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Relentless Process Improvement

ORE™ is the Product of Multiple Marketing and Sales Steps

Industrial manufacturers understand the concept of OEE - Overall Equipment Effectiveness. It recognizes that the final output measured in quality products/unit of time is actually the product of numerous steps. If you have 10 steps in the process, each working at 98% efficiency, your overall line is unfortunately only 82% efficient.

ORE improves revenue efficiency by focusing on the right metric measures and sales data to boost the profit and loss statementWe can do the same with Overall Revenue Effectiveness....and we're not even close. For instance website visit to lead conversion rates are only 5% for superb sites. And even great sales people only close 50% of qualified deals.

So even with only those two steps (and of course there are >100) your ORE is only 2.5%!

That's kind of horrifying!

No wonder pipelines are unreliable, revenue is unpredictable and most sales people are under plan.

The good news is that companies can improve; gradually and consistently. Our integrated Revenue Growth Framework weaves together numerous marketing and sales steps into an aligned approach.

we can take lessons from business operations to improve sales efficiency and reduce marketing costs while generating revenue

TQM Approach to Generating Revenue

It's easy to buy software that promises to ease a pain point in marketing or sales.

But will it improve total revenue, or even reduce marketing costs, improve revue operations, or boost sales efficiency?

Any effort needs to quantify the potential impact of change, and prioritize the projects by impact.

That might mean technical SEO, or evaluating the sales force, or digital marketing and marketing automation.

Three common barriers impede this approach.

  1. Most vendors, software, services, and consultants have a single hammer and look for "nails." 
  2. Strong internal resistance often exists to change in specific areas.
  3. Most efforts are built around what the manufacturer does - not what buyers value.

We should let buyers guide the process and use metrics to understand what functions to prioritize to improve sales efficiency and ORE.

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Buying Journey Trumps Sales Process

The uncomfortable truth is that "sales process" is a vestige of an era when sales people were gateways to information.

Today marketing and sales teams need to collaborate to guide and support complex buying journeys taken by large buying teams.

That often means helping companies discover real requirements and quantify the "value gap"; navigate internal personal and departmental politics; sell projects internally against competing requests for limited capital; helping buyers implement efficiently and measure results.

In other words, sales today is more challenging than ever. You have to achieve everything that's important to qualify, advance and close deals - and achieve it within the context of the buyers' process.

ORE helps to structure the content, skills and systems to shift this orientation.

revenue efficiency is improved with ORE as growth opportunities are identified, conversion rates are increased and the right technology enables improvement

Sales & Marketing Technology is Different Than Yours

You make things that make things. Your technology - often capital equipment and engineered systems - actually makes things.

Sales technology (like CRM and sales acceleration) and marketing technology (like marketing automation, chatbots, content planning and SEO tools) don't create anything. They are enablement and measurement tools that help your team:

  • work more efficiently and boost effectiveness
  • provide metrics to support the ORE system

The value comes not from the technology, but from the way you adapt tactics and processes to leverage the full range of opportunities. That means change (often unwelcome) for staff who are invested in current systems.

It also means a series of empirically-based decisions rather than gut feeling or personal preference.

Both are critical to improving ORE. And both, as you certainly know from your OEE efforts, require cultural shifts, new skills, often some turnover, and lots of patient change management.

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Language and Process That Map to Your Manufacturing Culture

Why should marketing and sales be treated any differently than your manufacturing operations?

You've worked hard to build a culture of precision, quality and accountability in the rest of the organization, and an ORE approach will help you do the same with revenue generation.

You can build on the work you've done throughout the company to significantly improve your revenue operations.

MEET & LEARN MORE

It's Time to Bring the Same Rigor to Marketing and Sales That You've Long Brought to Manufacturing and Operations

overall revenue effectiveness improves sales team and revenue efficiency, boosts customer satisfaction, improves marketing tactics and helps in generating sales at a higher gross profit marginAs buying journeys become more convoluted and buying teams expand (most capital equipment buying teams are >15 people - many of whom your sales people never meet!) it's critically important to bring a systems approach to improving performance.

The good news is you've done this already!

Most industrial manufacturers rely on well-refined, carefully designed and rigorously applied TQM processes to maintain superb manufacturing quality and efficiency.

ORE will help you do the same with the lifeblood of your business - the top line performance.

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Integrated Approach

Why are marketing and sales separate functions? Certainly not for the benefit of buyers!

Build aligned and supportive processes.

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Data Driven Decisions

The right technology, applied in the right way, will improve effectiveness AND provide critical insights to prioritize projects and measure results.

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Culture & Accountability

Neither marketing nor sales should be treated differently than finance, operations or manufacturing. Create a culture of appropriate accountability.

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Predictable & Repeatable

Messy pipelines, unreliable forecasting and unpredictable revenue cause problems that ripple throughout the company. Change that!

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Focus Where it Matters

Busy ≠ Results.

Focus limited resources on the functions and processes that offer the biggest potential return.

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Is it time to step things up at your company?

 

You may want to talk to Ed.

FREE ORE DIAGNOSTIC DOWNLOAD
change management in sales and marketing can help unlock growth opportunities and boost profit margin

A System That Works

There is no legitimate reason why marketing and sales should be excused from the careful process design and management that works in the rest of the business.

But simply requiring more detailed reports regarding what they've always done engenders resentment without any improvement in results.

Overall revenue effectiveness, and the revenue growth framework, provide the culture and toolkit that's necessary to create consistent, repeatable revenue results.

FREE ORE DIAGNOSTIC DOWNLOAD

Frequently Asked Questions

People aren't robots. Will this work?

Robots solve for dangerous and heavy work, but even well optimized lines still rely on people.

While the vagaries of personality will impact sales, it's important that your people and processes account for that and address it - not use it as an excuse for unreliable revenue.

We've tried tweaks that didn't work. Why is this different?

I don't know what you've tried.

I do know what I see routinely - that tweaks are often applications of technology, consulting or service that are executed in an ad hoc way.

Companies used to try that for manufacturing too. And then they got serious and began to approach it systematically.

That's what makes ORE different.

How does the Revenue Growth Framework fit with ORE?

The framework is the structure that we use to optimize overall revenue effectiveness.

What if sales isn't the problem?

Then you'll be a step ahead of every other company I've worked with. 😎

The reality is that it almost certainly is.

But the good news is that we have tools to help us understand the current situation based on data and science - and to plan what's next based on facts - not personalities and gut feeling.

Isn't our sales cycle is too unpredictable?

Well, is it unpredictable because that's the nature of the universe? Or could it be that some of that unpredictability is a function of your systems, processes and people?

ORE helps to solve for that.

Is this sales? Or marketing?

No. Marketing tactics like SEO, content marketing, paid ads, account-based marketing, data management, blogging, and others can be very effective.

Yes.

or maybe No.

What's the area of biggest opportunity?

Generally an ORE approach will build on deep customer and market research, substantially refine marketing, include specific technology and involve fairly intense evaluation, training and upgrade of the sales force.

But...it depends.

How do we really understand buyers?

It's not easy, but again, it's simple.

Research and conversation.

We need to understand the buying team - which is certainly much larger than you assume.

Then we need to understand the buying journey.

A clear matrix of problems you solve needs to overlay on problems companies have - those they're aware of and those they're not.

And then to largely do the same again...for their buyers.

Is this only for industrial manufacturers?

Short answer, no.

It's a natural fit, though, for companies that think very systematically about their processes.

It's also most impactful for companies with long sell cycles, high ticket sales and complex buying journeys.

Intrigued by How ORE Could Transform your company's Revenue Growth Function? Schedule a meeting with Ed.