer service, marketing, inside sales, etc.)
Full Team - Sales Team Evaluation which aggregates the sales organization's individual results and creates high level insights.
Organizational
A revenue growth maturity model based on aggregated feedback from the board and management team.
Every company has politics, personalities and competing priorities. We're going to start with objective data to understand where the organization stands.
We'll do that using proprietary and predictively valid diagnostic tools to build a comprehensive understanding of the Board's skills and function, The management team's skills and function, the organization's current revenue growth program, and the state of the sales team.
That will feed our discussions which will recap the findings, explore opportunities for growth, identify gaps in board membership, and prioritize action steps for improvement.
The group meeting and discussion will drive insights and improvement, and also foster board/management collaboration on revenue growth.
Meeting Date - 8 weeks: The Board Chair, President, and Ed will meet for 30-60 minutes to identify all the involved players and set dates and deadlines. Additionally, the company will identify a coordinating contact.
Date - 7 weeks: Ed will hold a separate recorded 20 minute intro/kick-off call with the Chair and the Board, the President and management team, and the President and the entire sales team.
Date - 6 weeks: Links and documents for all diagnostics will be provided. Anticipated time requirements are as follows:
Board member - 2 hours
Management team member - 2 hours
Sales team members - 45 minutes
Date - 4 weeks: All diagnostic materials returned.
Date - 1 week: Pre-brief with Board Chair and President
Chair - Total of 2 hours to review the Board's Leadership Capabilities and Improvement Analysis (LCIA), aggregated board skills feedback, the revenue growth maturity model
President - 1 hour to review the management team's LCIA and the revenue growth maturity model, and 3 hours to review the sales organization's Sales Team Evaluation
We'll meet the evening before (full board and senior management team) for cocktails and conversation.
We'll start in the morning with the board for 1 hour and will review the board's LCIA, the initial board skills matrix, and the sales team's Sales Team Evaluation.
Then we'll invite the board to remain while we meet with the management team for 1 hour to review the team's LCIA, the revenue growth maturity model.
The goal of these sessions is to help each group understand its members' styles and aggregate inclinations, as well as the company's current revenue growth maturity.
After a break we'll spend 2 hours exploring what the maturity model tells us about important areas for improvement in revenue growth, and implications for staffing, resources, and growth. We'll identify high level action steps.
During a working lunch we'll ask the management team to share thoughts on what additional support they'd like from the board.
Then we'll jump into a 1.5 hour session with the board to revisit the board skills matrix in the context of lessons learned, and create an expanded matrix identifying possible areas for board augmentation.
The Board Chair, President, and I will finish the day with 30 minutes of conversation, wrapping things up.
Then 4 & 8 weeks later the three of us will meet again for 1 hour by Zoom to explore any questions or insights that have arisen in the meantime.
The board bootcamp will deliver the following organizational outcomes:
Ed works with mid-size industrial manufacturers and capital equipment companies. He helps them adapt strategy and revenue growth approaches to meet changing buyer expectations and leverage new technology. Ed has carried an industrial company P&L and worked in multiple phases of industrial manufacturing and sales channel.
Additionally, Ed is:
Middle-Market Industrial Manufacturers with Complex Sales Process
Collaborative Board & Executive Management Teams
This bootcamp helps to improve board/executive team collaboration and revenue growth in profitable companies. It's not a hail mary play for foundering businesses.
The boot camp will be frustrating for lifestyle businesses, but invigorating for companies intent on growth.
Many of the techniques we'll explore will involve technology across marketing and sales motions
This experience will challenge some of what you've traditionally held to be sacrosanct. Don't sign up to reassure yourself that your current approach is correct.
The boot camp will deliver simultaneous results:
We'll work around it if there are a small number. Ideally they'll participate in all diagnostic work in advance, and perhaps in the meeting via video. There's also often important information in some members resistance.
Then this may not be a good fit. We're not talking about a lot. For most individuals, the requirement is not more than 2 hours in advance, plus the meeting. The chair and senior exec will spend a couple hours more coordinating and reviewing.
If that's too large a commitment, then it probably means there isn't adequate desire to improve performance.
Your board will be stronger.
Oversight and governance will improve.
Collaboration between the board and management team, between sales and marketing, and among each team internally will improve.
The company will be armed with a roadmap for strategic revenue growth as a collaborative company-wide effort.
Edward Marsh, Principal
Presidential "E" Award Winner
Consilium is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business
“Ed will always be the first consultant I ever liked!” - Earl P., Sales Engineer & VP of Sales
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