Sale Strategy
Sales strategies and initiatives also align salespeople on shared goals and empower them to do their best work — keeping them happy and successful, too.
What is a sales strategy?
Most strategies involve a detailed plan of best practices and processes set out by management. Different sales strategies work for different sales teams and industries.
The most important component of choosing and implementing sales strategies is your customer.
We can help you build a great sales culture based around performance and work satisfaction. If you’re the sole salesperson we can help you with resources and guidance to get more sales.
Bruce Millner, Managing Director, Millner Advisory.
Sales Strategies
- Researching and Qualifying Prospects
- Cold Calling
- Pitching
- Giving a Sales Presentation or
- Demonstration
- Closing Techniques
- Account Management Policies
In addition to these, there are two primary types of sales strategies: inbound and outbound.
In outbound sales — the legacy system of most sales teams — companies base their sales strategy on seller actions. They rely on manually-entered data to monitor the sales pipeline and coach their salespeople, and they run sales and marketing independently, creating a disjointed experience for buyers.
In inbound sales — the modern methodology for sales teams — companies base their sales process on buyer actions. They automatically capture seller and buyer data to monitor the pipeline and coach salespeople, and they align sales and marketing, creating a seamless experience for buyers. Inbound sales benefits buyers at each stage of the buyer process: awareness, consideration, and decision. Inbound sales teams help the buyer become aware of potential problems or opportunities, discover strategies to solve the buyer’s problems, evaluate whether the salesperson can help the buyer with the problem, and then purchase the solution. They’re helpful and trustworthy, creating partnerships rather than power struggles.
Over the past three years, sales teams’ portfolios have more than doubled, but growth in existing accounts has been disappointing. New research conducted with more than 600 account managers and 700 B2B buyers reveals why the traditional account management model and mindset may actually stunt growth – and what to do instead.
Gartner Research Paper – “Why Accounts Aren’t Growing, and What to Do About It”, 2019
Today, all of the information needed to evaluate a product is available online and buyers are no longer dependent on the seller.
If today’s sales teams don’t align on the modern buyer’s process and fail to add value beyond the information already available to the buyer, the buyer then has no reason to engage with a sales team.
The fact of the matter is that delivering service and driving growth are not the same thing. Customer service should not be prioritised above all else if service levels are already high enough to secure retention. Yet 88% of account managers believe that providing above-and-beyond customer service is the surest way to drive growth.
Gartner Research Paper – “Why Accounts Aren’t Growing, and What to Do About It”, 2019
Sales Planning: Building a Sales Strategy Plan
Here are the essential components of a sales plan:
1. Organisational Goals
Each goal should be specific and measurable such as “to sell 150% of the projected sales quota in Q2.”
2. Customer Profile and Product Offering
This entails a detailed profile of the target customer — including their company size, psychographics, and buying process. The product offering should outline the product benefits and features, with emphasis on those that solve the target customers’ pain points.
3. Hiring, Onboarding, and Compensation
If you’re not ding the selling yourself, developing a list of criteria and attributes to look for when interviewing candidates is essential to recruiting and keeping hold of good people.
The next step is to develop an induction program that will prepare them to start selling effectively and efficiently, followed by a compensation and rewards plan that will motivate them to continue performing.
4. Demand Generation
This section should include a detailed plan for how to target potential customers in order to increase awareness of your offering, such as using paid social acquisition channels, creating e-books and hosting webinars, hosting events, etc.
5. Performance and Measurement Procedures
Time to track! Once the infrastructure is set up, create a procedure for tracking performance. This measurement can take the form of quarterly KPIs, weekly dashboards, monthly reviews, or some combination of all three. This section should also highlight the specific metrics that the team should focus on. If you’re the sole salesperson it’s also really important to know how you’re tracking with your sales.
6. Sales Activities
This should span everything from the sales presentation to closing techniques. These activities include the following.
Prospect qualification
Outline what criteria a prospect meets in order to qualify them as a high-probability potential customer. This should be based on a prospect’s engagement history and demographics.
Sales presentation
This should be an overall outline of the connect stage for each salesperson, whether it’s a discovery call or a final sales pitch. Inbound sales teams should lead with a tailored message to the buyer from their specific context or point-of-view rather than a generic elevator pitch.
Objections
What are the biggest challenges to purchase? Sales teams should be equipped with responses, resources, and educational material to handle any common objections that a prospect may address.
Closing techniques
Keeping a list of proven, go-to closing techniques will help salespeople routinely win deals. But be careful. This can backfire if you don’t come across as genuine and are seen as pushy.
Timeline
What is the typical timeline of your sales process from the first contact to close? This section should guide sales teams to better understand the length of each stage in the sales process.
Sales Initiatives
Businesses should always be looking for ways to innovate and invigorate. Here are some creative things sales reps and teams can do on their own to jumpstart their performance, stand out from competition, and boost team productivity.
Refresh your buyer personas regularly.
Buyer personas inform all kinds of activity at your business, including (and most importantly) who your marketing and sales teams pursue as customers. However, as things in the market and at your company shift, your buyer personas can become out-of-date — which can cause your sales team’s work to become stagnant and ineffective. Know your customers inside out and back to front.
Actively align Sales and Marketing.
Marketing and sales often don’t get on. That’s why one is affectionately is known as the “colouring in department” and the other as the people who drive nice cars and get to go out for lunch. If this is how your departments operate do really need to hire a consultant to fix the problem. To use an analogy, sometimes if two children don’t see eye to eye it’s better for someone other than mum or dad to fix the problem, because they let it happen in the first place!
Use a CRM.
Successful sales teams and strategies require the right tools. A decent CRM tool helps eliminate manual work and streamlines your sales activity and data. It also keeps your sales team up-to-date about all relevant activity with your prospects — an important transparency factor that helps motivate and align your team.
Listen to your prospects.
Just because prospects aren’t customers doesn’t mean they can’t provide valuable feedback. As you move prospects through their sales funnel and (especially) when they drop off, ask for candid feedback about their experience with your team and products. You may learn something that can help convert them or your next prospect.
Invest in sales development and team-building.
The very best sales teams not only align with customers but also with their co-workers. Sales is a difficult career and can lead to burnout without proper encouragement and camaraderie. Invest in the team. It can be an unforgiving job.