Article

Top 2 Ways to Increase Revenue Without Increasing Headcount in 2023

20 December 2022

Jake Dunlap

“The world is changing so rapidly. If you don’t have a performance management mindset in 2023, you are going to be left behind.”

This is going to be a topic that is top of mind for everyone as 2022 wraps up, and we look ahead to sales trends in 2023.

It’s been a wild year, and with the uncertainty of things, 2023 will be all about how we can do more with less.

Many organizations know this starts with optimizing their sales process but are also looking for ways that they know (or are pretty sure) will work, and what are ways they can do this without having to spend a ton of dough.

Increasing revenue without increasing budget or headcount is one of the top questions we’ve been getting this past quarter as a revenue consultancy, so I’m answering it live with the top two things we advise our clients to do that will make the most impact with less or no extra budget.

1. Sales Technology – too many tools you’re underusing
2. Performance Management – process performance management & outbound performance management

Recap: Top 2 Ways to Increase Revenue Without Increasing Headcount in 2023

The important bits

- 2:42 – Most organizations have invested a lot of money in sales technology. The issue is that they only use 20-30% of these tools.
- 3:40 – 2023 is going to be all about doing more with less.
- 4:45 – Technology for many people has just been used to send more emails and create more data. These tools should allow us to do higher quality (not quantity) interactions.
- 5:28 – We have to move away from looking at activity metrics at the tip-top of the process because reps are doing so much more now.
- 6:24 – If you want to increase revenue, we have to ask our teams not to automate interactions, or use the latest bot, but allow them to show up and do higher-quality interactions.
- 7:21 – The strategy that got you here this year of sending all (in 2022) that wasn’t working, will also not work in 2023.
- 9:18 – Anytime you see your sales team doing something manually, you probably have something in your tech stack that could do that work for them
- 14:14 – Performance management for sales. This shouldn’t sound crazy, but virtually no one is doing it.
- 15:28 – In sales, we’ve got a problem. In sales, we don’t have a performance management process.
- 16:55 – In a dynamic world like today, you need to be looking at your process every month.
- 21:54 – Performance management is a mindset shift to making changes in real time.
- 23:08 – For a team of 20 SDRs, you’re spending about $108K roughly a month on them, and no one is optimizing the performance.
- 25:41 – The world is changing so rapidly that you have to have a performance management mindset in 2023, or you’re going to be left behind.

2023 Sales Trend #1

Sales Technology: Too Many Tools You’re Underusing (2:22 – 11:08)

Don’t let your eyes glaze over here as I mention technology because I’m going to tell you why sales technology matters.

Most organizations have invested a lot of money in sales tech. A LOT. Between $1,500-$2,000 per rep. And the biggest issue that causes sales technology to burn cash versus optimizing your team to close more deals is that companies only use 20-30% of these tools.

Let’s use sales engagement platforms as an example and behind-the-scenes automation. I’m not talking about sending automated emails but building various workflows that will allow you to push prospects to specific sequences based on whatever trigger versus having to manually do it. You probably think you’re already doing this, but to what extent?

If doing more with less is the goal in 2023, the time automation will save your sales team isn’t priceless. It has a price.

Best-in-class companies have 40 to 50 automations just for sales engagement saving their teams 2%, 3%, 4% of their time instead of remembering to follow up with a lead right after a trigger, throughout the year, etc. – and this adds up.

I’m seeing a dangerous sales trend with the use of technology where people are just using it to send all, send more, and create more data when the original purpose of these technologies was to allow us to have higher quality (not quantity) interactions.

And then we wonder why our outbound is broken.

Since we’re talking about quality over quantity, I’m going to parry a little bit here and quickly cover how this has also inadvertently affected teams tracking the wrong outbound metrics, and now we’re so obsessed with only what we can track.

We must move away from looking at activity metrics at the true tip-top of the process. Reps can do so much more now with channels like LinkedIn and video, but tracking isn’t always there, and you’re not going to hit high activity numbers when you’re customizing.

If you want to see an increase in revenue, you have to start to ask teams not to automate interactions or use the latest bot, but allow them to show up and do higher-quality interactions.

If Rachel can make 20 videos and book 3 meetings, let her do it. If Ryan is a great copywriter, let him send 40 customized emails every day. If Susan’s good at a mix of those things and making calls, let her do that.

But back to technology and automation before we move to the second way to increase revenue.

To complete this first step, you need to audit your technology stack and look for two things:

1. Understand what technology you don’t need and what you can consolidate as the big hitters expand their platforms to do more – this will help you free up some budget.
2. And secondly, every time you see your sales team doing something manually, you probably have something in your tech stack that can do that work for them to optimize the tools that you already have – saving your reps time and more money.

2023 Sales Trend #2

Performance Management for Sales: Process & Outbound (14:14 – 25:40)

This next one shouldn’t sound crazy, but virtually no one is doing this in sales.

If we think about our friends in Marketing, Marketing uses experts for everything. They employ experts for web design, brand, performance marketing and advertising, operations, Hubspot optimization, etc. Marketing uses specific experts at specific disciplines versus trying to hire everybody internally and create jack of all trades that are just OK.

Why? You can cut them as external resources when you need to tighten your budget, but more importantly, they are experts that know the value of what they do and stay on top of changing trends in their area.

In sales, we don’t have this change and performance management mindset.

I know, you’re thinking that we do, but let me break it down in two areas where we think we do, but don’t, and it’s crucial this changes in 2023.

Process Performance Management

Sales teams look at their sales methodology every two years, or maybe when a new VP comes in, and think about how insane it is to not look at performance and update your process for that long.

Say you have a team of 20 reps who are, on average, running 10 new customer calls a month. Meaning 200 calls at just step one a month. Any time you put large amounts of items or data through a system, that system can be optimized in real-time and over time.

In a dynamic world like today, where industries are struggling, others are doing better, people are doing layoffs, and people are hiring – you need to look at your process every month. What you’ll find is that you’ll be able to find specific bottlenecks impacting your process today, and it’s fixable.

The biggest area of opportunity is just a switch flip. Instead of thinking of it as methodology overhauls every month or two, it’s sales process optimization monthly.

Outbound Performance Management

Let’s do some more math here. This one will hopefully connect the dots on why this is important.

Say you have 20 SDRs, starting at $65K a year. That means you’re roughly spending around $108K monthly on your SDR team, whose main job is outbound.

Now imagine your organization is spending $108K a month on Google ads, and no one is looking at them daily and responsible for optimizing performance. You set them up once and then pull a report at the end of the month. You’d be fired tomorrow if you were the marketer who set this up and never optimized.

And yet, this is what every sales development team is doing.

So again, this is a mindset shift. You’re pumping tens of thousands of data through a system – you should be optimizing in real time.

If you don’t go into 2023 with a performance management mindset, you’re going to be left behind.

Closing Thoughts

If you didn’t hit your number this year, you’re not going to hit it next year if you don’t make these changes.

Technology. Get rid of what you’re not using and optimize what you keep. Most likely, you’re only using a small portion of what the technology can do. Find what your team is still doing manually and automate it.

Performance management. You need someone in your organization responsible for the performance of your sales process and your outbound in real time. Buyer behavior is rapidly evolving, circumstances change, and technology evolves – someone has to keep a pulse on this.

B2B sales moves too slowly when it comes to changing processes and making daily changes. We need to start moving in real time.