Skip to content

The Different Challenges CEOs Face to Increase Revenue

CEO thinking how to increase revenue
Reading Time: 4 minutes

As CEO, you are ultimately responsible for delivering increased revenue and ensuring you are delivering profitable growth year-on-year, but for some, this is a harder task than others. You must deal with the challenges of markets, competitors, internal challenges, and industry trends. There is also the business maturity to consider and the cultural problems that come with business today. Each of these can affect your ability to increase revenue, and there is the constant pressure of where you need to focus your attention.

One certainty you do have is if your marketing and sales are not aligned and finely tuned then the other elements become a derivative of the lack of revenue. No matter what the industry you will need to ensure the following are continually reviewing and improving these sectors:

  1. Sales Improvement
  2. Marketing Improvement
  3. Pricing Improvement
  4. Competitive Improvement

1. Slow-growth companies talent struggle

Companies in mature markets or slow-moving markets, those offering niche products, struggle to gain the traction and competitiveness required to sustain or increase market share. They have difficulty in attracting and retaining talent that is going to make inroads and break the cycles of slow growth.

Competition is fierce for top talent in job categories such as heads of sales or marketing or product specialists for innovation. People with excellent track records in these positions are in high demand and can work anywhere. If your company is not growing faster than your competitors or your industry, it is unlikely you will be able to attract top talent.

These companies, more than any others, need to invest in upskilling their existing personnel and bring to them the knowledge and expertise they need to drive growth across those four essential sectors. If you cannot hire great people, you need to build them. A structured program for improvement of the sales team capabilities with a focus on how to increase revenue.

2. Strong organic growth with new markets potential to increase revenue

Organic growth from your existing customer base is a luxury that many companies enjoy year-on-year. They have a relatively reliable customer sales base that, if cared for and no significant changes occur, can deliver good profit.

The growth of these companies comes from either new markets or new products, and both require a new go-to-market approach if they are to be successful.

For new products, review our blog on Why Great Products Fail to Sell to understand more of the challenges and actions you need to take.

For new markets, these are lucrative opportunities where you a well-planned strategy can see you take market share by catching competitors off-guard. The penetration into the market must be planned, swift, and with enough velocity that you catch the competitors off-guard with little time to retaliate. Some may not even realise how much market share they are losing until it’s too late.

A well-designed workshop with collaboration from the marketing and sales teams is an ideal forum to build the right plan and enable a swift and effective approach to the market and sure up your existing business enabling you to increase revenue.

3. Taking market share in mature markets to increase revenue

In mature markets, there is a constant struggle to acquire customers, and it becomes a give-and-take cycle. Often customers leave for service-based reasons, and in some markets, it’s about the price. These are challenging markets and take their toll on team members as the relentless pressure on price and service gives them no tools to break the cycle. The result is over-serviced customers who become fragile to deal with, which comes at a price.

Incremental product development or improvement to pricing or packaging is quickly duplicated by competitors giving only short-term market gains.

Breaking the cycle is difficult, and without a clear competitive advantage, you will not break the cycle. You need to make a major step forward as a company to outsmart and outsell your competitors. This means leaping forward with how you go to market and can include implementing best practice methodologies within marketing and sales to define yourselves in the market. Giving your teams more conversation and tools to leverage the customers in your direction. Ideally, you can create something that is innovative and hard to duplicate, delivering a competitive advantage.

It is important to build the right plan and enable a swift and effective approach to the market and take market share. A well-designed workshop with collaboration from the marketing and sales teams is an ideal forum to build the right plan and enable you to increase revenue.

4. Fast Growth Companies

Often considered the dream company to lead, these companies often suffer iceberg syndrome. It all looks good on the surface, but the problems within are building as the company grows. The hectic nature of fast growth attracts heads of sales or marketing who live in the moment riding the wave of excitement as the deals flow in the door.

Behind the scenes, there is a lack of planning, and rarely are processes documented to create a repeatable, scalable business. People are hired to fill gaps as demand is higher than the skills required to serve the customers. The new hires struggle to find a way, but the momentum of the business drags them along. As a CEO, you are dealing with two challenges in this hyper environment.

a) They lack internal efficiencies and diminish Often overstaffed, over-marketed, and lack the analytics to identify early-stage shifts in the market that should be responded to timely. This profit opportunity is lost and can be the start of the next issue.

b) The business may experience a change in the selling climate that requires skills and discipline to immediately address the shift. The lack of documented processes, systems, and structure leaves the company exposed as it struggles to find operating practices in marketing and sales that provide a robust way forward. The company shifts to trial and error rather than planned strategies to adjust to the market swiftly, ensuring profits are retained and increased.

For cultures in fast-growth companies, they need to gain knowledge quickly. Consultancy is an ideal forum to build the right plan, enable a swift and effective approach to the market, and establish robust structures, systems, and processes with the right analytics to drive the business. The focus remains on increasing revenue strategies while implementing the right structures and methodologies.

Next Steps

If you relate to any of these scenarios and are looking to take action, please contact Adele directly and discuss your specific situation and how you can increase revenue.

If you found this article helpful, follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to Our Insights on the right-hand column of this page to make sure you don’t miss new posts.

© 2018 Adele Crane  All rights reserved

Share This Post

About the Author: Adele Crane

A leader in Implementation Consulting.
CEOs and Managing Directors have relied on Adele Crane to solve challenges with the performance of their sales and marketing since 1990. Her consulting experience in delivering results in 90-120 days is unprecedented by any other known sales and marketing consulting professional in the world. As an author of 3 acclaimed books, appearances on major media, and publications in USA, NZ and Australia, Adele’s experience brings fresh thinking and contemporary practices to business.