Revenue Traction in a Startup World

Now more than ever revenue traction is a life or death proposition for new businesses during the current economic climate. With our original Outsourced Business Development Practice we were able to help our clients succeed in the aftermath of the tech bust earlier this decade. Since launching our Sales Process Optimization Practice in the last couple of years, we’re thrilled to say we’re batting 1000 with guiding our clients to rapid revenue growth in over a dozen engagements. These successes have been directly or indirectly written about in several leading publications and blogs including iMediaConnection (the leading trade publication for the Interactive Marketing Industry), VC Journal, Newsosaur (high profile blog for the Internet news industry written by an investor/advisor and industry veteran), Private Equity Week, and NewsInnovation.com (site created by David Cohn and Jeff Jarvis, the leading pundit in New Media and author of the new book What Would Google Do?). [Please note that VC Journal and Private Equity Week is only available to subscribers and via reprints]

The great news is that all is not doom and gloom during a recession as Dave Chase wrote about for iMediaConnection – How brands thrived during the Great Depression. In fact, our clients are thriving. One even had a recent exit that builit on the strength Sales Process Optimization that created a world class telesales machine which was a core reason for the acquisition. The best thing about the successes highlighted below is that these companies can succeed without an exit as a result of the sales traction they have achieved. These companies represent a wide array of business from Internet media to a SaaS software solution to company providing energy savings solutions for building owners to a lead generation company for educational institutions. A common thread is that all have highly fragmented customer bases where traditional, expensive shoe-leather sales models don’t pencil out so we helped them implement a more successful model.

In the midst of the negativity in the press, it’s great to hear success stories. The following is a sampling across 4 companies:

• In the Fall of 2006, this company had just surpassed 1,000,000 customer transactions per month that they get paid on. After restructuring their end-to-end sales process including lead generation through retention programs, two years later they were at 18,700,000 customer transactions per month. Since revenue correlated with those transactions, their revenue has increased 700% and they achieved their first profit after years of major losses (greater than $5MM per year).
• We worked with this next company over a 6-month project that saw their revenue grow from $2MM to over $3MM per month and their sales cycle nearly cut in half from 45 days to 25 days.
• We recently wrapped up a 4-month project that saw this company grow new customers per month from 10 to 25 while reducing their sales cycle from 4.5 months to 2 months. Last month, they achieved their single highest revenue day in their history as well as a record sales month.
• The final company we’ll feature has a much longer sales cycle and complex sales process which we’ve helped them reduce from a 2 year sales cycle to 6 to 12 months. Over the course of the 8-month project, their sales pipeline grew from a $3MM pipeline to a higher quality, more qualified pipeline of $1722MM. Thus far, this has translated into their new installations per month growing four-fold.

We were able to guide these successes by applying a 13 phase process that takes the companies through a rigorous set of processes and workshops that elevate the company’s effectiveness. If you’d like an overview of the 13 phase process, click on any of the partners on our About Us page for our contact information.

13 Phase Sales Process Optimization overview