Building a scalable, repeatable and predictable business that always has a favorable sales growth pattern is not an easy task.
Almost every business is affected by a number of issues that hinder its growth!
Even if you have a promising solution in a lucrative market and have the resources to boost your sales growth, it can be pretty tough to expand at the level predicted in your business plan or expected by your investors. Here are some critical factors that could be hindering your growth:
Failure to identify your target audience:
Low scores in identifying the common traits of your most profitable customers is a matter of concern. That’s because it may simply lead to a downfall in the revenue growth of your business.
Inability to stand out from the crowd:
Differentiation plays a vital role when you aim at boosting your sales. You need to convince people that you have to offer products and services that are exceptional. Case studies and testimonials with a positive response based on the previous surveys can be a boon for you in this case. However, your inability to clearly “stand out from the crowd” in your target markets may make you lose your potential and most beneficial customers.
Solution repeatability in the sales process:
Low performance of your organization regarding the proportion of your sales revenues that come from standardized, repeatable solutions has an immense impact on the sales growth. Thereafter it depends upon the extent to which you have been able to establish a repeatable, scalable and successful sales process.
Poor marketing strategy:
Since a marketing strategy generates the required awareness about your products or services among customers, it is the backbone of your business. A good marketing strategy should equate well with the long-term marketing plans of the business. Moreover, it should precisely clarify the goal of your organization. But if your marketing strategy lacks marketing expertise and direction, it is considered as a poor one. Also ignoring internet marketing, not updating the website regularly may lead to a below par customer service. This may further decline the sales to a large extent.
Bad customer and business partner relationships:
Yet another reason for a downfall in sales is the measurable impact that your partner relationships are having on revenue. On the other hand, when customers experience a bad service, they don’t just get mad, they adversely affect how you sit on the scale between being just another vendor and acting as a truly strategic partner to them. According to a research by ClickFox:
i) About 52 percent of discontented customers gushed out to family and friends
ii) While an astonishing 32 percent altogether ceased doing business with the company that displeased them.
Additionally, today’s customers are fast enough to share their experiences online. In the most unfavorable cases, such deleterious comments influence a majority of other customers.
Lousy sales forecasting and pipeline management:
This refers to the inaccuracy of your weekly/monthly/ quarterly sales forecasts. Rather than widening the top-of-the-funnel and attempting to overdo in terms of getting as many opportunities as possible sales managers in an organization should focus on getting the best opportunities that fit better. It should be made sure that each rep has sufficient opportunities in their pipeline to hit their targets. It is very important to educate the reps about the hazards of a bloated pipeline and help them achieve more efficient performances utilizing a streamlined pipeline.
Try and eliminate all of these factors from your business so as to avoid any downfall in your sales growth!
