I am engaged with a chemical distributor client right now, and, like all of my clients, they are enjoying very strong results. They have kindly granted me permission to share some of their data and revenue growth insights with you. I will do so without revealing the firm.

Like other commodity businesses, this company measures organic sales through the volume weight of products sold. This excludes daily fluctuations in commodity prices.

We started our project in November 2022 and did our launch workshop with the customer-facing staff (sales and customer service departments) at the end of February of this year. This is when they started applying our Selling Boldly proactive communications to customers and prospects. The chart below shows February and the first four full months of implementation.

The bar graphs are the volume sold for each month, in pounds, with the scale on the right side Y axis.

The line graph counts what we call swings. These are simply communications. They are the total number of proactive calls, did you know questions, quote follow-ups, and a variety of other proactive revenue-growing actions done each month. If closing the sales is the last indicator of revenue, then these proactive communications create all of the leading indicators: opening an opportunity, getting a meeting, progressing towards a quote, adding line items, and following up on the quote. We count these things, all of which accurately predict new sales. The scale for swings is on the left side Y axis.

The obvious, immediate takeaway is this: as proactive communications go up, so does sales volume. As actions go down, so does volume. This is always true (sometimes with a lag, depending on your business).

This makes perfect sense, of course. The more that customers and prospects hear from you, the more they buy from you. The less they hear from you, the less they buy.

Predictable sales growth, therefore, is no more complicated than systematically increasing proactive communications with customers and prospects.

These Selling Boldly communications are so effective at creating growth that in June, my client set a company record for monthly revenue!

Next, let’s look at the revenue trend lines:

The left graph shows the 3 and 12-month rolling and a linear average of volume sold in the two years prior to the customer-facing team implementing Selling Boldly. The right graph shows the same averages during Selling Boldly.

If you look at the dotted, linear trend lines, you will see the first upward movement in two years, and it started on the month the team started proactively communicating with customers and prospects.

This happens for my clients who have been flat or down for more than 10 years as well.

If the takeaways here seem incredibly simple, it’s because they are:

If you want to grow your revenue, increase and accelerate your proactive communications with customers and prospects.

If you want to grow more, ask your team to make more communications.

If you are growing too fast, you can take your foot off the gas a bit, but always keep communicating. AKC.

Proactive communications are the sales antidote to rising inflation and a slowing economy.

They feed your revenue engine.

If you’d like to discuss implementing Selling Boldly at your organization for 15-30% annual and predictable sales growth, please call me at 847-459-6322 to discuss.