revenue performance transformation - grow your business sustainably

Revenue Performance Transformation

A step change in revenue process development and execution

Revenue Transformation Roadmap

Before they start with us, nearly every client we’ve worked with has by that

point already been on a long, frustrating journey.

• At least one new Sales Director and perhaps a Sales Manager or two

• Conducted a “spill and fill” on the sales force – out with the non-

performers replaced by new people who look just like the people they

replace.

• A sales training organisations will have rolled out the latest version of

their sales training program for the re-energised sales force and

• In more than half of cases there will have been a generous investment

in a new CRM solution.

Despite all this money and effort “it” still isn’t working and the organisation

remains frustrated by inconsistent, unpredictable and invariably

unprofitable sales performance.

This is usually where we “Start”.

A step change in execution | World-class revenue performance 2

The central importance of the buyer’s journey

The entire Revenue Performance Management Model is centred on two simple

yet fundamental concepts:

• The need to understand the problems and needs that your customers

(“buyers” in our terminology) have – that you solve and address; and

• The process or “journey” which those buyers proceed down when they try

solve those problems and address those needs.

Everything which follows – through the Revenue Performance Diagnostic,

Revenue School and ultimately to the implementation of your new processes

and revenue model – is based around the buyer’s journey.

Why is the buyer’s journey so important?

Our research and client experience

has proved that truly world-class revenue creation begins and ends with the

premise that the customer’s buying process or buying journey must inform the

selling process to ensure that the seller is doing the right thing at the right time

in the right way.

The seller’s journey – which should mirror the buyer’s journey – becomes the

basis for the construction of an end-to-end revenue process incorporating all

the activities required to help buyers progress along their journey towards a

purchase (or a sale for the seller).

As a result Sales, marketing, business development etc are no longer viewed

as separate functions, but critical links in an integrated, aligned selling process

where everybody’s job is to make more revenue!

A customer-centric Revenue Funnel.


The Buyer’s Journey…….

….informs the Seller’s Journey – or Process


Revenue Performance Diagnostic

The RPM process begins with the Revenue Performance Diagnostic - a

comprehensive evaluation of your sales, marketing and business development

approach, activities and processes which will provide you and us with insight

into the aspects of your revenue model that are working well, those that are

not, and why or why not.

Typically taking between 3 and 6 weeks to complete depending on the size

and complexity of your organisation and the scope of coverage required, the

Diagnostic essentially involves four types of activities:

• Interviews with your key managers and staff

• Prova psychographic and competency profiling for your key people

• A Sales “Pulse Assessment” involving “in-the-field” assessments of sales

people, review of how they spend their time and the tools and support

systems available to them

• Completion of surveys covering the 17 key enablers of revenue

performance and

• Several ½ day workshops for managers, staff and other key stakeholders.

Our work culminates with the delivery of a report comprising:

• Revenue Performance Scorecard benchmarking your revenue process

across 36 Key Performance Indicators

• A prioritised Revenue Risk Assessment identifying your key revenue risks

and assigning them an order of priority

• Prova Profiling Assessments for your key managers and sales people;

• An assessment of your organisation’s readiness for change and

• A five year predictive Revenue Model based on the “As Is” state of your

current revenue process, and under a series of “What If” scenarios

Revenue Performance Scorecard

Prova Profiling Assessments

Revenue Risk Assessment


RevenueSchool™

Based on the findings and recommendations from the Revenue Performance

Diagnostic, RevenueSchool™ delivers the RevenuePlan™ the blueprint we

then use to develop and then rhythmically and systematically execute the

sales and marketing tactics and processes to deliver the desired revenue

results.

RevenueSchool™ is a proven approach to collaboratively developing clear,

granular and actionable revenue plans, and lays the platform for a rigorous,

process-based approach to revenue creation.

RevenueSchool™ is an intensive “Boot Camp” for revenue process

improvement and growth, where our experienced facilitators work with your

senior sales, marketing and other customer-facing executives to develop

highly actionable plans for sustained, profitable and measurable top line

growth.

At Baker Tilly we use RevenueSchool™ to deliver robust multi-year plans

featuring integrated views of sales, marketing, service and finance all aligned

around a clear, sustainable revenue strategy and process.

RevenueSchool™ produces highly integrated process development and

implementation plans which can be more effectively embedded because we:

• Document your RevenuePlan™ in detail, including a crystal clear, single

page version;

• Identify all actions and processes necessary for the effective execution of

your Plan; and

• Assist with the execution of the Plan and its roll-out into your business

RevenueSchool™ – Content

Plan on a single page


RevenueSchool™ – Process & Content

Objectives

• How much?

• Of what?

• By When?

Problems Markets

• Do we solve

problems, or

address needs?

• What problems

do we actually

solve?

• Why do customers

pay us?

• What are they

paying us for?

• What are they

really buying?

• Who most has the

problems that

we solve?

• How many

organisations

have these

problems?

• How bad is their

“pain”?

• Who (within these

organisations) is most

affected?

• What are we the

best at?

• What are our

solutions / offerings?

• Do they address the

business problems?

• Are there things

that we could, or

should be best at?

• Implications for

resourcing and

investment?

Strategy

• How does our

sales & marketing

work today?

• What do we sell?

• To whom do we

sell?

• Through whom do

we sell?

• At what price &

margin?

• How effective?

Customers

• Who are they

and what are their

objectives?

• What are their

challenges and

problems?

• How do they buy

solutions to this

problem?

• What does the Ideal

customer look like?

• Where do we find

them?

Competition

• Who else solves

the problem?

• Who are our

competitors?

• Relative strengths

& weaknesses?

• What is our

competitive

strategy and

position?

• Effectiveness?

RevenueSchool™ follows a very logical structure. Essentially we ask and then answer some very basic question about

your business:

• How much do you need to sell? For what return?

• Who will you sell to? At what price?

• How will you find them, reach them and sell to them?

• When you find them, what will you sell them?

• Who will you have to defeat to do that?

• What resources do you have available?

Are they adequate?

• What constraints will inhibit you?

• What risks will you need to mitigate?

Value

Proposition


Tactics Buyers

Journey Execution Metrics Resources Review

• What does the

buyers journey

look like?

• How quickly do

they progress?

• At what rate do

prospects leak?

• How does their

journey map

against our sales

process?

• What tactics can

we employ to progress

prospects through the

funnel?

• Optimise and cost?

• Recycling tactics:

- Top of Funnel

- Bottom of Funnel

• Create set-up and

rhythm tactical plans

• Do we have the

resources

necessary to

execute the plan?

- sales

- presales

- support

- infrastructure

• Do our people have

the right skills to

execute the plan?

• Training implications?

Improve

• What should we

measure?

• When?

• How will we capture

the data?

• How will it be

reported?

• Benchmarking

• How should we

put all the pieces

in place and in what

order?

• When?

• Project management?

• What risks do we need

to manage?

• Strategy

• Resources

• Tactics

• Rhythm Plan

• Brainstorm

• 6mths, then

annual review

• Regular optimisation

• Continuous improvement

• Process measurement &

reporting

The concept of the buyer’s journey is again central to the logic that runs through the entire process of Revenue School.

What are the specific journey’s that your buyers are on, and how do we develop and set in place a parallel, symbiotic

selling process incorporating the tactics, business processes, recruitment, training, technologies and performance

measures to drive your buyers down their journeys more rhythmically, predictably and sustainably.

A detailed and highly actionable plan addressing all those questions is the ultimate output of RevenueSchool™.

RevenueSchool™ – Process & Content


Implementation Planning

Following RevenueSchool™ we take stock and mutually agree on the content, structure and direction of

the Revenue Plan. Armed usually for the first time with a holistic end-to-end view of your revenue model,

it’s important to catch our breath and take stock of where we are before we move ahead to

implementation.

It is at this point that we also discuss and agree the pace of change your company is prepared and able to

adopt. There will be a lot of other things going on in your organisation and it’s crucial to take account of

these before moving forward with a project which by its nature will reach out and touch a lot more than just

the marketing and sales groups.

As we approach this part of the journey, we agree and lock down the fundamental tenets for your new

revenue process. These will include but might not necessarily be limited to:

MARKETING

• What problem(s) you solve;

• Where you find customers with those problem

• If the market size can sustain your revenue goals

• What your ideal customer “looks” like and the criteria for recognising them

• How Marketing should target & track demand creation

• What your ideal customers’ buyers’ journey looks like, how it is structured

and the stages required in your parallel selling process

• Milestones that prove each stage is complete

• The optimum velocity for opportunities to move between stages

• Typical lead attrition between stages

• The format, structure and content for lead nurturing programs

• Technology for marketing automation & lead scoring

• Tactics and processes for recycling opportunity leakage

• Tools to use when selling & reporting in each stage

• Who plays a role in each stage (presales, partners, management, etc)

• A structure for forecasting based on funnel stage / win probability

• How to qualify-out of sales that show no progress – and how to recycle those

opportunities

• What new sales hires should learn in induction and ongoing professional

development

• What new sales managers should learn on promotion and ongoing professional

development

• Using incentives to drive behaviours that drive sales

• Linking methodologies & tools to achieve consistency and avoid duplication

• The format and approach for opportunity & account reviews

• Technology for sales analysis & reporting

SALES


Implementation Planning

The Implementation Planning stage is about setting the scene and getting prepared

for change management, not training. The work done to date is the foundation for

sustainability.

From this point in the journey our emphasis switches from design and development to

execution.

This involves the introduction of change management and project management

expertise into the skills mix from our side. Although we separate the Diagnostic and

RevenueSchool™ stages more distinctly from Implementation & Transformation (aka

program build and execution) we’ve had a lot of experience now getting the handover

to our project managers right.

On larger projects we’ll usually insist on our client appointing a full-time or almost full-

time project owner / co-ordinator of their own to work side by side with our project

manager(s).

The total number of other Baker Tilly RPM resources required depends on the level,

number and skills of the resources you are willing and able to commit. In the past we

have done everything from supplying a single project manager to coordinate the

actions of a client team through to supplying all the resources ourselves. In the latter

instance the maximum number of people ever supplied by us to a project team to

support a client transformation project was four (excluding the project manager) and

those people were on site full time for nearly 4 months.

At the conclusion of the Implementation Planning stage detailed Revenue Process

Maps and the Project Execution Plans have been agreed. All is in readiness for

implementation!

Revenue Process Maps

Project Execution Plans


Implement, Transform & Optimise

When it comes to implementation, like the rest of the process we work to a consistent,

repeatable, proven formula; which looks like this.

Not every part will be relevant for every organisation but generically it works as follows:

The Build

We call the first stage of implementation “The Build” because it’s where the “heavy lifting” takes place. Typically it’s a 2-3 month task but it can take longer on larger or

more complex engagements. The Build is where the tactics developed in the Revenue Plan are brought to life.

A kick-off workshop gets the Build underway where we confirm how short-and long-term outcomes will be resourced and measured, how the overall project is to be

managed, and of course, who is going to do what. Most of this will have been covered already during Implementation Planning, but we’ve found too much

communication and re-affirmation of what’s going on is not enough. We’ll also confirm the division of labour and ownership across the project work streams.. People will

be grouped into sub-teams each under a team leader who in turn reports to the Baker Tilly Project Leader. Usually we’ll use three or four sub-teams depending on the

project plan and work required.

These are like family groupings. Build “tactics” residing in each group are similar by nature. They require the same subject matter expertise to complete them, and some

cannot be started until others are competed (e.g. marketing collateral cannot be written until research is completed, etc.). We group tasks and people this way because

it pools resources appropriately and because the sub-teams can work in parallel and accelerate the Build. Rarely do we allow people to work in more than one sub-team,

and the Project Leader continually monitors the assignments you have already made with this in mind.

All the weekly meeting schedules, agendas and various communication strategies and methods together basically with all the tools required to manage and coordinate

the Build are now more or less standardised after being developed and honed on previous projects. We’ve labelled it the Revenue Performance Transformation Model

and it contains a wealth of codified lessons and experience s from so many previous projects with other clients.

The same weekly governance and communication structure repeats throughout the life of the Build. It is designed to be a rhythmic, accountable approach to completing

all assigned tasks, at the right quality level and within the timelines agreed.

As the Build nears completion, we begin working with you and your team on the timeline for the installation of new tools, business rules and processes into the DNA of

the company.



The set-up for this next stage is almost exactly the same as for The Build. We convene an all-hands project meeting to review and confirm the outputs and quality of the

Build. The Baker Tilly Project Leader facilitates a detailed walk-through of the new revenue process from end-to-end, showing in detail how all the tools, resources and

actions created in the Build get integrated and tied together – by the processes. We also proscribe in detail the documentation requirements and standards for the new

process model and how this will be written.

We discuss and agree the training and development requirements for your managers, people and channels in light of the newly emerging revenue model. The Prova

profiling outputs are invaluable inputs to this part of the project.

We also discuss how what we refer to as “The Corkscrew” of opportunity recycling will be accomplished, and the workflows and division of labour required between

marketing and sales to execute it rhythmically and consistently.

Work assignments in this stage of the project fall into two categories and are managed within sub-groups or teams as in the Build.

2. Installation & Execution

2.1 Process Installation

This includes the education of staff on the new tactics and processes, the implementation of opportunity qualification and account planning processes, training people on

how to use the relevant methodologies (SPIN, deal planning, deal reviews, win/loss reviews, aggregation of competitive intelligence, sales manager coaching, forecast

validation, and other aspects of a properly functioning end-to-end sales process). It is critical all the elements operate as part of a system instead of as separate units,

and so our work in this stage is much more than contributing to training and running some seminars. It’s about putting all the pieces together so they work in an

integrated, predictable and repeatable fashion, and are easy to use.

Frequently we are involved in the development and delivery of custom-built education and hands-on coaching programs and we can recommend and introduce best-in-

class partner organisations to assist in this work.



Once the Build is complete, your new marketing and sales collateral will need to be positioned and used correctly, and this will require people learning new approaches to

selling. Baker Tilly can provide this skills training or we can work in collaboration with your own internal training people if required. We can also recommended partner

organisations with whom we have worked in the past. We heighten impact and minimise interruption to business by using the traditional workshop format only for content

that requires practice, role-play and feedback. Everything else gets pushed to more cost-effective delivery methods such as a libraries of webcasts, podcasts and other

online reference materials. We’ll help get your people’s heads and hands around all the tools and resources created in the Build stage, and to know how and when to

apply them - to standards of excellence internally and in front of customers and partners.

2. 2 Skills & Delivery

Eighty percent of new adult learning is forgotten within 30 days without reinforcement. It’s critical that your managers and sales people don't abandon what they have

learned.

We’ll collaborate with your team to produce a variety of interventions that remind staff of key concepts, show them how others are applying them, and the results being

achieved. From posters to videos to podcasts to e-learning modules, a variety of approaches are available in the classroom, to wireless devices, or to the PC. We’re

able to re-use materials developed for other clients and save you from having to re-invent the wheel. We’ll also continue to focus on helping your Sales Managers master

the art of sales coaching in the field, in sales meetings and in account reviews, to help them get closer to the sharp end of business and support their people.

On a monthly basis to begin with and then quarterly going forward, we will also work with your team to collect and collate actual progressive measures of progress

against plan. The things we will measure are the quantitative and qualitative success measures agreed at the original executive kick-off, the achievement of the targets

developed in the Revenue Modelling, and the achievement of the revenue and profit targets that underpin the project.

You will use this data to make small and frequent course corrections during the life of the project. Where elements in the revenue modelling are not improving at the

planned rate, you will have an opportunity to fix it while the deviation is small enough to be easily corrected. We will provide counsel and advice at each step.

3. Reinforcement & Benchmarking


The RPM Toolset RPM’s service components are closely aligned to the stages of the buying journey and end-to-end sales process – enabling either a holistic end-to-end solution

or a logical “cherry picking” approach to helping organisations solve their specific revenue performance problems. The tools brought to bear are invariably

different for each client because every client’s situation needs are different.

The approach and framework are consistent. The tools and components applied depend on the specific problems diagnosed in the revenue process.

Indicative Timeline

The accompanying graphic describes a process which from inception to completion

typically takes between 4 and 6 months.

Even at an initial scoping stage (i.e. before the first sod has been turned) it is not

possible to define the exact duration because

so much depends on what is discovered during the Diagnostic and what is then

developed during RevenueSchool™.

Resource and Time Requirements

Other than knowledge of your business, your customers and your offerings, no

special or expert knowledge or experience is required from you or your people. We

will show you everything you need to know during the process. One of our goals in

these projects is to make you and your team self sufficient as quickly as possible.

During the Diagnostic stage, your key people will be required to commit up to

approximately 2-3 days each, although that time will be scattered across a 4-6 week

period so they will hardly find it onerous.

During RevenueSchool™ they will be required to commit 3 days. It is up to you

whether those are three consecutive days or three single days spread over about a 3

week time-frame.

Once you move into Transformation / Implementation only the staff you nominate to

be involved in the project teams need to be involved. The level and scheduling of

that involvement is impossible to define until RevenueSchool™ has been completed.

Indicative RPM Project Timeline


© 2008 Baker Tilly UK Group LLP, all rights reserved

Baker Tilly Tax and Advisory Services LLP, Baker Tilly UK Audit LLP, Baker Tilly Corporate Finance LLP, Baker Tilly

Restructuring and Recovery LLP and Baker Tilly Tax and Accounting Limited are not authorised under the Financial Services and

Markets Act 2000 but we are able in certain circumstances to offer a limited range of investment services because we are

members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. We can provide these investment services if they are

an incidental part of the professional services we have been engaged to provide.

Baker Tilly & Co Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority to conduct a range of investment

business activities.

Scott Thompson

Head of Revenue Performance Management Group

Baker Tilly Tax and Accounting Limited

25 Farringdon Street

London, EC4A 4AB

Phone: 020 3201 8000

Direct Line: 020 3201 8264

Mobile: 07582 400788

Fax: 020 3201 8001

www.bakertilly.co.uk

http://www.bakertilly.co.uk/

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