Taking the Revenue Factory to the next level

Mallory Lee on how to optimize your GTM using the factory model

👋 Hey, Toni from Growblocks here! Welcome to another Revenue Letter! Every week, I share cases, personal stories and frameworks for GTM leaders and RevOps.

In case you’re new or haven’t subscribed yet, here are the latest best posts you may have missed:

• The definitive guide to Revenue Architecture series

• The case for RevOps to move under Finance

• Go after Goliath: How to pick your next fight

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Before we get into today’s post, I’m excited to tell you that we’re hosting a webinar with Union Square Consulting on June 13. We’ll cover the revenue factory and how operators can use it to improve efficiencies across their bowtie. You can register here.

I asked my co-host, Mallory Lee, to preview some of what you’ll hear on today’s Revenue Letter.

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Revenue Engine – or Revenue Factory? 

For many reasons the framework of a factory works better in Revenue Operations. Perhaps you’ve seen this analogy already as it gains traction in the market. We’re excited to partner with Growblocks to take this idea to the next level. 

With Union Square Consulting’s RevOps expertise and the Growblocks platform, it’s possible to actually apply the revenue factory as a framework to optimize go-to-market.

Let’s break down the analogy:

A factory has:

• Pipeline inputs such as inbound, outbound, partners, PLG, and referrals

• Various processes for transforming those inputs into the customer experience/revenue

• “Hand-stitched” personal touches that can’t be automated

• Failsafes, cycle times, and quality control processes

Looking at our go-to-market motion with this mindset helps us visualize what it takes to build a sustainable, repeatable model for revenue growth.

Begin with the End in Mind

The output of our factory isn’t just revenue. From product to process, every part of our go-to-market culminates in the unique customer experience we produce. The quality of this experience directly impacts our recurring revenue potential – for better or worse.

In order to build a factory that produces the best experience possible for our ICP, we have to know our ICP deeply. This is called Customer Journey Mapping. 

We should be able to answer and document these questions:

• What are our ICPs & Personas?

• What are their jobs-to-be-done?

• How do they want to interact with salespeople?

• How do they research and learn about solutions like ours?

• Who is on their buying committee and how are decisions made?

• What do they need to do/have in order to adopt our solution effectively?

• What do they need in order to get value from renewing/expanding their contract?

Starting here prevents us from spending millions of dollars on a machine or an entire factory floor (AKA, GTM motion) that doesn’t produce our desired outcome. 

Of course, usually by the time a RevOps consultancy like USC comes into the picture to help with this process, the factory is already up and running. 

Instead of building from the ground up, we need to review what already exists and where there may be redundancies or gaps holding back the business’s revenue potential.

Diagnosing Production Issues

All of the moving parts in your factory need to:

1. Align with your end goal/Customer Journey Map

2. Work together efficiently and effectively

3. Facilitate data visibility and accuracy

Looking at your GTM motion with a “revenue factory” mindset means being able to visualize all of the moving pieces – from input to processing to output – and understand how each one interacts with the others.

With this combination of understanding and visibility, we’re able to trace the symptoms of issues back to their sources – or predict and prevent future problems.

These are the two types of issues we commonly see:

Machine Malfunctions

Your “machines” are all of the internal processes and systems inside your business.

A lot of them are automated, like the sales methodology built into your CRM. And just like the hand-stitched steering wheel on a Rolls Royce, other parts of your factory require a skilled personal touch. 

When one of these machines are malfunctioning, we usually notice it through symptoms such as:

• Lower ACV

• Higher churn

• Less new business

• Longer sales cycles

• Low business visibility

• Loss of morale among reps

All of these symptoms boil down to revenue leakage. Without visibility into the inner workings of your revenue factory, there’s no way to pinpoint and explain the cause to your execs. In turn, you get the orders from on high to increase input – “Get more leads, sell more.”

Unfortunately, feeding more supply into a broken machine only creates more frustration, chaos, and wasted resources.

This is where specialists like Union Square Consulting come in to diagnose the health of your machines, find the real issues, and help you fix them.

Supply Chain Issues

These are issues with your inputs, AKA the ways that opportunities enter your pipeline.

Such as:

• Demand generation

• Referrals and partners

• Outbound and inbound

• PLG and/or sales-led growth

Opportunities coming from different inputs might need their own processing lines to convert. For example, you’re going to have a different qualification process for cold outbound opportunities vs referrals.

When there’s a problem with the way we’re filling our pipeline, we usually see these symptoms:

• Marketing and sales ready to box each other

• No data to back up marketing capital allocation

• Some reps whizzing past quota while others struggle

• SDRs becoming a cost center with few opps to show for it

• Bad-fit customers taking up CS resources and churning anyway

• Seemingly full pipeline that’s aging with decreasing ARR (zombie pipeline)

We almost never see “supply chain issues” without there also being “mechanical issues”, as unsustainable/broken processes tend to knock into each other like a cascading line of dominos.

For example, a broken sales process will affect sales and marketing alignment, which affects ICP definitions, which affects pipeline quality, which affects sales cycles/ACV/new business revenue, and so on.

(This is what we mean by “Being able to find the root cause of your problems.”)

Visibility is the Key

This is where a CRM software like Growblocks comes in. 

You’re not going to be able to identify which machine or supply route is malfunctioning if you can’t easily see your…

• Revenue leaks

• Pipeline quality

• Sales cycles by stage

• Prospect/opportunity data

• Sales process data and adherence

• Etc.

Join the Webinar For More

So, how can you put the revenue factory ideology to work for your business? Join USC and Growblocks on June 13th for our free Revenue Factory webinar. We’ll be going deeper into:

• Why supply is always a problem

• The downfall of the aggregate funnel

• Applying the factory model to your business

• And more!

RSVP for the webinar here!

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