How to Increase the Revenue Value of Non-Revenue Generating Roles
Part 1
Career Management Series
By Laura Lee Rose
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of TimePeace: Making peace with time – and I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies. I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs create effective systems so that they can comfortably delegate to others, be more profitable and have time to enjoy life even if they don’t have time to learn new technology or train their staff. I have a knack for taking big ideas and converting them into smart, sound, and actionable ideas.
At the end of the day, I transform the way you run your business into a business you love to run.
Small business owners have several budget constraints. One of the most prevalent is staffing. As they start, they see the need for the Sales Position (which is critical). But as the sales are successful and the client base grows, things start to fall through the cracks. The Sales team is versed in “selling” and their talent (production team) is equipped to execute tasks. But the missing piece is in the connection and follow-through of what was promised and what is delivered. As the sales team continues to sell, the current clients are often lost in the growth. This is where the Account Manager comes into play. The Account Manager is the liaison between sales, production team and the client. The account manager is the person that keeps the current clients satisfied and manages the progress of the various projects for their accounts.
Unfortunately, these positions are often seen as costly overheads. And small businesses wish to reduce or eliminate “non-billable” positions or positions that don’t directly bring in revenue. So they don’t staff project managers or account managers, which allow clients to contact the developers directly. The developers end up managing the clients, adding features to satisfy the “squeaky wheels”, and missing deliverables to other clients and projects. At the end of the day, the company is losing money because of feature creep, delayed deliverables and unsatisfied clients.
Making a non-revenue generating staff role even more valuable
Even though the account and project manager’s role is behind the scene, it is very valuable. One way to make the role even more visibly valuable is to tie it to some revenue-generating tasks. Here are steps to re-define the Account Manager’s role into a revenue-generating position.
Define a specific mission for the role
The first step is to define a specific mission that adds value to both the client and company.
To illustrate these steps, I use a marketing agency and the account manager in these examples. But you can substitute your industry/product/service and non-revenue generating role.
For example:
Mission – To provide a unique experience and personalized treatment plan for each and every client. The Account Manager takes the client to the next level of success through marketing (
With this new mission statement, it elevates the Account Manager as more of a Marketing Coach or Client consultant. You can now incorporate the client consultant hours in your package pricing – no longer making the account manager position a non-revenue generating role.
In general, most positions can be structured to add more value to your organization. One of the easiest ways to turn a non-revenue generating role into one that generates income is to give them “up-sale” responsibilities.
It may be as simple as providing your receptionists with the proper up-sale scripts; your office manager responsible for calling past clients to share your new services; having your intern schedule 2 hours a week for outgoing calls )armed with the proper scripts) etc.
In Part 2, we go into more details and examples of additional roles and responsibilities to increase revenue value to non-revenue generating roles.