5 High-Level Strategies to Drive Growth in the Second Half of 2020

There’s no other way to look at it - 2020 has been a very eventful year. Things have changed drastically.

Remote working has taken over the modern day white collar jobs with millions of people now isolated at home (many with their children!) on a daily basis. In retail and e-commerce, tens of thousands of businesses sold online for the first time, resulting in millions of transactions that would normally have taken place in stores shifting  to online. More than 51 million Americans are unemployed since July 2020, pushing people to take on new side hustles, hobbies and generally try to stay a float.

It’s not been easy for many companies to grow economically in 2020, so we want to help dive into some strategies that could help them generate more into the second half of the year.

1) Invest in the right digital systems, technologies and services:

Digital skills have changed the world over the last 50 years. Four of the world’s current top 10 richest people made all their money through digital technology (Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg) and many of them are seeing gigantic growth in 2020. As much as it might pain us to see the rich getting richer, investing in the right technology for your company has never been more important.

Think about operations. Now that many are working remotely, have you invested in proper security protocols for home offices? Does your team have the support to adopt new technologies to make their new work-life easier?

What about your growth team? Have you set them up with tools for prospecting and selling online? If you’ve had to cancel in-person meetings or sales conferences, have you been able to support them with alternative methods?

Now more than ever there are different software tools popping up trying to get a share of this new digitized market. Check out some of our favourites here. Keeping up to date with the tools your team needs to be successful will help yourself up for stable growth into the new year.

2) Focus on current data, not past

Whereas many businesses guide their actions and plans on the basis of patterns from the past, 2020 has basically thrown any plans out the window. In some cases, this change happens on such a quick cadence that it’s been difficult for companies and industries to guide on the basis of what happened a few weeks ago!

Sure, you can refer to some seasonal effects if your industry is based on it, but it’s important to focus on current data where possible as it’s the best way to succeed with your revenue growth strategy.

3) Support your team

It’s easy to find various studies that show that happy people work harder. An extensive study of happiness and productivity has found that workers are 13 percent more productive when happy. This might seem like a logical connection, but have you thought about how you can help to make your team happier during a global pandemic?

Burnout is real. And when it comes to a 2020 where workers are having to find a quiet place to work from home, parents have found themselves juggling their work as well as homeschooling or daycare duties, and many vacations are canceled; you can imagine that many professionals are finding it difficult to concentrate on work with everything else going on in the world.

Not to mention those employees who are tied to a quota. See tip number 2 when it comes to setting real expectations for your revenue generating teams. 2020 has been a year that no-one could have planned for, so you can imagine your employees expectations of commission for the year would be a hard pill to swallow.

How to combat burn out? Easy - talk to your team on a regular basis. This might sound easy, but many Managers don’t do it. A good recommendation would be to meet with each individual team member on a bi-weekly basis to check in. And keep in mind, this should be more than a status update, you should find out how they’re doing with work and if they need some extra support emotionally. A good talk can go a long way.

4) Re-engage with current customers

If you still have a healthy customer base after the economic effects of a global pandemic then good for you! You should give yourself a pat on the back as other businesses have not been so lucky.  

Now is the time to re-engage with them and see how they’re doing. Not in an attempt to tell them to spend more with you (although that might be a positive benefit from the interaction) but with the intent to check in on THEM and THEIR economic situation. You might find some interesting stories or surprises in how they’ve managed which could spark an idea for a campaign or a mention on your social channels in the future.

In this strategy, personalization is key. Of course it might not make sense for you to individually email or call each customer, but think about how you could segment them based on factors such as purchase history, geography or persona attributes and make the outreach as customized as possible.

5) Be flexible

In conclusion, whatever your strategy is for the rest of 2020, make sure it’s flexible. If there’s a trend you’ve noticed this year (and this blog) it’s that flexibility and adaptability have helped businesses and individuals survive the pandemic.

Prepare yourself for changes using self-improvement tips including:  

• Accepting that change is inevitable (especially this year!)
• Be more confident in your ability to combat that change
• Set yourself goals to aim for regardless of the details
• Look outside your work for support in managing change

Good luck!

Let us know how your company is fostering growth right now? We’re always looking to learn and help our customers on their growth journeys.

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