What Does a Revenue Acceleration Agency Do for Its Clients?

The world of sales and marketing has become exponentially more confusing over the past five years. Today there are digital marketing agencies, marketing technology agencies, sales consulting agencies, growth agencies and even agencies that microfocus on a specific tactic like SEO or web design.

All this means is that for B2B companies it’s becoming much harder to find and feel good about who to work with if growth is one of your key goals in 2024.

It’s even more important when looking for a new partner to find one with a methodology, frameworks, proven processes and tools that make their execution with you repeatable, scalable and optimized systematically over time.

But what does a revenue acceleration agency actually do?

What CEO wouldn’t want more growth and faster growth? This all comes down to revenue. How much is coming in and how fast is it coming in?

Most companies don’t think about a system for revenue. While they have a system for hiring, firing, buying stuff and reporting to the board, they don’t have a system for revenue. After 20 years, it’s still shocking to me, but our research shows that only 5% of companies actually have a systematic approach to generating leads, handling those leads, closing those leads and growing revenue.

A revenue acceleration agency helps companies install a system that delivers repeatable, predictable and scalable revenue generation. They typically do it in a few different ways.

They Introduce You to the System (They Teach It to You)

At the Sales Empowerment Group (the parent company of Square 2), we have a core purpose to help companies accelerate revenue and empower people to reach their full potential. This means through any and all ways.

If our clients want us to train them on our Revenue Generation System™, then that’s what we’ll help them with. It means putting our thoughts and ideas down on paper and sharing it with the world, like we did in our book Smash the Funnel and in our podcast What’s Wrong With Revenue? (now in season 3).

We’re happy to share our results model, our buyer journey framework, our campaign methodology, our budgeting and forecasting techniques, our technology stack, how we use AI to drive extra efficiency and more.

We’re happy to work with our clients to show them what we do and how we do it. We’re even sharing our internal processes associated with planning, prioritizing and executing programs that generate leads and support a more efficient sales process.

This should be a key part of a revenue acceleration agency’s service offering, and it’s something we don’t see frequently.

They Install the System at Your Company (They Build It and You Run It)

Another option would be for the revenue acceleration agency to build the system at your company and train you in how to run it.

This might mean installing an upgraded website, creating content for the site, building lead nurturing campaigns, launching demand generation campaigns and configuring the marketing/sales technology to handle any automation required as well as the analytics necessary to do ongoing optimization.

While some of the educational work outlined in the first option would be included here, there are many more build activities to get your system set up, operational and optimized.

This version of a revenue generation system also requires ongoing optimization, and the agency would be responsible for running your new revenue acceleration machine for at least six months or so to tune it, optimize it and make sure your team is fully capable of taking it over.

One additional benefit here is that even when the system is in your hands, your agency is around to help you work out any unexpected issues, continue to learn how to tune the system and review performance.

A smooth handoff should be part of the agency’s DNA, meaning they regularly help clients take their programs in house and continue to function as a strategic advisor or technical support arm as needed. Many companies prefer to leave the technology administration or revenue operations work with the agency. This too should be acceptable to your partner.

They Run the System for You (They Run It for Your Company)

The last scenario is probably one of the more common configurations for a revenue generation system. Many companies don’t have and don’t want to hire the people required to get this set up and running over time. They might not have the expertise or skills to even consider taking this over.

I’ve had several clients tell me, “We want to be experts in our industry and our business – we want you to be the experts in helping us generate leads, close those leads and grow revenue.”

That approach makes sense in many scenarios. Hiring in-house, transferring years of experience and providing the technology training and support required can be a big lift for companies.

There’s also an element of time worth considering. While we can get a system like this up and running in as few as 30 days, it might take a company up to six months to just get the people in place, then another six months to get all the programs and technology up and running. Understanding your timing and revenue growth expectations is a huge input into how you go about deciding which approach is right for your company.

Finally, in this category of running it for you, consider the sales reps and the ongoing sales training required to ensure that leads are followed up on, handled correctly and closed quickly. A revenue generation system should include the ability to bring sales reps on quickly and get them productive. It should also include training them on a sales process and sales methodology that’s proven to work.

With so many digital marketing agencies and so few revenue acceleration agencies, it’s hard to tell them apart. But in the end, the revenue acceleration firms are going to have a system and a methodology that they’ve been using for years. They’re also going to have a framework for their delivery that they’ve been optimizing for years so that their clients get results.

There is a lot of value in that system, and having it at your company means the days of not having enough leads, missing your sales targets and having to report slower-than-expected growth could be behind you for good.