What Is Revenue Growth? Expert Tips to Boost Your Business in 2025

Everyone wants to close more deals, so they — and the companies they sell for — make more money. But for a business to achieve revenue growth, it takes a team. Success requires a collective effort from every member of the organization.

Growing revenue is an important goal for every business, and it requires the right processes, technology, and strategy. Let's explore the topic and learn how your company can get on the path to success.

• What is revenue growth?
• How to calculate revenue growth
• Best practices for driving revenue growth
• Choosing software to track revenue growth
• Revenue growth FAQs

Revenue growth refers to the increase in revenue generated over time. While companies typically measure annual revenue for growth, some use other revenue cycles. For example, businesses may segment revenue growth based on customers, products, and geographical area.

There is no one-size-fits-all measure of revenue growth success. Organizations must determine their target revenue growth rate as part of their revenue growth strategy. For example, some companies might consider 4% revenue growth a huge success, while others aim for 50%.

The company's maturity and goals heavily influence the target growth rate. An early stage company is likely to consider a much lower growth rate a success than an established company aggressively investing in growing its customer base.

When reviewing revenue, companies should ensure that current growth is positive, meaning the amount earned exceeds that of the previous period. Next, compare this revenue growth to the industry standard, and aim for slightly above the standard growth rate. For example, if the current growth rate in your industry is 3%, consider a goal of 4% revenue growth.

To increase revenue growth, organizations need to monitor sales metrics and work to improve key performance indicators (KPIs). Here are some of the common metrics to watch:

• Pipeline: By understanding the number of opportunities generated in each period and how quickly sales closed, organizations can determine which factors remain applicable in the current period. A full sales pipeline makes it more likely that a sales representative will close more deals, which leads to higher revenue.
• Average order: More orders result in greater revenue, highlighting the importance of average orders as a metric. For example, does the company have 10 opportunities at $200,000 or 200 opportunities at $10,000? When sales representatives are closing higher-value orders, revenue typically increases without significantly more work from the sales representatives.
• Churn rate: A key to growing revenue is knowing how often the business loses revenue due to existing customers leaving for another company or canceling subscriptions. This is known as customer churn. Every time a customer leaves, the company's revenue falls — so lowering the churn rate protects your revenue.
• Conversion rate: Because companies increase revenue by converting more leads into sales, it's important to know your current sales conversion rate. Organizations often see revenue growth when they focus on improving their conversion rate.
• Sale cycle time: Longer sales cycles can lead to less revenue, so companies should know their current cycle time and take steps to shorten it. By working to shorten the sales cycle, companies often can increase their revenue.

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The first step to calculate revenue growth is understanding the difference between revenue vs. profit. People often use these terms interchangeably, but they refer to different calculations. Revenue is the income generated by products and services before subtracting expenses, while profit reflects all expenses. For example, while reducing customer acquisition costs is key to overall success, this metric factors into profit, not revenue.

Calculating revenue growth starts by understanding the difference between the revenue of the previous and current periods. Determine the percentage of growth with the following equation:

(Current period revenue - Previous period revenue) / Previous period revenue x 100

Calculating revenue growth manually is time-consuming and prone to errors. Revenue management software provides visibility into revenue and effectively tracks trends. Additionally, it allows you to explore the metrics that make up revenue or are key to increasing it.

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Instead of simply focusing on sales, organizations often see the most revenue growth by taking a strategic approach to their business. Here are best practices to help grow revenue:

Organizations with a comprehensive go-to-market strategy have a blueprint of growth strategies for sales and organizational leaders. A go-to-market strategy connects the organization with customers while optimizing business resources to target the right people at the right time. Focusing on a subset of prospects who are more likely to purchase your products and become lifelong customers can help increase revenue.

Begin by examining your adjustable target market and concentrating on market segmentation. If your target marketing consists of 100,000 companies, not all are likely to buy. Instead, consider refining your focus to the specific market segment where your business can address a particular problem. This approach also allows your organization to stand out from other companies, reducing competition. This is important, as the Salesforce State of Sales report found that 57% of sales reps said marketplace competition had become tricker since the previous year.

After implementing a go-to-market strategy, the next step is to define your revenue model to determine the best approach for your organization. You can then focus on creating new revenue streams, especially those that generate recurring revenue. Salesforce research found that 90% of sales teams use more than one revenue source. The top four sources are recurring sales (42%), upsells and cross-sells (31%), one-off sales (28%), and dividends/investments (26%). Organizations should also prioritize digital channels, as 54% of revenue is expected to come from digital channels in 2025, according to the State of Commerce report.

Sales reps spend 70% of their time on non-selling tasks, according to the same report. When employees use automation and technology for manual tasks to enhance sales efficiency, they can reach more prospects and close deals faster, often resulting in higher revenue. Additionally, organizations prioritizing trade promotion management can ensure their current campaigns are effective and efficient, thereby improving revenue by boosting conversions.

Customer service is traditionally viewed as a cost center focused on handling tickets and assisting customers. However, a current trend involves increasing revenue by using the customer service department to identify and drive new opportunities. The State of Service report found that 85% of decision-makers expect customer service teams to contribute more revenue this year.

Because growing revenue involves numerous processes and departments, it's easy to make mistakes that can hinder progress.

Here are common mistakes to avoid:

• Focusing only on the top of the funnel: Many companies try to grow revenue by selling products to new customers instead of cross-selling. While reaching out to new customers is an important part of growth, it can cause the company to overlook its existing customers and erode their lifetime value. The State of Sales report found that most businesses achieve more significant revenue by selling to existing customers than new ones.
• Tracking only sales growth rate: While sales growth rate is an important number, many organizations mistakenly fail to recognize the differences between revenue vs. sales, leading to only calculating the sales growth rate. The sales metric includes only products and services sold, while revenue encompasses income from other sources, such as the sale of stocks, equipment, and property. Organizations that only calculate sales growth rates tend to overlook other revenue streams and opportunities.
• Not making data-based decisions: By collecting data and adopting a revenue intelligence approach, leaders can interpret the data to make more accurate decisions. Organizations can then create a sales forecasting blueprint that uses the go-to-market strategy to drive revenue.

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Companies that use technology, such as a CPQ solution, to calculate and track revenue have accurate data and can fully understand the decisions and actions that lead to these metrics. Here are features to consider when choosing a revenue management tool:

With guided tools and workflows, sales reps can create quotes more accurately and efficiently. Because these tools include intelligent product bundling, organizations ensure reps use the correct pricing. Additionally, the tool suggests upgrades and add-ons, which can increase revenue.

By using automation, organizations can reduce manual tasks involved with order management, including fulfillment and assembly. Employees can focus on revenue-generating tasks and process more orders in less time, increasing capacity.

Revenue is only counted after an order is paid, so organizations can boost their revenue by enhancing invoicing processes. Automated invocie processing software can calculate invoices accurately, regardless of frequency, and automatically adjust terms and pricing changes across channels.

When organizations effectively use every customer touchpoint, including customer service, they can increase revenue by delivering excellent service. Using the touchpoint management feature, businesses can handle everything from contract changes to renewals while ensuring both efficiency and accuracy.

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Growing revenue typically doesn't happen overnight or without concerted effort. Organizations aiming for revenue growth must undertake a company-wide initiative from the C-suite to every employee. However, the strategy cannot be more of the same or trying to sell more products. By creating an effective go-to-market strategy centered on revenue growth and using the right revenue management software, your company can get on the path to reaching (and maybe even exceeding) your revenue growth goals.