As the CEO of a fintech company, you most likely are the face of your company. Your brand is most likely connected to you, and you personify the products and ideas that your company offers to your target audience of financial advisors.
As you turn your focus to growth in 2021, there are 4 problem areas that you need to solve that you directly control - generating more qualified leads for your sales organization, closing more sales faster, improving your customer retention, and improving productivity across your team.
The first priority of any sales engine has to generate qualified leads for your company. In a traditional car engine, think of marketing as your tachometer on your dashboard. In other words, how hard is your marketing team working to generate qualified leads for your sales organization? Until this problem is solved, everything else is a second priority, including branding and other marketing priorities.
After you improve the quantity and quality of leads coming in, the focus turns to converting those leads into opportunities and closing them as effectively as possible. In a traditional car engine, think of this ability as your speedometer. How fast can you take a lead through a defined sales process to a favorable buying decision? Information captured in the sales process is critical for aiding your marketing capability to drive more leads, and your customer support efforts to drive higher retention.
Target financial advisors in your sales and marketing processes are focused primarily on how your company will help them be successful with their clients. As they make their buying decision and after they become a customer, their focus turns to what is going to happen to them now? They either are handed off to strangers or they remain working with their sales person. This is a critical moment. There are no greater risks to your growth plans than low customer adoption and retention. In a traditional car engine, customer success is your engine temperature indicator on your dashboard. In other words, how hard is your team working to drive adoption and retention? The most effective way to implement new customers is using the identical reasons they came to your company as leads and the same reasons that drove them to buy.
To help you improve productivity in your marketing, sales, and customer success operations you need to answer the question - "Are your teams executing on what they need to do to drive growth?" It is no longer enough to have the right people in the right roles. You need to make sure they are accomplishing the things they need to do day in and day out to power your sales engine. In a traditional car engine, this is the equivalent of your "Check Engine" light on your dashboard. In other words, is your sales engine firing on all pistons? Is productivity at a high level, or is it breaking down and stalling after an increase in sales activities?
As you turn your attention to your year-end reviews and start your planning meetings for 2021, these are the discussions you should be having with your team. At the end of your meetings, hopefully you can answer the all important question - "How big is your sales engine? Is it where it needs to be for you to achieve your growth goals for 2021?"