A Roadmap to Revenue Growth with Kent Billingsley

March 5, 2021 By Samantha Braffman

The key to scaling your business lays in pursuing creative solutions. Kent Billingsley, the author of Entrepreneur to Millionaire, has designed a roadmap to optimize growth and profitability. Billingsley recognized that the most central aspect that businesses struggle with is how to make money from their products. So, how do you make money? You think like an entrepreneur.

How do I think like an entrepreneur?

Anyone may call themselves an entrepreneur, but you have to be entrepreneurial to achieve incredible success. Billingsley noted that after coaching businesses for years, he found that there is a common thread that makes certain entrepreneurs successful, in comparison to those who blow success out of the park. He realized that there were four “high-velocity entrepreneurial traits” that made certain people stand out from the crowd:

1. Willing to do things that are uncomfortable and different.
2. Want to listen and apply.
3. Desire to be creative in your approach.
4. Willing to invest in yourself and your company.

If you apply yourself in these four ways, you’ll be able to make more from less. Being strategic and creative is a key part of doing well during trying times, Billingsley stresses. A key part of flexibility is making things work for your company, and not following other companies’ business models.

Do I have to spend money to make money?

Last century’s business model of “spending money to make money” is outdated, Billingsley says. A common misconception is the more you put in, your business will get bigger and better. “This won’t optimize your profits because it just eats your money… 98% of entrepreneurs and business operations struggle with cash.” These companies do not have consistent cash flow or working capital.

Billingsley sees companies pivoting to a new strategy: achieving more from less. They cut costs and work their people harder. This system will also eventually fail: you cannot cut your way to success. He wants to offer a new perspective on “more from less,” a strategy that stresses entrepreneurial behavior and creative solutions.

Billingsley wants you to reframe your mindset- think about; What is an investment? versus What is a cost? If you throw more money into sales and marketing without an agenda, you will merely eat your profits. If you invest your time and creativity in them, you can optimize your wealth.

A Roadmap to Revenue Growth

“To create wealth, you have to maximize sales revenue and profits with your existing resources.” This is the core aspect of optimizing wealth for Billingsley. He recommends focusing on revenue growth rather than business growth. If you exclusively focus on growing your business, you will continue to add more to the equation without solving your revenue problems. When you scale your revenue against an asset, you can create business wealth. Business owners should focus more on increasing sales, revenues, and profits without spending more time, money, and resources doing so.

Why has your company not yet been able to achieve this revenue growth? Oftentimes, the problem tends to lie in leadership, strategy, organizational design, or the business model, which sets up your marketing and sales teams for failure. When companies see failure, they assume the people are the problem or put excess money in instead of fixing their root cause. If you aren’t achieving revenue growth now, you were never market-ready in the first place. You have to rebuild.

How Do I Optimize Wealth For My Company?

Billingsley formulated a road map for companies to optimize their wealth. These steps can act as a checklist to make sure your company is set up for success.

1. Is my Business Revenue Ready?

This first step is necessary to validate the viability potential and sustainability of your business. Ask your team, what is the problem in the marketplace that you solve? If their answers are different, then the foundation for your business might have cracks in it. Problems in the marketplace can create issues down the road. You can still sell products, but they won’t come close to their potential success. If you aren’t revenue ready, here are three principles to turn your investment into a spend:

1. Evaluate if there is a Fundamental Marketplace Problem (FMP).
   • If there is an opportunity in an area where something is broken or underserved, make sure your solution is a sustainable business, not a fad.
   • Evaluate the market potential to solving this problem. Ask yourself, “What is the scope, and scale?”
   • Find a new angle of why the problem is not being solved.
2. Create your unique business model.
   • Throw away “market, sell, deliver, support.” Create something unique.
   • Why your company rather than someone else’s?
   • How can you deliver it in a way that others can’t?
3. Find revenue streams.
   • What are all the ways your business can make money?
   • It must bring value, solve a problem in the model, and make sense.
   • This is what can help you work through crises, such as the pandemic. The key to this is to diversify.

2. Is my Business Market-Ready?

Being market-ready is what prepares you for making the most money possible with the fewest resources. There are four key sequential principles that Billingsley stresses are essential to being ready to sell your product.

1. Fix mistargeting
2. Packaging
3. Messaging
4. Multiple Pricing Strategies

To fix mistargeting, you must first identify your Perfect Client Profile (PCP). It is essential to note that not all clients are the same. Then, figure out the demographics and psychographic. Who are they? Why they do what they do? How do they behave? 

Next, package: create bundles of products and services. Place them into groupings so your PCP would love it. Billingsley calls it “packaging with a prospect.” If you’re having trouble, just ask your PCP how they would like their products? How would you like us to bundle our services so that you can’t say no?

Create powerful messaging. Give your phrases, symbols, and logos power. Billingsley finds that messaging tends to be emotionally neutral, with no excitement. You need to articulate the impact your business will have on them as a result of your product. Powerful messaging starts with a three-point value proposition, which you can learn more about here. 

Finally, have multiple pricing strategies. Do not simply add a flat percentage mark up to price your product. Give some things away for free, offer things you will lose money on, somewhere you break even, and others where you make “ridiculous” margins. This can bring high value at every price point. This turns your investment into a spend.

3. Go to Market with your Business.

Never go to market too quickly. If a company succumbs to pressure and skips over its market-ready steps, it will burn cash. You will only be able to optimize your revenues when your company is fully prepared to go to market.

4. You Own the Market.

Billingsley stands by the idea that once you have abided by the necessary steps, your company will be able to optimize wealth in a way others cannot.

If you’re interested in learning how to think more like an entrepreneur and optimize your company’s wealth, read Kent Billingsley’s book or watch the full interview here.