At the beginning of the year, you set targets and goals for your business’s revenue. As the year’s progressed, however, you’ve noticed that you haven’t quite hit those numbers — and you want to turn it around before the end of Q4. To find out more about how you can do this, we asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council the following:
“The last few quarters’ revenue have been below the targets you set at the beginning of the year. What is a good approach to tackling this issue?”
How to Make Your Revenue Targets
Here’s what they had to say:
1. Perform a Full Top-to-Bottom Audit
“If you’re not hitting your projected revenues throughout the year, it’s time to take a step back and look into all aspects of your business — your sales funnel, onboarding, methods of retaining customers, areas in the customer experience where you may be losing buyers, online reputation, content, etc. Spend one to two week analyzing everything, then create an action plan to improve.” ~ Connor Gillivan, FreeeUp
2. Boost Your Inbound Marketing Efforts
“Start implementing inbound marketing strategies to increase revenue! Inbound marketing encourages customers to come to your business instead of your brand trying to search for the customer. Have a solid understanding of your ideal customer and then create your website to attract them with resources and useful, searchable content. Become the solution to their problem with inbound marketing.” ~ Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
3. Narrow Your Focus
“Companies attempt to expand into too many revenue streams by adding ancillary products and targeting new demographics. It sounds great on the surface, but it takes resources from what matters most. I’ve fallen into this trap and the solution was to say no to more products. We concentrated on what brought in the revenue — the “bread and butter.” It sounds counter-intuitive, but may be your answer.” ~ Brian Greenberg, True Blue Life Insurance
4. Reverse-Engineer the Problem
“Drill down on the reasons why you aren’t hitting your goals. Are you not attracting enough new customers? Are your customers canceling? Then drill down even more. Why are customers canceling? Talk to customers and your product team to determine how you can fix this. Reverse-engineering things like this help you drill down to the root problem and then quickly start fixing it.” ~ Jared Brown, Hubstaff Talent
5. Reassess Your Goals
“If your revenue is off the mark, there is a good chance your goals were not realistic. Go back and reassess those financial goals and make sure they are attainable. You may find it to be more about your metrics being off and less about your revenue being down.” ~ Zach Binder, Bell + Ivy
6. Cut Costs Where You Can
“It’s important to adjust your financial outlook and cut costs where you can at this stage, assuming it’s a prolonged revenue drought. Projects that aren’t necessary, such as a secondary product line might need to be put on hold. Focus on your bread and butter for revenue, trying to grow there while investing in your next primary revenue source. Pause all other unnecessary projects.” ~ Andy Karuza, FenSens
7. Listen to Your Customers
“If your sales are faltering, you may want to consider listening to your customer base. The reason business owners are successful is because people buy their products. When you notice sales declining, take to social media and send out feedback forms to find out why. Ask consumers how you can improve and set realistic expectations the following quarter.” ~ Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
8. Make Sure Your Team is Following Up with Leads
“If your team isn’t following up with leads, you may not be able to reach your revenue targets. Most sales aren’t made in the first communication. Make sure you coach your team on how to properly follow up with leads at the right time in order to have a better chance of meeting your revenue targets.” ~ John Turner, SeedProd LL
9. Review Your Lead Qualification Process
“If you’re not hitting your revenue targets, it may be because you’re not focusing on your lead generation. If your sales team isn’t spending enough time working on turning solid leads into customers, you’re missing out on an opportunity to make revenue. Look at your lead qualification process and how you can improve it. Also, make sure that your content is targeted towards your ideal leads.” ~ Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
10. Focus on Retaining Customers
“As important as it is to acquire new customers, it’s also crucial to focus on the ones you already have because they’re willing to spend more. Study the drop points created by customers during the buying process to see where they fall off instead of purchasing. Is there a noticeable pattern taking place? Is there more you can do to meet their needs?” ~ Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
11. Invest in Sales Training
“Aside from evaluating financials, implementing new sales training can help improve declining revenue. For businesses that sell digital products only, the best way to improve declining revenue is to determine where customers are losing interest in your sales funnel and then optimizing the cycle based on specific data.” ~ Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC
12. Reset or Realign Your Targets
“You’re either off with your estimates or previous targets are not met from your team for some reason. If your general ballpark is too generous, reset expectations and the rest of your plan. Otherwise, optimize the in-house resources through training or an influx of manpower to keep targets in place.” ~ Mario Peshev, DevriX
13. Expand Your Market
“If it’s difficult to sell to your current market, it might be time to consider expansion. Are you catering to an audience that’s big enough for what you’re selling? Could you sell in other cities, states or countries? These are important questions to consider if you aren’t hitting your target and revenue consistently falls short.” ~ Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
14. Improve Your Metrics
“If your revenue isn’t hitting the mark, that means there’s something missing in the way you track and analyze your metrics. They should be a tool used often to gauge where your company is at financially and how it can improve. This will help you find correlations between your current business strategy and what isn’t working so you can refine it for the future.” ~ Jared Atchison, WPForms
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