Improve top-line, because it is life-line for any business

With the increasing interest of people to create their own space and to start up, it is important to pick up the key tricks of the trade. For a start-up which has just entered the market or is trying to come up with a new venture consisting of certain services or product the most important factor is not only to be of relevance but survive as well! Simple yet fundamental element for survival is sustained increase in sales and revenue.
Revenues which indicates the top line growth of the organisation is the main concern of any business owner/ investor as it is the first indicator of health of the business. Revenue growth will also point towards the effectivity of various strategies deployed.
Below are six actionable steps for improving and building the top-line:
1. Segment & Target
Segmenting the market with target group and building a robust campaign creating awareness about the offerings of the organisation for the target group which are the prospective customers or in near future may turn out to be the most impeccable segment. Using as many mediums as possible and measuring the hit ratio for each should be the next logical step.
2. Deploy strategy deployment tool
With the vision in mind and enlisting various strategies from market to technology to new offerings, checking the deployment with appropriate strategy deployment tools like LightHouse Exercise or XY matrix, etc. It shall keep you and your team in charge of things and focused on the right things to be done at right time!
3. Be nimble
Customer choices are dynamic in today’s environment so the organisations need to tweak their strategies and campaigns based on the consumer’s range of demand. In the present scenario owing to the ferociously competitive market, the key to increase or maintain sales is to focus on reaching out to the buyers and customising as per consumers preferences.
4. Run the feedback loop, frequently
Any innovative start up should be able to encompass a variety of offerings, it is quite necessary to increase the landscape of touch points with the customers which includes strong feedback loop, on-line technical support, others. It gives you the power to be on top of things, to be responsive and not reactive!
5. Wear the Salesman hat, all the time
This requires flexibility of taking multiple roles. Having said that, don’t deny the importance of sharpness and sticking to core roles. However, the core team should not constraint themselves to work in a single domain, and should be able to permeate into different roles, specifically business creation role (which includes sales, marketing and branding)!
6. Incremental growth over long leaps
It is true that growth leads to more growth, which leads to even more growth and large leaps have its importance. But it is also truer that ‘small things can turn into large things!’ Incremental growth can be aspired and achieved on daily (or hourly) basis, unlike spurts and spikes of sales which are irregular and difficult to manage.
At the closing, would touch upon an additional step, ‘stay hungry, stay foolish!’ (as one of the book says). A start up should not be satisfied with borderline return of investment and experiment to scale up!
Written by: Faber Aakash Borse & Faber Devna Chaturvedi
Faber Aakash Borse is Director and one of the founding partners of Faber Infinite Consulting (www.faberinfinite.com), with operations in Asia Pacific, Africa & Middle East. He holds a masters degree in Operations Management with his 1st degree being in Engineering.
 This article was originally published in Entrepreneur.com . Original link available – here