Surprisingly, 39% of CSOs don’t have a sales strategy in place.
An effective sales strategy will drive sales revenue. How do best-in-class sales leaders define a winning strategy? Read on to find out.
An effective sales strategy will drive sales revenue. Here’s what leaders know about defining one.
What Is a Sales Strategy?
It is the operating plan for your company’s sales force. It requires choices on which sales programs to invest in and which to forgo.
What Does a Sales Strategy Do?
This strategy allocates sales resources. Done right, it will drive selling costs down and revenues up.
The right sales strategy will empower your sales team to accomplish their goals. It will grow revenues organically.
What Does It Mean to Use a Sales Strategy?
Using a sales strategy, sales executives will get the most out of their sales force. An effective strategy enables your sales organization to make the number.
Aligning the Sales Strategy:
Sales strategy is one of the six steps to strategic alignment. It should be aligned to each of the other functional strategies.
This starts with corporate strategy, which defines the direction for the company.
Next, sales strategy should align with product strategy. Sales has unique insight into customer needs, which can help product development. Ideally, sales enablement materials should be built in parallel with product management.
Finally, sales strategy should align with marketing strategy. Marketing must understand what leads Sales needs. Sales must communicate customer needs with marketing. Ideally, the sales and marketing plan should be created by each group in tandem.
Creating an Effective Sales Strategy:
Sales strategy is where the direction for your sales team is determined. It should build on the insights from the external marketplace and align with corporate strategy. It should address how to achieve the revenue objective with Product and Marketing’s support.
There are five steps to defining the right sales strategy. We will be talking about these steps in upcoming SBI Blog posts.
If you don’t want to wait, register for the “How to Make Your Number in 2016” Workshop today. An SBI strategist will walk you through what top performers are doing differently. And you’ll learn how to successfully hit your 2016 number.
