Ready, Set, SALES! Get Ready to Revolutionise Your Business Sales Strategy
Your business sales strategy can be revolutionised by following this easy three part series.
Your business sales strategy can be revolutionised by following this easy three part series.
Every business needs a rock solid sales strategy. Big or small, one person or ten thousand, sales are the lifeblood of your business. Sales give you the resources you need to keep growing, thriving and prospering.
Finding a sales strategy which works for your business can feel challenging. Finding one which doesn’t feel like you’re selling your soul? Almost impossible. There’s so many different options, each with a different process or tool (which you have to pay for).
It doesn’t have to be that way. In this three part series, I’ll outline a straight forward, easy to follow set of steps you can follow which will help you drive great outcomes for your business, while staying undertaking a significant sales step. Even if you’re a company of 1.
Let’s go!
The series is divided into three articles and 15 steps. Each step is specific and concrete, containing real life processes you can work through to level up your sales process. Put them together and you’ll be well on your way to sales success.
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Enjoy, and feel free to drop me a DM on twitter, connect on LinkedIn / Github with thoughts and comments 😃
Our first stage is all about the preparation. I’m sure I could quote some kind of pithy phrase about ‘poor preparation’ or some such item, but the truth is that you probably already know this. You’ve seen the impact.
So today, let me share with you some concrete steps about getting you and your business ready for growth, ready for sales and ready to quantify and analyse the effectiveness of your strategy.
Getting ready creates three beneficial impacts for your business.
These three things will make your sales push exponentially more effective.
1. Develop a Clear Strategy
Phase 1 starts with your strategy for this season of your business. That last part (in italics 😉) is critical.
Let me explain.
Imagine you’re a business of 2 people selling a career coaching service. Your business might be constrained by things like:
Clearly, this business must take these things into account, or your sales push might just overwhelm it.
In contrast, if you’re a business of 100 people selling a career coaching service, you might have an entirely different set of constraints. You might have to consider things like:
What company 2 faces is different from company 1.
What your company faces right now is different from what you’ve faced in the past
Your business sales strategy also needs to change. There’s different constraints and inputs to work through. Your goal of increasing sales remains — but the specifics? They’re completely different. Your strategy needs to frame and be framed in your current context.
Here’s a three step process to get to this context:
You’ll be well on your way to a great strategy as you dive into these questions.
Reminder: Your business changes as it prospers. Create a strategy appropriate for your current state.
2. Explicitly Define Your Target Market
Almost immediately after your strategy (or often as part of the strategy), you need to be defining your target market. Don’t be fooled by how simple this sounds — defining a target market can be a very labour intensive process! However, done right, it’s incredibly rewarding.
Here’s how to get started:
Done right, you’ll find yourself entering your very own ‘Strategy / Target Market Loop. This is an incredibly beneficial loop for your business where:
This process is awesome! Don’t get me wrong. It can be quite frustrating to realise that something you thought was nailed needs to change…but in the process, you’ll discover a TON about your business, your target market and your strategy.
So dive into this process with gusto! Own it!
And be confident that there’ll definitely be a time to execute.
Authentically engaging in the Strategy/Target Loop delivers some incredible results:
Ultimately, you’ll have a lot more $$$ to reinvest back into your business.
3. Develop a Clear, True and Relevant Message
An explicitly defined target market allows you to naturally flow into your messaging. In fact, you may even find it occurring even as you engage in steps 1 and 2.
Here’s the characteristics you should look for in your messaging:
Truthfulness Matters
4. Set Expectations
Here’s the thing. Most humans are hard-wired to enjoy meeting (reasonable, legal and authentic) expectations.
You are no different. Your sales team are no different.
If you want your sales team to think, act and behave in a way which constantly reinforces your message, then it starts with you setting expectations.
If you expect your team to always be willing to help potential customers and clients with their needs even if they don’t land the sale then you need to say it. If you are happy with them working different hours if that serves their prospects needs — then say that too. Even if you’re a team of 1 (and shout out to you if that’s the case!), set expectations for yourself.
At every stage, in every step, make sure that your expectations are clear, consistent and realistic. And if you’re a truly great leader — then work with your team to understand their expectations of you as well!
It’s a theme we’ll return to several times in this series.
Getting Ready is your first and best chance to Set Expectations
Here’s some of the excellent outcomes of effectively setting expectations:
Every business experiences resourcing discussions. Sometimes they’re huge, sometimes they’re small. Even if you didn’t plan on having them, there’s an internal talk track which is occurring for you and your team.
For instance, if you get up and joke about ‘Budget Cuts’, without providing clarity about what you meant by that, people will automatically start to think about restricting whatever expense they perceive to be unnecessary. Now this might sound great…but if that ‘whatever they perceive’ turns out to be a critical business function…
Well. You’ll have some issues. And they’ll be really challenging to sort out.
Do you and your business a favour — be open about resourcing
Talk about it extensively. Things like:
I’m sure you can think of some more. The point is:
Be open about your resourcing
And that concludes phase 1 of our Sales strategy. Stay tuned for the next article in the series — I can’t wait to share it with you.
Remember:
This is Just the Beginning!
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