Status quo revenue streams are not all that bad. In fact, they can be downright comfortable, leading to complacency.
With positive cash flow from repeat customers and a few new orders sprinkled into the mix, you have no worries.
Regardless of whether you are, or aspire to be, a sales leader or business leader, the one factor you must constantly stay on top of is the downstream cost of your status quo revenue streams.
You become complacent. Your annual revenue, and modest to double-digit growth, appears guaranteed. You consistently win sales contests. You are constantly on the approved RFQ (Request for Quote) vendor list.
You are drinking your own Kool-Aid® and so is everyone on your team.
Things are good. Why disrupt our collective comfort levels? C’mon Babette. Get off our cases! 😉
When your revenue stream is stable and trending upwards, you have the luxury of focusing on being proactive.
What is the cost of maintaining your status quo revenue streams, if that is your strategy? On the other hand, if it isn’t ……
Basking in the well-earned complacency of status quo revenue streams is never a permanent condition. That’s the little nagging issue that you have parked in the nether-most region of your brain.
Your status quo revenue streams are created by loyal and retained customers. That’s a good thing. However, those customers have pigeon-holed you as the repeat-order supplier. You want to position yourself as an innovator and collaborator for bold new ventures.
Your status quo revenue streams are sustained by your internal teams who are busy keeping themselves busy. They become myopic on sustaining the productivity of their busy-ness. They lose sight of the dynamic variables involved in sustaining your business.
Your status quo revenue streams take your eye off your business windshield. Instead of focusing on predicitive business horizons, you start looking around at the scenery.
The downstream cost of status quo revenue streams has already begun as a trickle. Your bottom line is flat. Your growth is down a percentage point or two. Your folks are waiting around for more repeat orders instead of taking the initiative to learn about interesting opportunities.
Busy-ness has masqueraded as business for so long, it’s become your “norm”. That scenario is when your company and your core customers become most vulnerable to your competitors’ new business acquisition strategies.
When things “look good”, at least in your accounting programs, that’s the time to step back and take that 10,000 foot eagle’s eye view of your business case and the competitive landscape.
Business, like any dynamic ecosystem, always is in a constant state of flux. The downstream cost of status quo revenue streams often is not detected until the trickle becomes a raging torrent.
Why gamble like that with the enduring sustainability of your sales intiitatives and/or your business?
The perfect time to consider the future is when your company has a rock-solid, albeit status quo, revenue stream.
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a business leadership coach, management strategist and consultant. Her Workshops create Playbooks for individuals and companies who want to grow, expand and sustain their businesses, but wrestle with unpredictable revenue streams. Her Playbook on practical collaborative leadership and business development strategies, including tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
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