70 problems keeping Chief Revenue Officers up at night.

I wrote this a year ago, but updated it this week (May 2024) to reflect what I’m currently hearing.

For the eagle eyed, there are more that 80 on this list, but I didn’t want to change the title!

Sales Director/VP Sales: “I can’t wait to become a CRO. Seems like a good gig.”

CRO:

  • Growth is slowing and I don’t know what to do about it

  • My team isn’t working as one

  • My teams are pulling in different directions

  • My teams have competing priorities/metrics

  • I’m the only person that has responsibility across the whole revenue function

  • I’m not the only person that has responsibility across the whole revenue function

  • Our CFO seems to be aiming towards a completely different goal

  • I’m in a strategic role but my success is measured by the monthly bookings

  • I have no idea how to operationalise AI for my customers and team

  • I don’t know how to structure my team efficiently

  • I don’t have experience in marketing

  • I don’t have experience in customer success

  • I don’t have experience in (digital/SMB/Enterprise/Global) sales

  • Our teams are working in different systems

  • Our commission scheme isn’t driving the right behaviours

  • Our customers get conflicting/competing messages from product, marketing, sales, success

  • Why do so many opportunities end in no decision?

  • We did an event and hardly anyone came

  • The acquisition we made is not integrating fast enough

  • Why is there no-one in the office?

  • We have to give up too much discount to close deals

  • Our competitors are undercutting us

  • Our SDRs are focused on SQLs not on revenue

  • Every quarter end we see deals slip

  • I want to know what other companies are doing

  • My sellers aren’t capable of having business value conversations

  • Some sellers are great, some are rubbish, but I don’t know why

  • I can’t find great sellers to hire

  • My good sellers are leaving

  • My bad sellers won’t leave

  • When sellers leave, they take all the knowledge about our target prospects

  • Do I promote my best sellers or bring in new managers?

  • Our marketers don’t understand our customers

  • I need to reduce our CAC but I don’t know how without harming bookings

  • We have no insight to how our customers find us

  • Our marketers don’t trust our sellers

  • Our sellers don’t trust our marketers

  • Our sellers and customer success teams aren’t aligned on their accounts

  • My sales managers are not coaches

  • I need to hire more sellers if I am going to make the plan

  • We don’t have a great handover between our teams

  • Our proposition isn’t landing with customers

  • Our product is not differentiated against the status quo

  • Outbound isn’t working

  • Inbound isn’t working

  • We aren’t moving quick enough

  • We are too focused on a single product/region/segment

  • We are spread too thin across multiple products/regions/segments

  • We don’t get any revenue through our partners

  • We don’t provide content and tools that our buyers really value

  • We have a sales process but the sales people don’t follow it

  • My sellers don’t know how to use LinkedIn properly

  • We have too many systems that aren’t integrated with each other

  • Our sellers aren’t using CRM so I can’t see what’s happening

  • Our customers don’t understand what we do

  • I don’t understand the possibilities we have within the data our customers create in our product

  • I don’t understand how AI is going to transform my organisation

  • I don’t have a clear understanding of what our buyer’s experience is

  • I don’t know why churn is increasing

  • I can’t figure out how to sell into new segments/industries/regions

  • Our newest product isn’t selling

  • Our newest office isn’t selling

  • Our sales story isn’t resonating with customers

  • Our sales content is poor

  • Our competition seem to be running rings around us

  • We provide our sellers with training but they don’t listen

  • Our sales people don’t know how to sell digitally

  • Our customers aren’t using our product as they are supposed to

  • We don’t understand the real value our customers get from our product

  • Our website doesn’t teach buyers what problem we solve

  • We don’t have any calculators or diagnostics to help customers learn

  • We aren’t generating testimonials that customers trust

  • Our social channels aren’t very social!

  • We don’t generate many referrals from our customers

  • We need to change our commercial model

  • Our net revenue retention is just covering the churn that’s increasing

  • Planning for next year takes up too much of our time

  • I don’t have enough hours in the day

  • I don’t know what good looks like

  • I’m going to miss plan and have to re-forecast

  • I don’t know what to do to make things grow faster

  • I don’t spend enough time speaking to customers

  • My CEO can see fear in my eyes

  • My family say I’m stressed

  • I’m not sure how long I can stay in this role

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