5 Questions Every Growth Focused CEO Should Ask Themselves

If you're a CEO, growth should be your #1 goal. Without growth, your business can't succeed long-term, you can't sustain employees, innovate, move into new markets, and experience all of those exciting and rewarding things that come with entrepreneurship. 

In this article you will learn the five questions every growth focused CEO should ask themselves in order to build a company that lasts grows and thrives and a competitive marketplace. 

‍1. Why Are We Losing Business?

‍If you're a CEO looking for practical ways to grow, one of the first places you should look before you invest in more marketing is why are we losing business on the existing leads and opportunities we have in our pipeline?

When most businesses think about why they're losing business to competitors, they immediately start trying to come up with magic bullet tactics when there are practical and fundamental issues causing them to lose business to competitors.  

Below is a practical example of a problem that a sales team might encounter, causing the company to lose business, and a possible approach to solving that problem. 

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‍Problem example: When salespeople encounter leads that are interested, but not ready to buy right away, salespeople are sometimes failing to follow up with those leads at the right frequency, and weeks go by, then when the prospect is ready to buy they forget about us, and go with a competitor.

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‍Solution example: We will implement an automated lead nurturing sequence so when sales reps encounter leads that may be a good fit down the road but aren't quite ready to buy yet they can be put on a cadence that continues to educate them and move them towards a buying decision. 

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2. Who Are Our Most Profitable Customers?

‍Studies have shown that increasing customer retention rates by 5% can boost profits from 25 to 95%. Furthermore, the average success rate when selling to an existing customer is roughly 60 to 70%, while the success rate of selling to a new prospect is 5 to 20%. 

That goes without saying that your existing customers are your most valuable assets. Take time to build a strong relationship with your most profitable customers and make sure you're providing them with the best support possible, so it increases the customer lifecycle. If you play your cards right, you can turn your customer into a brand advocate, get a fantastic testimonial from them to improve your conversion rates, send you referrals and mention your brand on social media.

‍3. What Problems Cause The Most Volatility In Our Sales?

‍One of the biggest fears of a CEO is an unpredictable future. Smoothing out the volatile spikes in sales will put your mind at ease, enable you to make more accurate sales projections, and overall keep your board of directors happier.

One of the most common problems resulting in sales volatility aside from seasonal changes would be a misalignment between sales and marketing. Without sales and marketing on the same page, leads don't get followed up in the right time frame, leads go un-nurtured, fall out of the funnel, and opportunities get missed.

Another common problem of sales volatility is not having enough in house staff and resources to handle both sales and marketing effectively. This results in an endless balancing act between generating leads when things are slow, then focusing on sales when things are good, then suddenly realizing the sales funnel is drying up, and needing to generate some more leads in which case you don't have time to work on sales.

For companies with limited in-house resources and not enough revenue to have multiple roles for sales and marketing, they might consider working with an agency like Intelus that acts as an extension of their in-house team. 

‍4. Where Can We Reallocate Wasted Time & Resources?

‍A common problem that sales reps encounter is the continually having to answer the same questions over and over that prospects ask. Many of these questions can be answered via content marketing and sales enablement materials to save sales reps a great deal of time.

In fact, many buyers actually prefer to educate themselves online with content before speaking to a sales rep, which typically results in a higher close rate because they're much closer to buying and have fewer objections and questions that they need to get answered.‍

10 Ways Content Marketing Can Support Your B2B Sales Process

5. How Can We Improve Our Demand Generation?‍

Every business needs a steady flow of qualified leads to keep a predictable pipeline, meet projected revenue goals, and thrive in competitive markets. 

Investing in content marketing for both lead generation and sales enablement is one of the best investments you can make if you want to experience a steady flow of inbound leads, higher conversions, and better close rates.  

Double down on content creation (guides, ebooks, whitepapers, and sales enablement materials), nurture and score leads, align your sales and marketing team to maximize the ROI of your content giving you more cash flow to invest in more demand generation. 

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Final Thoughts

As a CEO, it's your duty to ensure your company grows to its fullest potential to support the livelihood of your employees, and change the lives of your customers who depend on your innovative solutions. If you gained value from this article, feel free to leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts.