Just like we are responsible for “health”
- “I’m an engineer I don’t sell.”
- “Marketing is all fluff – when I design new products it is about solid engineering and advanced technology.
- Those in sales carry the ball for the whole company – without us there would be no company.
- Customer Service is always bailing out the rest of the company’s mistakes and short sightedness
- We need to keep the lid on expenses. The cost of the sales and marketing departments would give the place away and spend a year’s budget in 5 months
Maybe this isn’t exactly your company, but you can probably see at least a grain of truth here.
The reality is everyone in the company is responsible for “Revenue Generation”.
“Revenue Generation” is a companywide mission that is as important as “health” is for a person. For a person to be as healthy as possible they can’t just focus on being clean, getting enough sleep, reducing stress, eating right, exercising, dental maintenance or any other single or small combination of things. The health of a human is about the total human. We have learned if we neglect or stress any part of the human body another part will compensate (for a while) until both the neglected and the compensating part expire.
The “Revenue Generation” mission for your business is exactly the same. All parts need to be aligned and working on the same mission. They need to be supporting each other in an aligned way and only compensating for other parts for very short periods of time, while both parts correct or risk both expiring.
Sales is often guilty of carrying the ball for everyone and then rather than demanding the other parts step up, sales plays the martyr. As long as sales are doing everyone’s job they can blackmail the rest of the organization as well as blaming them for failure at the same time.
Sales often says we have to
- Find the leads
- Develop the message
- Design the package the customer really wants
- Prepare the proposals and the pricing
- Build the customer relationships that keep us in the game
- Use our relationship to get the margins we get
- Fix problems with the product and business model to overcome our ridiculously high price
Since most people in the company don’t want to do sales and claim no skill or knowledge in this area the game continues.
Marketing has a similar story. If it weren’t for the marketing department
- The brand would be a mess
- The website would drive customers away
- We would have no message
- Everything we publish would have a cheap look and feel
- The market would have NO idea who we are
- Our SEO numbers would be terrible
Just like with the health of a person there needs to be a plan and all parts of the organization need to be aligned with the same plan and not forcing other parts of the organization to support them by over compensating and then expiring!
No one in the company gets to shun the responsibility for “Revenue Generation.” In the 21st century the success of B2B companies is based on bringing long-term value to our buyers because we care as much about their success as we do our own and the customers know it.
When healthy, every part of the body does its own job and we feel great. When a company is continually producing more profitable revenue, engineering designs for the customer, marketing speaks to and with the customer, leadership organizes to partner with the customer, sales facilitates both organization’s needs and assures that everyone gets value for the short-term and the long-term, and operations delivers on time and on budget.
Humans and companies are at their healthiest when we have the discipline to make sure all parts are exercised and accountable to the whole. As soon as any part is negligent the rest tries to make up the difference and starts a steady decline that must be reversed, or it will expire.
Don’t expire! Get your whole “Revenue Generation” team in the game for fun and profit and like any great team member settle for nothing less.
What do you think?
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