Top line revenue growth.
Growing your top line revenue shows that you are acquiring new business, retaining existing customers and perhaps having success with new sources of income.
According to renowned Chrysler CEO, Lee Iacocca: If you have a great top-line, the bottom line can always be fixed.
At the risk of oversimplification, dare I say?
Anyone can cut expenses.
Driving top-line revenue growth…now that takes talent.
No one wants to invest in a company that simply knows how to trim expenses and streamline operations. No venture capitalist. No rich uncle. No shareholder. No portfolio manager…well, not the type you necessarily want managing your funds, anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. Keeping costs under control is paramount in today’s new normal of doing more and more with less and less.
But just as the famous saying goes, “Hope is not a strategy”, so too “Cutting cost is not a strategy.”
Cost cutting is not a strategy.
There is a time and place for making operational adjustments to keep expenses in line with revenues. However, the focus of your energy and resources needs to stay transfixed on growing top-line revenue [read: sell more products/services]. If you lose sight of this important growth objective…you will fail.
Ouch. I know, it sounds harsh.
But think about it. Companies unable (or subconsciously unwilling) to grow the top line of their business are essentially rolling over for competitors to nab money left on the table.
In order to grow, you have to be willing to ask yourself some tough questions.
Why exactly, are you working harder than ever, yet still unable to grow revenues? Consider:
- Is your customer experience lacking?
- If so, think about overhauling the user experience at every touch point.
- Do your competitors beat you on quality? Price? Service?
- Take an honest look and begin the process to leap frog the status quo.
- Do the right people know you exist?
- And by “right people” you know I mean those folks who need / want your products and are willing to pay for them. Get your current customers do some of the work for you. 83% of people trust recommendations from personal relationship sources over ads. WOW your customers and many will share their good experience with colleagues, friends and family.
- Does the message about your product resonate and cause an action with the right people?
- Choose your words, images and design carefully. Every instance should convert interest into action.
There are more tough questions you could ask yourself. But fundamentally, are you willing to take a critical look at your business and drive radical change? The answer better be “Yes,” every time.
Even if you are enjoying healthy profits this year, they can dry up by next year if you are not constantly innovating your business.
What should you do first?
Of course businesses are at different stages. However, we’ve found that one of the best ways to succeed now days, is by finding the right partner you can trust to manage the customer service / customer support experience. You would do well to partner with a company who understands business and aligns with your strategic objectives.
If you are an online retailer and you find a partner who can deliver with full confidence a Zappos™-like WOW experience for your end users, you will realize the benefits of loyalty, referrals and branding – which all translate into more sales and less attrition. What’s perhaps more important, your focus will remain rock solid on the core of your business – coming up with hot new products, selling them and making a profit.
If you are a software vendor or healthcare or financial services company, and you find a partner that delivers top quality support to your end users / patients / physicians / customers, then you will be freed up to innovate new offerings, knowing with complete confidence that you have the excellent service necessary to support new growth.
Staying focused on top line revenue growth is the name of the game. Want to play?
We do.
At Productivity Associates we are that strategic customer experience outsourcing partner that helps businesses succeed in today’s crazy world.
