I see many companies operating in a reactive mode, either swamped, dealing with a fire-hose of activity and needing help sorting it all out, or parched for opportunities and “wins” and desperate to meet their stipulated goals in creative, clever, and constructive new ways.
My consistent recommendation, instead, is a proactive approach in which every organization, no matter the size, has a single executive, regardless of title, who is focused on and responsible for the creation of a strategic revenue growth plan and who is accountable for delivering the results articulated in that plan.
Depending on the size, industry, and culture of a firm, that function sometimes resides with the President, CEO, SVP Sales or other rainmaker like the Founder, Managing Director, CMO or COO. However, generating revenue growth should not be a secondary task that is attended to after other primary elements of the job description are handled. Putting someone in charge of revenue growth as a primary responsibility empowers that one person to get the job done in a focused, thoughtful, organized manner.
As you suspect from the title of this article, she could be called the Chief Revenue Officer. It’s a title that appears often these days and seems to have originated during the heyday of the dot-com boom. The important thing is not the title but seeing the value of investing one individual with clear responsibility for creating a plan that forwards the organization’s mission and long-term plan, articulates goals in precise terms, establishes and tracks progress and KPIs and enrolls everyone in the organization in supporting the goals.
To focus directly on revenue growth, I suggest asking these questions:
Does your organization have a precisely articulated revenue growth plan that is clearly communicated throughout the organization?
- Are you measuring success against stipulated KPIs on a regular and frequently recurring basis so you can stay on course to your intentional revenue growth goal?
- Are you on-target today to meet your next major revenue goal?
- Is there one person accountable for proactively making sure those articulated goals are met?
If your answer to all those questions is yes, then you are clearly in control of your revenue growth and it doesn’t matter what title you use to identify the person identified in question #4.
If your answer to any of those questions is currently no, then you will almost certainly benefit from one person taking on responsibility for all of them. If you feel you don’t have time, get help or support – there is no reward in waiting – and ask someone in your organization or an outside expert to fill the gap that would have been filled by a Chief Revenue Officer who will support you getting back on a path to realizing your intentions.
