A Sales Leader’s Dilemma: Selecting The Top Ways to Grow Revenue
There are only so many actions available to a sales leader to profitably grow revenue. The art is identifying, agreeing to, and committing to top ways to grow revenue for you and your sales team.
- Which sales growth lever should you pull?
- Where should you focus limited time, resources, and effort?
- How do you get everyone aligned and committed to the sales growth strategy?
Growing Revenue is a Bit Like Training for a Marathon
Defining a path to meaningful revenue growth is a lot like preparing for a marathon — demanding, variable, and far from formulaic. A study published in the International Journal of Sport Physiology and Performance examined how 93 elite U.S. marathoners trained in preparation for the Olympic Trials. Despite running anywhere from 40 to 125 miles per week — with more than 70 percent of those miles at an easy pace — the athletes showed no shared blueprint for success. Their routines diverged widely in structure, intensity, and progression. The same holds true for the top ways to grow revenue. Every industry, market, and competitive environment has its own cadence, and each organization has to tailor its approach if it wants to perform at the highest level.
The complexity doesn’t stop there. Sales leaders seldom have the luxury of spreading their efforts across multiple growth levers at once. Most must zero in on just one or two priority pathways — tightening sales execution, sharpening value propositions, expanding into targeted segments, or strengthening account management. Research in the Journal of Business Research reinforces that strategic focus is essential; organizations that concentrate their efforts on the most relevant drivers of growth outperform those that dilute energy across too many fronts. Choosing the right priorities becomes a defining leadership act.
And that choice has consequences. When you select the right levers and articulate a clear rationale, your team can align quickly, invest deeply, and build the momentum that leads to results. When direction is unclear or spread thin, even capable teams struggle to gain traction. Growth requires intention, context-driven strategy, and the discipline to focus where it truly matters.
What We Know About The Top Ways to Grow Revenue
We know that if you want real sales growth — and you’re not sitting on the next breakthrough product that sells itself — you have to begin with strategic sales clarity. When organizations push for top-line improvement without a clear, grounded strategy, performance almost always suffers. Ambiguity erodes focus, confuses priorities, and keeps sales teams operating in reactive mode instead of executing with purpose.
Our organizational alignment research underscores just how costly that ambiguity can be. Strategic clarity alone explains 31% of the performance gap between high- and low-performing sales teams across revenue growth, profitability, customer retention, and sales leader effectiveness. High-performing teams know exactly where to play, how to win, and what good looks like day to day.
For sales leaders, the implication is straightforward: invest where it matters. Concentrate your best people, time, and resources on the few strategic choices that have the greatest potential to move the needle. When the strategy is unmistakably clear — and reinforced consistently — execution sharpens, accountability strengthens, and growth becomes far more achievable.
Sales Growth Strategy Choices to Consider – 7 Top Ways to Grow Revenue
To drive rapid, sustainable, and profitable revenue growth, sales leaders have 7 main options.
- Optimizing Pricing: The Overlooked Lever for Revenue Growth
One of the simplest — and most often overlooked — ways to drive revenue is optimizing pricing. As buyers gain the ability to compare prices instantly, pricing strategy has moved from a back-office task to a critical growth lever. Prices that are too high or overly complex can drive customers away, while prices that are too low erode profitability and leave money on the table. Getting it right requires both insight and intention.
Optimal pricing starts with your sales strategy. Some strategies prioritize maximizing gross margin, others aim to capture new market share, and still others focus on growing and protecting existing accounts. Approaches to price optimization vary accordingly — from sophisticated, data-driven models that adjust prices based on supply and demand, to more practical efforts that emphasize consistency, customer-centric thinking, and strategic alignment across promotions and offers.
There is a wide array of pricing approaches to consider, including competition-based, cost-plus, dynamic, freemium, penetration, premium, value-based, and bundle pricing. The most effective strategies balance three factors: revenue growth, profitability, and the customer’s perception of value. When pricing decisions are deliberate, aligned with strategy, and executed consistently, pricing becomes not just a lever but a powerful driver of competitive advantage and sustainable growth.
- Maximizing Growth Through Existing Customers
Research from Invesp, Bain, and Marketing Metrics paints a clear picture: acquiring a new customer can cost up to five times more than retaining an existing one; a 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25–95%; selling to an existing customer has a success rate of 60–70%, compared with just 5–20% for new prospects. The numbers leave little doubt — the richest opportunities for revenue growth lie in deepening existing relationships rather than chasing every new lead.
If growing current accounts is a priority, cross-selling and upselling become critical. Yet only 31% of salespeople possess the skills to do this effectively, according to Korn Ferry. Closing that capability gap requires focus, training, and deliberate strategies that identify the right offerings for the right clients. The effort pays off: when executed well, expanding within your current base is faster, more efficient, and more profitable than constantly pursuing new accounts.
The key is to concentrate on your ideal clients — those who value what you offer most — and ensure your sales and service teams are fully aligned to serve them. Anticipate their needs, respond consistently, and never take their loyalty for granted. When the relationship is nurtured thoughtfully, your existing customers become not just a source of revenue but a powerful engine for sustained growth.
- Winning More New Customers
While it’s generally easier to sell to existing customers who already know and trust you, relying solely on them rarely drives exponential growth. Your current base may be too small, or the clients may not align with where your company is headed — especially if your value proposition is evolving. When shifting offerings or moving into new markets, depending on existing accounts alone can leave growth goals out of reach.
Selling new offerings to current clients can also be challenging. Changing behavior, introducing a different value proposition, or selling more complex solutions often requires conversations and decision-making that existing customers aren’t prepared for. For example, one client in a disrupted industry needed to sell more holistic solutions to more senior buyers. Their existing base consisted largely of transactional-level contacts who were not equipped to engage in strategic, high-impact discussions. To achieve growth targets, their sales teams had to focus on winning new customers.
The key to acquiring new clients effectively is a clear, compelling, and actionable sales strategy. This strategy must define who your target clients are, what truly motivates them to buy, and how your offering differentiates you from the competition. Without this clarity, marketing, business development, and sales referral efforts lack direction and become far less effective. Knowing where and why to win is the foundation for sustainable, repeatable growth.
- Creating New and Better Offerings
Whether it’s transitioning from hardware to SaaS, launching the next iteration, expanding into an adjacent category, or simply building a better solution, many companies rely on “better, faster, or cheaper” innovations to fuel revenue growth. New offerings can unlock fresh opportunities, expand market reach, and differentiate a business in competitive markets.
Research from the Product Development Institute highlights the impact: new products and services contribute more than 25% of total revenue and profits across industries. Companies that successfully balance innovation with maintaining core capabilities across functions consistently outpace their peers in growth. Innovation is a measurable driver of top-line performance.
That said, the risks are real. McKinsey reports that 50% of new product launches fail to meet their targets. To improve your odds, invest time upfront to understand the total addressable market, define a compelling value proposition, identify target clients, analyze the competition, and evaluate the market timing. Incorporate feedback from existing customers, prospects, sales, marketing, and other stakeholders to ensure your offering is not only valuable but also easy to sell, try, and buy.
- Expanding Sales Channels
High-growth sales organizations recognize that multiple routes to market are essential, but success depends on aligning each channel with customer demand. Once you’ve identified the most effective paths for your products and services — making them easy to sell and easy to buy — the next step is ensuring the right distribution partners, incentives, and sales enablement are in place to execute effectively.
Distributors and resellers naturally prioritize what is easiest and most profitable to sell. Optimizing sales channels is therefore about creating a clear, aligned path of least resistance. The goal is to make the sales process as simple, meaningful, and profitable as possible for every stakeholder involved. When the channel works for your partners, it works for you.
The challenge is that most sales alliances fail to meet expectations due to misalignment, inconsistent commitment, and reactive execution. To maximize results, organizations must clearly define desired outcomes, align go-to-market strategies, incentivize the right behaviors, track performance rigorously, and provide robust sales support and enablement. When these elements are in place, your channels become powerful engines for scalable, sustainable growth.
- Aligning Sales Culture and Sales Strategy
Sales culture — the way sales-related work actually gets done — drives an outsized impact, accounting for 40% of the difference between high- and low-performing sales teams in revenue growth, profitability, customer retention, and sales leader effectiveness. Once your go-to-market strategy is clearly defined, the next step is ensuring that your sales culture is healthy, high-performing, and fully aligned with that strategy.
Creating this alignment requires a deliberate focus on three areas. When these elements are in place, culture becomes a strategic advantage — driving consistent execution, reinforcing priorities, and fueling sustainable growth.
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- First, assess sales force engagement and take meaningful action to address gaps.
- Second, make sure performance expectations are crystal clear and backed by strong accountability.
- Third, ensure that the way your organization treats customers, makes decisions, and operates day-to-day reflects exactly how you want to win in the marketplace.
- Improving Salesforce Capabilities
Sales talent drives a significant portion of performance, accounting for 29% of the difference between high- and low-performing teams across revenue growth, profitability, customer retention, and sales leader effectiveness. To grow the top line, organizations must be intentional about attracting, developing, engaging, and retaining top sales professionals who align with both the business model and the sales culture.
At its core, selling is about influencing action, inspiring confidence, and creating meaningful value. B2B solution selling has become increasingly complex — Gartner reports that a typical buying group for a sophisticated solution now involves six to ten decision-makers. Navigating these dynamics requires more than product knowledge; it demands skillful communication, strategic insight, and the ability to connect solutions to the unique challenges of each client.
Investing in business sales training equips your team to rise above the noise and avoid commoditized, reactive, or purely tactical conversations. Sales rep assessment simulations tell us that high-performing salespeople consistently secure qualified meetings, uncover what matters most to clients, and articulate how their solutions help clients succeed — all in a way that aligns with each client’s situation, budget, timeframe, and objectives. The result is a sales force that drives measurable growth while strengthening long-term customer relationships.
The Bottom Line
Are you approaching the top ways to grow revenue strategically, or just trying everything? The most effective growth comes from making thoughtful, deliberate choices — there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Focus on the one or two strategies that best align with your business model, your team’s strengths, and your overall objectives, and invest deeply in executing them well.
To learn more about how to take advantage of the top ways to grow revenue, download 7 Ways to Stress Test Your Current Sales Strategy
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