When the next several quarterly sales forecasts look disappointing, senior executives under pressure to deliver need effective short-term solutions, not long-term strategies. With a quarterly horizon, there’s not enough time to develop entirely new products, new customers, and new markets. One way to generate an immediate but sustainable revenue boost is simply to focus on getting more from the current customer base, product and service offerings, and sales organization.

We often find that these existing assets are underproducing and have significant untapped profit potential. However, it is not always apparent how to make these assets more productive, and we frequently see scattered initiatives to improve performance. Such efforts tend to fall short and typically turn into the “flavor of the month.” We have worked with a number of clients to implement a focused, low-risk, cost-effective approach―which we call sales activation―that can quickly deliver significant, sustainable results. For instance, the three companies profiled below have increased their revenues by 10 percent or more by pursuing the sales activation approach. Sales activation focuses on a handful of high-impact initiatives and rapid execution for a quick turnaround in performance.