Any growth-focused company will want to ensure that all elements of their business are ready and able to support their scaling plans, especially those that impact revenue generation. To drive revenue at scale, most successful companies will hire a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).
HR Magazine reported an increase of 48% growth rate for CRO positions in the UK, indicating a surging demand for revenue acceleration in today’s complex business environment.
What is a CRO?
A CRO is in charge of all revenue stream inputs, including merging sales, marketing, and customer success-related revenue.
CROs will focus on:
- Net new revenue
- Renewal revenue
- Expansion revenue
How do you know when it’s time to hire a CRO?
Most CEOs we deal with at Sales for Startups do not come from a sales and marketing background. It is only in recent years that we have seen British companies increasingly turning to marketers when it comes to filling the top job, with 21% of all FTSE 100 CEOs now coming from a sales or marketing background.
While it can be beneficial for CEOs to have an understanding of sales and marketing, taking on the top role results in less time to dedicate to the daily running of the organisation, therefore you might consider hiring a CRO to assist the executive team when making strategic decisions, developing future initiatives, optimising the customer experience, and aligning sales and marketing – driving both teams to generate consistent revenue.
When your sales and marketing teams are aligned, it can lead to 208% growth in marketing-generated revenue, 38% higher sales win rates and a 32% increase in year-over-year revenue growth.
Experienced CROs will monitor the revenue pipeline and adjust as necessary to create sustainable growth and devise a long-term plan that integrates all departments and teams to ensure growth across all existing and new customer segments are achieved.
Customers need to be at the centre of everything your organisation does. Speed without sacrificing experience and quality at a low company cost is the optimum customer acquisition strategy.
In order to achieve this, the CRO will need to know:
- Where the current customer is acquired?
- Time to acquire the ideal customer?
- Cost to acquire the ideal customer?
- How many leads are generated the company currently converts?
- The average order value?
- How long before the customer receives value?
- How long a customer stays with us?
- What is the lifetime value of a customer?
- What is the referral rate per customer?
As with all critical hires for startups, there is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to securing the right CRO for your business. Sales for Startups is dedicated to helping all B2B tech startups get CRO-ready and ultimately use this expertise to scale and hire top-performing salespeople.
Get in touch with the team for more information.
