Strategy without execution is a waste of time. Execution without a strategy is guaranteed chaos.

We have all been in sales meetings when someone says, “We can sit around planning forever, or we can just get going and do something.” Strategy without execution is a waste of time. But, execution without strategy is definately creating chaos.

A business strategy, market strategy or sales strategy should deliver these critical results:

·      Clear priorities

·      Clear outcomes

·      Clear guidelines

·      Clear goals

Without a strategy, sales teams and leaders make momentum based decisions. They just miss the big picture, but no one is to blame because they just don’t know(yet)!

The sales team need to have the following tools :

·      An Ideal Customer Profile

·      A SWOT analysis

·      A market strategy

·      Revenue goals

·      Product positioning

·      Action plan

Too often, sales strategies start with someone at the top coming up with an arbitrary growth number based on investor demands, new product development, operational capacity, or some other factor that has absolutely nothing to do with sales. That growth expectation gets divided among regions and reps in ways that are equal, arbitrary or based on some often-unsubstantiated belief about which markets or reps can support the most growth. Unfortunately, these poorly-planned strategies often result in declining morale, increased irritation and ultimately poor business results.

The secret to sustained growth is creating a powerful sales strategy to support it.

Here is the road to this success.

Analyse in detail last year on key indicators.

·      What did you do last year? Dig into your sales numbers as well and look at key indicators such as:

·      How much did your team sell?

·      Who sold it?

·      To whom did they sell it?

·      How much will result in repeat business?

·      Which clients brought in the least and most profit?

·      Which clients had the shortest sales cycles?

·      Which clients had the highest revenue?

·      What has changed in the market?

·      How are you positioned to achieve the revenue targets you have identified?

·      Where is the most logical place to look for growth?

·      What exists to support the desired growth?

·      What additional support will your team need to achieve the desired increases?

By understanding where you have been, you can begin to determine where you should go.

Formulate a clear and ideal Customer Profile

80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the clients. Figure out what your top clients do and make a list of those criteria. This will become your Ideal Customer. Dig into the genes of your ideal customer to create a complete ideal customer profile for your reps.

An ideal customer profile provides guidelines for your sales reps that help them spend their time efficiently on prospects who are most likely to act like the defined ideal customer.

Make A SWOT Analysis

Grab your sales, marketing, and product teams, sit together, and shape the SWOT Analysis together.

A SWOT is not just a simple exercise. Together you need to figure out how to leverage your strengths to capitalize on opportunities. Consider your weaknesses and threats, the internal and external obstacles that will hinder your ability to achieve those goals. Ask yourself what needs to be done to minimize these threats and weaknesses.

Formulate a Market Strategy Plan

Now it is time to think about where you want to go based on a clear market strategy.

Consider the following questions based on your work so far:

·      Can you grow on existing accounts?

·      Can you leverage existing accounts to get referrals?

·      Can you increase revenue inside existing territories with existing products?

·      Can you increase revenue inside existing territories with new products?

·      Can you increase revenue outside existing territories with existing products?

·      Can you increase revenue outside existing territories with new products?

Start this process with large account plans for your top 10 clients and expand afterwards with your top 100.

Create Clear Revenue Goals

When you combine your given revenue targets with the market strategy you’ve created based on an assessment of the past and current situation, you can generate realistic revenue goals for territories and individuals.

Now is time to think about what support your sales team needs to reach these goals. Get your marketing team, sales team, and product team together to work on a plan.

Develop And Communicate Clear Positioning

The market strategy you created will help determine how you need to position your company and products to achieve growth. Remember, you have different market segments that each need a clear positioning plan.

·      Large Accounts

·      Opportunities inside existing accounts with different product lines

·      Opportunities inside existing territories and markets

·      Companies that meet your ideal customer profile

·      How will you identify them?

·      How will you make them aware of your product?

·      How will sales and marketing work together to prospect and sell

·      New Markets, New Products.

It is not sufficient to ask salespeople to figure out the positioning. The sales, marketing, and product teams need to work together to create buyer personas or positioning statements and value propositions that meet each different need.

Clear Action Plan

We tend to send sales reps out to prioritize their work alone. If you want your sales reps to be successful, it is time to implement a well-functioning funnel and opportunity planning process.

Now that you know how much revenue you need to get, and where it should come from, each sales rep will need to create a sales funnel that shows how they intend to generate that revenue. They may be more successful working with marketing and including existing leads that support specific goals.

When your sales reps create their sales funnel, coach them to ask themselves the following questions:

·      How much of each type of revenue do I need to make?

·      How many sales does that represent?

·      How many calls/visits does that represent?

·      How much time does that represent?

·      If I am calling/visiting existing clients, how many calls/visits do I need to make to close 10 existing clients on new products?

·      How many new ideal customers will I need to call/visit on to close?

Capture the answers to these questions on each rep’s sales funnel, along with the next actions and timelines. But, worry less about close dates and more about next actions and next action dates.

These steps are the basis of an executable sales strategy. At the end of this process, your sales team will have clear priorities everyone understands, clear outcomes everyone can measure, clear guidelines everyone can follow and clear goals toward which everyone can work.