The 10 Myths of Revenue Generation

The 10 Myths of
Revenue Generation
And how to replace them with principles, science and process
Rick McPartlin, President & Jane Adamson, CEO
The Revenue Game

14362 N. Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd. Suite 1000
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
(480) 889-8940 Creative Commons Attribution-
www.therevenuegame.com Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
The 10 Myths of Revenue Generation
Introduction
What’s the most expensive thing your company
does each day? In most industries, it isn’t
manufacturing, raw materials, logistics, or even
overhead. It’s the process of creating revenue.
Revenue generation, as we call it, includes

everything your company does each day to create expensive function in your company. And yet the
and sustain your revenue. It’s sales. It’s process itself hasn’t changed much in the last 50
marketing. It’s service. It's the time a CEO or years. Since the 1960s, we’ve made every other
senior executive spends helping a team, meeting corporate function more efficient with innovations
with partners, or communicating a message to the like ERP, Six Sigma and TQM. Yet we're still
market. doing revenue generation the same way we did it
30 or 40 or 50 years ago. It's expensive, it's
Revenue generation is the single most time-consuming, it’s reactive, and it's really
based on a bunch of myths.
To learn more about our services, contact us today: (480) 889-8940 www.therevenuegame.com
Introduction continued
We’ve developed this e-book to help you identify can help you as you work day in and out to propel
those myths in your own business and replace your company and your career.
them with principles, science, and process. We
want to help you treat revenue generation as a We’ve been helping companies generate revenue
proactive rather than a reactive process. since the early 1970s, and we can guarantee that
these myths aren’t accelerators. They’re
If you’re a business owner, CEO or senior executive, you’ll anchors.
recognize most or all of these myths, and you can
start doing something about them today. And So let’s get started. Here are the ten myths you need
even if you’re not the CEO or a senior leader, to eliminate from your head and your
understanding these myths and this advice organization.
1 Good sales reps are naturals; your success

is a matter of finding these naturals.
Here’s the scenario: You need to hire one, two or ten new sales reps. You comb through candidates
looking for gregarious, “natural” sales people with extensive contacts and experience in your specific
industry. And you end up hiring outgoing, friendly people you personally like and who you believe
will make rain for your business.
Unfortunately, all too often, these naturals aren’t

the silver bullet you’re hoping for. They’re good
talkers, but they come up short in other areas.
Perhaps it’s service or delivering consistent
messages or sticking with your pricing model.
They end up requiring more training, motivation
and coaching than you planned. Ultimately, you
part ways and start the cycle again with a new
crop.
1 continued
Instead of looking for “naturals,” you should focus
on finding the proper strategic fit for the specific position.
To do so, you need to truly understand your
customers. Why do they buy from you? Is their may need a completely different profile than you
buying decision based on your price, your originally envisioned. For example, instead of
relationship, your expertise, on service? Is your searching for an outgoing, strategic visionary, you
offer based on individual selling or team selling? might need tactical detail orientation. Behavioral
Does the selling involve developing strategy, profiling tools can be extremely helpful if you’ve
creative thinking, tactical execution, or detailed accurately done the upfront work of determining the profile
implementation? Are you selling something that’s most likely to succeed with that particular offer,
new to the marketplace or considered a buyer, and sales process.
commodity purchase?
Do your homework before starting the interview
All of these variables influence the profile of a process. Otherwise, the most gregarious candidate
successful sales rep for your company; you will win. And you will lose.
2 Marketing programs are unpredictable

hit-and-miss tools.
There are two types of marketing programs:
branding and everything else. Branding campaigns
are, in fact, very difficult to measure. These
campaigns build awareness but don’t drive
specific, measurable activity. And they’re
important, so you should allocate a percentage of
your budget to branding and stick with it. Just
don’t let branding dominate your activities
because you can’t accurately evaluate ROI.
If you can’t measure it, it belongs in the branding budget.

Everything else you do should be designed to This type of marketing IS predictable and can
create a specific, measurable result that can be prevent that month-end panic and frustration
tracked, compared, analyzed and improved. when your team isn’t hitting your revenue goals.
2 continued
Now, if you think your numbers will be
perfect the first time, we’re going to
disappoint you. If you’re marketing on the
web, you can measure results very
accurately from the outset, but the rest of
your tracking won’t be perfect. Yet if you start
implementing and measuring critical marketing
metrics today, you'll get better and better and better
each time. You’ll gain the historical
perspective and data you need to evaluate
which programs work and which don’t. And
your marketing will become anything but
unpredictable.
3 Good networking is about meeting as

many people as possible.
Let’s use a popular networking example: a trade show. Let’s say
it costs $50,000 to attend a particular show, and you generate
$20,000 in revenue with $10,000 in profit for an average
transaction. You need to generate five deals from the show just
to break even.
Many people will say, yes, I can go to a trade show and generate
five deals, no problem. But let’s consider some more variables first.
What happens after you meet a new prospect? You may set up a
meeting or two. At some point, you’ll probably get on a plane,
meet all of the key players, do a presentation. If things go well,
you’ll submit a proposal. And naturally you won’t convert every
proposal into a deal.
3 continued
At each step in this process, you’ll lose a chunk of your
prospects. You may win only one of every three
proposals you submit. You may submit proposals the right people, then we can close one of every
after only 50% of your presentations. You may seven prospects instead of one in 20.
get only two of five initial meetings. And so forth.
Ultimately, you may only close one of 20
What if you started contacting 50 “right” people three or four
prospects you meet. Which means you need to
months before the show? Let’s say you tell them about
generate 100 prospects during the show to get
something of value you're doing at the event, then
five deals. So if you attended the show last year
pre-set appointments or confirm them for your
and generated only 77 prospects, it may not be a
hospitality suite to make sure you meet in person.
good investment this year.
Then could you make money at the show? Most
people tell us, yes, with this kind of program I can
What if you only generated 50 prospects, but definitely make money at the show.
they were highly qualified – the “right” people, if
you will? You might say, okay, if we had 50 of
3 continued
A lot of people say, wow, I’m busy with all of these
networking events. I went here, there, everywhere.
Well, how many leads did you generate, and what
percentage of them did you close?
Networking by itself isn’t a legitimate sales and marketing activity.

Often it’s just a waste of time. It has to be tied to a
program that helps you deliver the right message to
the right targeted people.
You don’t need to network with as many people as

possible. You need to network with the right people.
4 Quality products along with good service is

a winning strategy.
Quality products and good service are not a strategy.
They’re simply an entry to the game. You have to have quality
products and good service or you aren’t going to last. As
soon as others in the market figure out how to make a
good product and provide good service, that's it. You're
done. So don't think that's enough. It isn’t.
5 Good sales reps will create the right

message at the right time.
Let’s say your company has 3, 30, or 300 sales reps
making sales calls each day. Each one delivers a
message every time he or she connects with a
customer. In fact, your sales reps are literally
delivering hundreds of messages to the market every
day.
With that many communications floating around, you “I’ll see what I can do.” Every time they tweak the
need absolute clarity on the message. It's like the Blue message, they wreak havoc on the true message
Angels. They can’t say “let’s turn a little bit left.” They you want to deliver to the market. Does that make
need to say “turn X degrees at X speed at X angle to it easier or harder for the company to stay on
the horizon.” track? A lot harder.
Sales reps can't make it up as they go along.

It’s the same thing with your sales team. You can't
Everyone must be on the same page.
have them embellishing or changing pricing or saying
6 Good marketing is highly dependent on

creative ideas.
Research shows that creative ideas contribute about 16
percent to a successful lead or opportunity. But fifty percent is
delivering the right message to the right person.
As a salesperson, I was taught the first three rules of

selling: qualify, qualify, qualify. If I'm talking to the right
person, even if I’m not very good, I can sell them if they
want what I have. But if I’m talking to the wrong person, I
can be the most eloquent guy on the planet and I'm still
going hear “I'm sorry, I don't have a car. I don't need tires.”
6 continued
You just can't win if you’re talking to the wrong people. So while creativity is important, some companies get hung
up on things like having the greatest letterhead, the best slogans, the most cutting-edge design. But
remember that it all goes back to understanding the customer problem you solve that nobody else
solves. With that knowledge, you know who to talk with and what to say.
Creativity in marketing is important,

but it's not as important as knowing
who you're supposed to be talking to
and what message you need to deliver.
7 If the revenue strategy is right, you'll

succeed in revenue generation.
We’ve seen many well-thought out
strategies that are beautifully written,
Poor structure Result
presented, approved, and then wind up in a
file drawer in some executive’s office. A compensation program which Sales targets are
Usually it’s not because the company incents the wrong behavior missed
didn’t believe in the strategy; it’s because

A manufacturing plant which wasn’t Customers are
they didn’t A) structure the organization
set up to deliver on the strategic disappointed
to support the strategy and/or B) execute promises
on it.
A front line employee who isn’t taught Customers are
Structure and execution work hand in glove the strategic message or why it’s confused
important
with strategy. Here are a few examples of
poor structure and poor execution and how
they impact your business.
7 continued
Designing a strategy is the first

important step. But it’s your
Poor execution Result company’s structure and execution
that lead to success in revenue
A poorly written detailed plan of who Milestones are missed
generation.
needs to do what by when
Critical metrics aren’t tracked Executives don’t know they’re

losing until it’s too late
Goals aren’t specific Well-intentioned employees

pulling in opposite directions
8 Giving sales and marketing virtual power

and budget guarantees success.
This idea can easily become a scapegoat. I'm just
going to hire enough salespeople, just going to give
marketing enough budget and let them do what they
need to do.
The key issue here is accountability. You need to make sure

sales and marketing are focused on the right things
and the right results. You need to ask them to
evaluate ROI, to identify and track against metrics to
make sure they’re spending the budget and time in
the right place. Just upping the budget and
investment isn’t a formula for success.
9 Always stick with a winning strategy.
Two years ago Rick delivered a presentation to a group

of business owners whose strategy was to just answer
the phone. They said they didn’t need to market their
businesses because the business just came to them –
they only needed to answer the phone, schedule an
appointment, and show up.
That reactive “strategy” worked for awhile. But today

their story is much different. Their revenue is way off and
they’ve never focused on revenue generation. Now
they’re not sure what to do.
9 continued
Your business is always, always, always in transition.

You're in transition because the economy is
transitioning. You're in transition because your
customers are transitioning. You're in transition because
your competitors are transitioning.
Any strategy is only going to work temporarily. You have to

consistently monitor your environment, understand your
offer, and know why people are (or aren’t) excited about
doing business with you. Why? Because it's going to
change. Today’s strategy is not necessarily going to
work tomorrow. If you don't watch the key variables &
elements that impact you, pretty soon you’ll find out
that the game has passed you by.
10 Listen to customers - they know what

they want.
This is the trick one. It's half right. Yes, you should listen to
customers. Absolutely listen. But don't believe for a second that they
know what they want. Focus group after focus group after focus
group will say, geez, if you had a red one and it had an extra
door, I would buy it in a heartbeat. So a company goes out and
creates a red one with an extra door. And then nobody buys it.
The issue here is commitment. “I would buy it” is hypothetical.

Customers may think it sounds good; they like the idea. But
just because they say they like it or want it doesn’t mean that
when the time comes, they’ll pull out their wallet or pen and
buy.
10 continued
When your customers tell you something that they want, you need to hold them accountable and get them
to make a firm commitment. For example, you can say, great, if you want a red one with an extra door,
we can have one available in 90 days, are you ready to make it happen? And if they say, oh, no, no, I’m
not ready for that, or I’m not sure, or whatever the excuse, then you know that’s not something they
really want.
If you’re going to ask customers to provide

input on products and services, listen carefully
and hold them accountable. Their responses
aren’t real unless they’re willing to make a
commitment.
Conclusion
Everybody wants economic growth, but honestly, nobody wants to
change. If your business is in a rut, or even if it isn’t, you simply
cannot generate consistent, sustainable growth without doing
anything differently.
Revenue generation is a science. It has principles and it has best

practices. So if you want to change, and you want growth, you
have to make the decision to apply the science. Eliminate the
myths. Apply the best practices. Create the discipline.
Yes, it’s work. It’s the most expensive thing your company does
each day, and it’s the most important thing your company does
each day. And if you eliminate the myths and treat revenue generation as a
science, you'll get results.
About us
Rick McPartlin and Jane Adamson co-founded The
Revenue Game to help companies focus their
organizations around the critical function of revenue
generation. They’ve spent their careers consulting to
and working in senior executive positions in both
large well-known organizations and in small
entrepreneurial companies, including
• Dynamic Images • McDonnell Douglas

• Vistage (formerly TEC) • Image Craft
• Sun Microsystems • Bell South
• ColorHouse • Siemens
• Ernst & Young • Impact Sales
About us continued
Rick McPartlin has spent the last 20 years focused on his passion of "Revenue Generation" as a science. He
has spoken at professional conferences and numerous Vistage CEO groups, spearheaded major product
launches, been a national sales manager in the industry leading CAD/CAM engineering company, formed
a national consulting company in launch management called Impact Sales, and developed several
trademarked sales tools and systems models.
Jane Adamson has focused her career around management systems and processes. She has been the
president of two manufacturing/service organizations, sat on industry and professional boards,
orchestrated the successful turnaround of a financially distressed organization, implemented
performance management processes and metrics, and ran the sales/marketing efforts of a company
voted "best in the industry" by its peers.
To learn more about The Revenue Game’s services,

please visit www.therevenuegame.com or call (480) 889-8940.
Image credits
The following images are generously available for commercial use under the Creative Commons
“attribution-share alike” license:
• Old computers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elvissa/433689608/

• Zapped: http://www.flickr.com/photos/billselak/384358924/sizes/l/
• Abacus: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ansik/304526237/
• Blue Angels: http://www.flickr.com/photos/afferent/1517901512/
• Waving audience: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/1258391607/sizes/o/
• Entering the conference: http://www.flickr.com/photos/respres/2181033880/
• Pug calendar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bugbunnybambam/2049847071/
• Chess pieces: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/20110135/sizes/l/in/set-404894/
All other images were purchased from http://www.bigstockphoto.com.
Thank you
Jane Adamson, CEO Please feel free to share this e-book with
Phone: (480) 889-8940 colleagues and friends. It is licensed under the
Email: janeadamson@therevenuegame.com Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike

Unported 3.0 license. For terms of use, please
click the image below.
Rick McPartlin, President

Phone: (480) 889-8940
Email: rick.mcpartlin@therevenuegame.com
To download additional copies, please visit
www.therevenuegame.com/revenue-generation-ebook.php.

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The 10 Myths of

Rick McPartlin, President & Jane Adamson, CEO

The Revenue Game

Revenue generation, as we call it, includes

1 Good sales reps are naturals; your success

Unfortunately, all too often, these naturals aren’t

new to the marketplace or considered a buyer, and sales process.

2 Marketing programs are unpredictable

If you can’t measure it, it belongs in the branding budget.

3 Good networking is about meeting as

Networking by itself isn’t a legitimate sales and marketing activity.

You don’t need to network with as many people as

4 Quality products along with good service is

5 Good sales reps will create the right

the horizon.” track? A lot harder.

Sales reps can't make it up as they go along.

6 Good marketing is highly dependent on

As a salesperson, I was taught the first three rules of

Creativity in marketing is important,

7 If the revenue strategy is right, you'll

didn’t believe in the strategy; it’s because

Designing a strategy is the first

Critical metrics aren’t tracked Executives don’t know they’re

Goals aren’t specific Well-intentioned employees

8 Giving sales and marketing virtual power

The key issue here is accountability. You need to make sure

9 Always stick with a winning strategy.

Two years ago Rick delivered a presentation to a group

That reactive “strategy” worked for awhile. But today

Your business is always, always, always in transition.

Any strategy is only going to work temporarily. You have to

10 Listen to customers - they know what

The issue here is commitment. “I would buy it” is hypothetical.

If you’re going to ask customers to provide

Revenue generation is a science. It has principles and it has best

• Dynamic Images • McDonnell Douglas

To learn more about The Revenue Game’s services,

• Old computers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elvissa/433689608/

All other images were purchased from http://www.bigstockphoto.com.

Email: janeadamson@therevenuegame.com Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike

Rick McPartlin, President

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