Stop Winging It: Why Your Small Business Needs a Sales Strategy!

"Is sales strategy even important for small businesses? Surely only bigger businesses need one?"

This is something that I hear all the time from founders of small businesses - it's almost as if having a sales strategy is a luxury they think they can't afford.

While this is understandable, here's the truth...

Having a sales strategy is like building the foundations of a house. You could just start putting walls up, but the key to a strong roof is a solid foundation.

Here’s 3 things I hear from small business owners that tell me they absolutely do need a sales strategy:?

1. “I know exactly who my customers are, I talk to them every day!”

A sales strategy is 100% based on our Ideal Customer Profile - if we’re basing the entire ICP on anecdotal evidence, the sales strategy is doomed before it ever starts.?

Strategy: Build both an “ideal customer profile” as well as an “ideal customer journey”.?

Gather anecdotal and empirical evidence on who our customers are, what they care about and where they get their information.?

Then build a structured “ICP” that forms the foundation for the rest of the sales process.?

How it helps:

When we have questions like?

“What message should I send this person?” or?

“What kind of marketing materials should I make?” or?

?“how personalised should this process be?”

The ideal customer profile helps us answer all those questions. It gives us clarity and a clear north star for the rest of the process

2. “My sales messaging is fine”

Sales messaging is the hardest thing to get right in a sales process. Striking the balance between personalisation and scale is TOUGH.?

Strategy : The perfect sales message is personalised, relevant and received at the right time.?

Draw up a “trigger template” system that allows you to be reactive to what’s happening in your customers’ businesses, without spending 30 minutes writing each message.?

How it helps:

The quality of your sales messaging goes up, your confidence in you ability to land new leads goes up, and the time it takes you to find new leads goes down dramatically

3. “Whenever I need new customers I just tap into my network”

There are 5 lead sources - if your entire business only relies on the strength and quality of your network, then it is doomed to fail.?

Strategy: Actively work on all 5 lead sources (inbound marketing, outbound sales, partners, referrals, events), a minimum of once per week?

How it helps:?

By having multiple sources of leads, and therefore multiple sources of revenue, you de-risk your business.?

Just paying a little bit of attention to your lead sources can provide massive returns in the long run. There’s low-hanging fruit out there, all you have to do is look for it!?

Simply put, for a lot of businesses, what got them to A won’t get them to B.?

Without a clear sales process, you’re paddling against the tide with no rudder!?

Most people don't know where to look, when it comes to building up their sales strategy - just drop me a DM on LinkedIn if you need help finding the right next step for you!