Revenue Disruption: Game-Changing Sales and Marketing Strategies to Accelerate Growth

Walk Before You Run

So, how should your company go about defining its own revenue cycle process? As in almost all endeavors, the best approach is to start simply, then learn and gain experience. Keep looking for ways to improve and evolve your model as your insight grows; don’t be afraid to discard aspects that aren’t working or to expand areas that provide deeper insights. And of course, results will vary depending on the organization. I have seen very successful RPM adopters end up with very different Revenue Cycle Models. Some, after several years of experience and a sophisticated customer buying process that spans months or even years, might include a dozen or more stages, while others will start with only three or four. Everyone learns to walk before they can run.

But why have stages at all? After all, the buyer, who really controls the process, couldn’t care less about your revenue stages. They just want to learn, to be treated right, and decide what they want on their own terms and schedules.

However, there are two key reasons for introducing stages as the foundation of the RPM process. First, they form the basis for measurement; after all, you can’t improve a process if you can’t measure it. Therefore, you must “take the buyer’s temperature” at various points along the continuous buying cycle. These places form the boundaries of each stage, and you give your measurements real meaning and substance by defining them in rigorous terms.

The second reason to divide the buying ...