By Latané Conant

When tumultuous economic times dominate the news cycle, a lot of companies scale back on investments and wait to see what unfolds. Of course, they don’t want to take their foot off the gas in terms of goals, which means revenue teams need to be increasingly strategic about their efforts to drive predictable revenue.

While that may feel like a daunting task, it’s actually an opportunity for revenue leaders to look at systems, processes, data, and tech to make sure you’re investing your time, energy, and budget as efficiently as possible. Here are four tips for how revenue leaders can adapt to changing times.

1. Get aligned

First things first: Make sure your whole revenue team is working toward the same goals. Are your marketing, sales, customer success, and RevOps teams all aligned in the ways that matter? Are they measuring the same things? Is it crystal clear who’s responsible for what?

Now is the time for all players to start playing like a unified team if you haven’t already been. That means managing your revenue team budget like a joint checking account and making the hard decisions together. Maximizing efficiency requires everyone to be on the same page at every step of the way.

2. Find the red

Another key to maximizing efficiency is taking the time to “find the red.” In other words, drill down into your operations to find the areas where you’re wasting time, money, or energy. And be prepared: The leaky spots will not necessarily be obvious. After all, no one thinks they’re wasting money or investing it in the wrong places. But creating a culture of finding big and small ways to optimize efficiency will pay dividends. 

One important way to do that is to re-evaluate your tech stack. Is there waste or duplication? Is your technology keeping your whole revenue team in sync on goals and metrics? If not, look at combining or replacing solutions where appropriate.

3. Make the most of your most expensive resource

Even with smaller budgets, there will always be deals to be closed. There may be fewer of them, but that just makes it more important than ever to ensure that you’re not leaving any opportunities unworked.

That means making the most of your most expensive resource: Your sellers’ time. You can continue to generate predictable revenue despite the shifting economic times if your sellers devote their energy to the accounts that are most likely to convert to revenue as quickly as possible.

When you work holistically as a revenue team, you can find the low-hanging fruit and get into deals before the competition. The easiest accounts to sell into are the ones that have a demonstrated need for your solution — and you can identify those by harnessing pre-intent data in addition to intent data.

Pre-intent data gives you the earliest signals that an account may be in market soon for what you offer so you can start working the opportunity sooner than your competition.

4. Understand how the buyer’s journey has changed

As companies shift the way they make purchase decisions, the buying journey itself will look different as well. More and new personas will be involved in decision-making, and new contracts and renewals will face increasing scrutiny. The ROI calculation will be rigorous and non-negotiable.

All those changes necessitate a different approach from the entire revenue team. Multithreading will be essential, meaning marketing, sales, and customer success will all need to develop effective plays at each stage, for each persona, to bring all the right people along on this new journey.

Conclusion

In a changing economy, the revenue teams that intentionally and strategically prioritize efficiency will be prepared to adapt to new expectations and demands. By understanding the new buying journey, investing time and resources in the right places, eliminating the red, and getting fully aligned, you’ll set yourself on the path to predictable revenue growth. And that will give you an advantage over the competitors who simply scale back and wait to see what unfolds.

Latané Conant is the Chief Market Officer of 6sense and author of the bestselling book No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls. She’s passionate about empowering marketing leaders to confidently lead their teams, company, and industry into the future. Latané is laser-focused on leveraging technology and data to build marketing programs that result in deals, not just leads. She’s known across the industry for her creativity, competitiveness, and boundless energy.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

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