Sales - Strategy and Process
A sales strategy is a structured plan that outlines the actions, decisions, and goals necessary for a sales team to position a product or service and acquire new customers. It outlines sales procedures, activities and product placement to help sales teams achieve sales targets.
A sales strategy is defined as a documented plan for positioning and selling your product or service to qualified buyers in a way that differentiates your solution from your competitors.
Sales strategies are meant to provide clear objectives and guidance to your sales organization. They typically include key information like growth goals, KPIs, buyer personas, sales processes, team structure, competitive analysis, product positioning, and specific selling methodologies.
Phases of strategic selling
Goals
Buyer
Analyse
Align
Process
Team
Action
Technology
GOALS
Establish company vision and goals
Where do you see your company in the future? A clear vision shapes your present actions. Every step you take now should propel you closer to your ultimate goal.
Revenue goals
These should align with your vision. Why are you aiming for $250,000 in sales this quarter? How does it contribute to your long-term vision?
BUYER
Find the right market and buyer persona
Gone are the days of generic customer profiles. Create a detailed picture of your ideal buyer, including:
Background: What’s their story? Understanding their experiences helps connect with them.
Pain points: What challenges do they face? Your product or service should be the cure.
ANALYSE
Analyze risks and opportunities
This simple yet powerful analysis helps you identify opportunities and navigate potential threats within your industry.
Strengths: What makes your company stand out?
Weaknesses: Where can you improve?
Opportunities: Unexplored areas for growth?
Threats: Potential challenges you face?
ALIGN
Align sales and marketing
These teams often work in silos, but collaboration is critical. Here’s a way to make them work together.
Sales insights: Sales reps can share customer interactions with marketing, who can use this data to target leads more effectively.
Marketing resources: Marketers can equip salespeople with valuable tools like case studies and battle cards for better engagement with prospects.
Working together, they can create a unified value proposition message and identify the best channels (social media, email, etc) to reach your audience.
PROCESS
Define your sales process
This is a roadmap for your sales reps, outlining the steps they need to take at each stage of the customer journey to convert prospects into paying customers. It’s different from your overall sales strategy, which focuses on big-picture goals.
Here are seven steps that are typically involved in making a sale:
- Prospecting.
- Preparation or pre-approach.
- Approach.
- Presentation.
- Handling objections.
- Closing.
- Follow-up.
TEAM
Hire the perfect sales team
Hire the right people who align with your company culture and possess the skills to drive sales success.
Here’s a holistic approach:
Hiring: Seek candidates who fit your ideal salesperson profile
Retention: Create a positive sales culture that keeps your team motivated and reduces turnover
Coaching: Equip your team with essential skills (cold calling, objection handling) and provide ongoing sales enablement resources
ACTION
Have an right action plan
Having a clear vision for your sales goals is essential, but a concrete action plan requires turning that vision into reality. This plan translates your overarching strategy into a series of actionable steps, guaranteeing everyone on your team knows exactly what needs to be done and by whom.
Check out how to create a robust action plan:
Break down goals: Start by deconstructing your sales into smaller, more manageable tasks. For example, if your goal is to increase qualified leads by 20%, this could translate to creating ten new blog posts, running target social media ad campaigns, and attending two industry events within the next quarter.
Assign ownership: Once you’ve identified these actionable steps, assign them to specific team members based on their strengths and expertise. This fosters accountability and ensures each task has a clear owner.
Set realistic timelines: Don’t set yourself (or your team) up for failure with unrealistic deadlines. Be mindful of workloads and project complexities when establishing timeframes for completing each step.
Track and monitor progress: Regularly monitor progress towards your goals. This may involve holding weekly team meetings, utilizing projects, keeping a close eye on progress, identifying any roadblocks early on, and making adjustments as needed.
TECHNOLOGY
Invest in sales tools and software
A customer relationship management system automates tasks, captures and tracks leads, and helps nurture them through your sales funnel.
Sales automation tools can help sales professionals automate repetitive tasks, such as sending emails, scheduling appointments, and tracking leads. This frees up sales professionals to focus on more important tasks, such as building relationships with prospects and closing deals
Sales Services
Strategy Design
The sales strategy design process involves understanding the products, pricing, target customers, target market place and competitor that will maximize the effectiveness and success of your overall sales strategy. My services includes,
- Designing sales funnel
- Create strategy and messaging to engage, nurture leads at each stage in funnel
Sales Process
There has to be systems and processes in place to be able to tract journey of lead in sales funnel. My services includes,
- Design the process
- Automate the process wherever required
- Generate reports to tract conversions and costs
- Improvise the process when needed
Collateral Development
Sales collateral is any kind of document or media that helps support the sales process and moves leads through the sales funnel. This includes printed media such as adverts, flyers, or brochures and digital collateral such as blogs, landing pages, eBooks, videos, and social media. My services includes,
- Collateral design for awareness stage, consideration stage and decision stage
- Collateral design for both digital and offline platforms
Sales Training
Training programs are designed to develop the selling and sales management competencies of sellers and sales managers. The most effective sales training programs are more than one-hit-wonders: they provide the ongoing support teams need to create lasting behavior change. The best programs also align with the organization’s key business metrics to ensure goals are met and measurable improvement is achieved. My services includes,
- Leading a Thorough Needs Discovery. …
- Overcoming Objections. …
- Qualifying the Sale. …
- Winning Sales Opportunities. …
- Making a Powerful Impact and ROI Case. …
- Growing Strategic and Key Accounts. …
- Dealing with Common Buyer Negotiation Tactics. …
- Maximizing Motivation and Productivity.