Beverlee Rasmussen CEC PCC Did you know small business owners can get into trouble earning too much revenue?
At times, too many sales over-stimulates a small business and not having enough slows business to a halt.
So how can you find the perfect balance?
Let’s start with a definition
Sometimes revenue gets referred to as profit or cash. I want to clear that up before we get any further.
Revenue is money your business earns from the sale of goods and services to customers.
These are your “sales.” They count as revenue whether you’ve collected payment yet or not.
Gross revenue (sales) – the total brought in from the sale of products or
services with no adjustments made for discounts, returns, or taxes.
Net revenue (sales) – calculated by taking your gross sales and subtracting returns, sales allowances, discounts, taxes, and damaged
goods.
How to increase your revenue
Now that we are on the same page, I want to show you a case study.
It’s about one of my clients and his IT company. In a coaching session, we talked about the four main factors that impact revenue: sales, service, market and innovation.
Then he used them to quadruple his sales and become the lead in his geographical trading areas.
Here’s how it happened:
To increase sales, he first looked at adding new INNOVATIVE products and expanding his geographic market area. He bundled and unbundled several of his services before settling on a “one” offering strategy with a higher price point.
Then he created more effective customer SERVICE systems that could be followed easily by everyone on his team.
To improve his MARKETING, he sought out a web marketing company that would provide him with a vibrant responsive web site, weekly blogs and a monthly newsletter.
Knowing that he was great at closing SALES and not as great at getting the leads, he hired a lead generation company to feed him opportunities.
It’s inspiring to see the changes small business owners embrace!
How he increased his revenue, might not be how you need to.
Maybe you could look at dropping products or services that aren’t serving you anymore? Or invest in sales training for your team?
Examine your sales, market, service and innovation to grow your revenue.
Why stop increasing your revenue?
In the words of Bob Barker:
The Price is Right.
If you get too many orders for your amazing services with no capacity to fulfill the orders… you risk having angry customers.
Bid and win too many new constructions jobs without planning for how you are going to manage the costs… you could find yourself deep in debt.
In both of these situation the price is not right.
Growing too quickly can be disastrous without the right systems and structures in place.
Also increasing your revenue means increasing costs. You might have to expand your physical space, purchase new equipment and/or add new employees.
How much cash are you going to need to support the revenue increase you want?
If your revenue is going up, can you physically handle this growth within your existing operation?
Is the price right?
Your thoughts!
I hope you find the perfect balance between increasing your revenue and respecting your capacity.
Here’s to everyone quadrupling sales!
In the meantime, what advice do you have on increasing revenue? What’s worked for you?
I always want to hear from you!
Until next week, enjoy your Entrepreneurial Journey!
