Plateau in Sales Revenue?

Published: October 27, 2015, By Stephanie Millman

Having sales growth is one of the most invigorating things to experience as a part of a leadership team. Once you’ve been part of strong growth, you want it again and again. But every company reaches a revenue plateau. Most young organizations get a foothold on a market with a strong sales/distribution team delivering a desired product/service to the market but fail to recognize when adjustments need to be made to offset an unavoidable flat line in sales once the immediate market has been approached.

They find that no matter how hard they pound on the sales team, the numbers barely move. “The beatings will continue until performance improves!” A flat line on sales revenue means you need to do something different. Something like innovating and bringing a new revolutionary product or feature to market OR, trying something “New & Improved” by reassessing your marketing strategy. I’m often blown away at how few companies have a marketing plan tied to a marketing strategy that supports the business objectives.

Some organizations believe they have a marketing effort, which in reality is simply a sales support role that manages lead fulfillment and literature distribution, coordinates tradeshow activity and facilitates direct mailers. But it takes a one-year, two-year and three-year assessment of your market trends, brand awareness and goals in different industries as well as a roadmap for your product portfolio and the categories they represent to develop a marketing strategy. And that strategy, tied to the business plan, will naturally launch you into a beautiful list of timed and purposeful action items.

Yes, marketing takes an investment. And to measure the investment, you’ll need to develop processes to track the changes in activity, which can be as simple as monitoring direct marketing and online activities. But for a more holistic view of the landscape, pair this direct response data with any fluctuations in a market share report or lifts in sales/lead activity. Rarely can you track marketing results directly to sales revenue… mostly only as a correlation.

Sales support is critical to support your sales growth. But if you find that you’re revenue has plateaued, consider reaching deep and developing a plan… then work your plan and growth will most likely be yours again!