Rollercoaster rides are fun. Exhilarating! Hands in the air. Screaming at the top of your lungs as you ride the highs and lows, twists and turns.
‘’Oh, yes, rollercoaster rides are fun – when you are a kid!
As a business or agency owner. Not so much. The #revenue rollercoaster keeps you and your team scrambling on edge every month. Even when you reach a new growth height in the back of your mind you know its only a matter of time before revenues and profits dip again and you’re headed down hill, around another curve.
Why you wonder, does this keep happening? That was Frank Denning’s all too common frustration.
In the 20 years Denning Packaging had been in business, Frank had been on the rollercoaster ride for at least half of them. Coming off a growth rate of 25% two years in a row, Frank’s business was at the lowest point ever.
Earnings were, as he said, “flat as a pancake” and Frank’s team had fallen into the stop gap measures that inevitably happen as a result of the panic the rollercoaster ride creates. They engaged in:
- Trial and error marketing. This happens when you need new leads now and you throw money at Google or Facebook ads and hope for the best: without consideration for the right message, Call to Action and content assets.
- Tyranny of the urgent time and people management. This happens when you let the urgent crowd out the important and demand things get done now without effective consideration of available resources. It’s a problem of priorities that not only kills time but team performance.
- Lack of systems and processes. This happens because you are handling things as they hit you in an ad hoc approach with whatever tools you have handy. The result is you are either sticking to the tried and true regardless of how well it worked last time, or you are re-inventing the wheel for each situation.
Why did Frank and his team stay on the rollercoaster when it’s so painful? As he explained:
“We don’t know how to get off the ride. We keep trying different tactics. We have assessed and pivoted our way to a likely loss this year. My board isn’t having that! But now I’m worried that my next move will make things worse.”
“I get it,” I said. ”But the decision to stay on the rollercoaster ride is a #growthstrategies trap. It’s what keeps you from breaking that revenue barrier for good. Ready to try something completely different?” I asked.
He nodded and we got started transforming his business.
Want to hear the rest of Frank’s story? Register now for our next webinar, “How to Get Off the Revenue Rollercoaster Ride.”
Stop the Ride. I Want to Get off.
That rollercoaster ride will continue as long as you view #marketing as a bunch of activities you do when you need leads, customers and cash.
You must commit to stopping frantic marketing activity and replace it with a well-designed system of marketing operations. This is not bigger, better marketing campaigns! This is a mind and organizational shift that positions marketing to integrate with business and financial operations.
When you make this shift, you’ll get off the rollercoaster and onto the revenue acceleration bullet train.
You will move from reactive, unpredictable marketing results to proactive sustainable, reliable growth. We’ll show you how to go from Marketing Activity to Marketing Operations.