ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Christopher Hertz has 25 years leading growth companies. As DivvyCloud CRO (acquired by Rapid7) Chris grew revenue 10x in less than four years. As New Signature CEO (acquired by Cognizant) Chris led 12 consecutive years of double-digit revenue growth.
As a sales leader, your mission is to grow revenue. To do that you need help from marketing, product, finance, human resources, operations, and executive leadership – your extended Revenue Growth Team. Too often this help doesn’t arrive because cross-functional leaders lack the insights that would help them drive better, faster decisions in real-time to unlock new revenue opportunities, streamline the sales process, and remove barriers and blockers. Further, they lack the shared visibility to grow in the same direction.
This is a problem because we know that data sharing boosts business outcomes. Gartner predicts that by 2023, organizations that promote data sharing will outperform their peers on most business value metrics. Yet, at the same time, Gartner says many organizations continue to inhibit access to data, preserve data silos, and discourage data sharing. This leaves business leaders flying blind and creates headwinds that sales organizations must continually struggle against.
Revenue leaders can supercharge revenue growth by having the sales organization embrace the sharing of insights, in a quantifiable way, that helps the extended Revenue Growth Team make better, faster decisions. Sales teams have access to incredibly valuable insights from their day-to-day interactions with prospects and customers. As Mark Twain says, “there is gold in them thar hills” and right now we are simply not mining it. If we can capture and share these insights they will have a dramatic impact on revenue growth acceleration by helping:
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- Improve product development
- Outsmart competitors
- Streamline sales
- Reduce sales inefficiencies
- Build launch momentum
- Accelerate sales discovery
- Remove hiring inefficiencies
The challenge is that the insights salespeople hear during their customer and market conversations are rarely shared effectively. At most organizations they are lost in the chaos of emails, Slack or Teams messages, random spreadsheets, or buried in CRM notes fields. This leaves people frustrated and feeling like their input goes into a black hole. If and when insights do make it through, they are often incomplete, not quantifiable, and rarely actionable.
To overcome this challenge, revenue leaders must be the change. You must enlist your entire sales organization and empower them to crowdsolve. Define what data you want them to share, simplify how they share it, and provide real-time visibility. When you establish a people culture that fosters data sharing – and implement technology that makes sharing seamless, easy, and natural – it empowers everyone involved to make decisions that accelerate revenue growth.
For organizations that pride themselves on being agile, this is a game changer. It creates an engaged group of sellers who will sell more because they are excited about being at the organization. They’ll stay longer. Be more engaged. Help solve your biggest challenges. And deliver real results.
Accelerating growth is complex, but it can be made easier. Having everyone see the same set of data enables you to move quickly – and fuels the growth alignment necessary to hit your numbers. As we face uncertain economic times, it is imperative that revenue leaders step forward and drive transformation that will help the extended Revenue Growth Team create tailwinds, not headwinds for their sales organization. By doing this you will truly transform your business and accelerate revenue growth.
For more on how to accelerate revenue growth with real-time data from the sales team, watch 9 best practices to get your teams sharing data, or contact Groopit today.
