Many times, the gaps in revenue are not a function of the sales teams.
That’s a bold statement, so let it sink in for a minute.
However, we find that it's often a function of the process and data they have to go to market for acquiring, retaining, and expanding customers. That’s why we believe a data-driven revenue growth strategy is essential. We call it The Revenue Room™.
The Revenue Room™ integrates the functions within an organization that are critical to revenue development, from sales to marketing to finance and more, to develop a comprehensive, targeted approach to aligning data, product, and revenue strategy. Data intelligence and alignment are keys to refining your sales process.
Avoiding the Data Disconnect
Often, revenue intelligence data is collected, but it’s not being utilized for better decision-making. For example, there’s a misconception that everything useful about clients exists in the CRM. That’s simply not true, especially when you are doing sales forecasting and empowering your sales team. There’s a lot of data that sits outside your CRM that is crucial to how you sell.
Often, there is a disconnect with the data collected. The average company has 17 petabytes of data, and nearly 60% of that data is no longer being actively used or managed. It’s often scattered across different platforms, cloud providers, and third-party applications. It may be siloed in different departments or only exist in individual salespeople’s notes. Curating and blending the data into a single source of revenue truth are the keys to delivering on the most important KPIs. Instead of churn, for example, a company might have strong retention, but they see their wallet share is not moving. That’s often an upsell expansion issue. It might be that sales teams aren’t focusing on upsell opportunities, or you may not have the right products to grow your share of business.
Regardless, understanding your most important KPIs and then tracking them consistently will help everyone stay focused on the key revenue drivers. However, this only works if you can capture all the data from your CRM and different sources with an easy way to visualize it.
Finding the Missing Data Link
Real-time reporting with a single source of revenue truth can empower you to:
- Uncover hidden opportunities to grow revenue
- Identify bottlenecks in the sales, marketing, or product cycle
- Benchmark performance with hard data to focus efforts
- Empower your team to make data-driven decisions
A Forbes Insight analysis showed the power of this data in a unified view that impacts customer experience and sales success. Those surveyed reported these benefits: - 57%: Provide greater ability to target and optimize for specific customers
- 56%: Improve consistency of touchpoints across channels
- 51%: Provide greater context to engagements
- 49%: More accurately predict customer needs and desires
- 45%: Achieve higher conversion rates
- 25%: Secure more meaningful feedback for products and services
Despite the obvious benefits, 87% of marketers say data is their most under-utilized asset. Seth Marrs, principal analyst at Forrester, put it this way: “Data visibility has been a missing link, preventing sales and marketing teams from aligning.” The Power of First-Party Data
First-party data is information you gather directly from your customers or prospects. The most common is tracking behavior on your website. When you see prospects who are reading articles, looking at products or services, or doing deep dives into solutions briefs or product specs, they are sending intent signals.
Leveraging first-party data is powerful. Let’s say someone keeps coming back to articles about supply chain optimization. You have newsletters focused on the supply chain, an event coming up about optimization, and an active supply chain community. You will want to get that prospect engaged with each of these touchpoints and provide relevant messaging for this prospect.
Making a Personal Connection
With the right data in hand, you can personalize messaging, and it’s critical to do so. A McKinsey study shows that 71% of consumers expect personalization, and 76% are frustrated when it doesn’t happen. However, personalization is just part of the equation. Success comes from personalization plus relevancy. If the content is relevant, no amount of personalization will matter.
Managing Misalignment and Churn
One of the biggest reasons for customer churn is what we call “Your Own Dang Fault” — failing to control program performance that is within your ability to do so. A salesperson might sign a broad-ranging deal with multiple layers. The client is happy, and the salesperson has done their job. But… when it gets to the service delivery team, they struggle to figure out exactly what was sold.
So, they try to deploy programs that deliver on expectations — but may fall short.
If you are using data to assess your programs, you can diagnose when you have an overexuberant salesperson who is selling products that lead to customer dissatisfaction or programs that aren’t meeting client objectives. You can then coach up that salesperson to help them sell the right product mix that meets customer goals.
The digital information you have is important to prove the case to the salesperson, who may need persuading to change their approach.
On the other hand, maybe the salesperson did sell the exact right product mix. You have the data to back it up, so you can go to the customer success team and ensure they deliver on the promises. Tracking these metrics against the goals will show whether you are hitting the targets. If not, you need to pivot and re-assess. This improves the overall customer experience.
Building Sustainable Revenue Growth
In sales, you need every possible edge to build sustainable growth. McKinsey research shows that the top performers generate about 2.6 times the sales ROI of poor performers, driving profitability. Equipping your team with the right tools and the comprehensive data they need can help you join the ranks of top performers to scale your revenue. H2K Labs empowers midsize B2B companies to scale and excel through data. We focus on data strategy, revenue strategy, and product strategy — leveraging cutting-edge data intelligence cloud designed to fuel top and bottom-line growth.
Contact H2K Labs today to discuss how a comprehensive data, revenue, and product strategy can deliver on your revenue goals. Revenue Room™ Connect: Built to Fuel What's Next
Join Revenue Room™ Connect now for free to access expert insights, attend high-impact events, connect with industry peers, and gain the strategic tools to fuel sustainable revenue growth. About the Author
Heather Holst-Knudsen is a distinguished figure and expert in the events, media, marketing and technology sectors. Using her extensive experience, she guides clients in adapting to structural economic and market changes, seizing the chance to innovate and evolve. She specializes in digital and data disruption and opportunity, exploring how these overarching factors can impact revenue growth, customer-centricity, operational efficiency, profit margins, and the overall valuation of companies in both public and private markets.
Her journey began at her family business, Thomas Publishing Company, where she honed her skills. She further expanded her expertise by holding positions at early industry giants Miller Freeman, Reed Elsevier, and IDG. Returning to Thomas Publishing, Heather founded and spearheaded Manufacturing Enterprise Communications, an integrated media portfolio connecting buyers and sellers in the manufacturing and technology sectors. Starting in 2015 and spanning the next seven years, she leveraged her expertise as a revenue and business leader in various SaaS businesses, including Feathr, Gleanin, Brella and Edflex.
Heather is deeply passionate about digital innovation, data monetization, and AI and how these strategies fuel revenue growth, profitability, and company valuation. To serve and create value for clients in these areas, she launched H2K Labs, dedicated to generating and leveraging value through data for media, business information, events, and adjacent technology and service markets. 
