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Developing a Sales Strategy: Step-by-Step 2024 Guide

Creating a stable revenue stream is crucial to building a long-term sustainable business. So how do you do that? Well, by developing a sales strategy that’s dynamic. A robust sales strategy is a guiding light for acquiring new customers who can contribute to the revenue pipeline.

All businesses must develop a sales strategy regardless of their size, nature, or industry. Acquiring the first few customers is easy in most cases. However, adding new names to the customers’ list can be challenging, and that’s why most businesses have to focus on building a sales strategy.

It’s vital to acknowledge that sales strategy can vary depending on the target audience, business size & industry, and other factors. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. The key is to experiment with new ideas and improvise continuously. It will help you find better ways of closing sales deals.

Another rule of thumb is to study the sales strategy deployed by successful companies in your domain. Before we jump into popular sales strategies, let’s take a quick look at what it entails.

The Basics of Sales Strategy

A sales strategy can be simply explained as a plan of action formulated to increase the company’s revenue by selling more products or services. These strategies factor in the USPs of a business to promote and sell more products and services.

A comprehensive sales strategy considers multiple facets, including target market, ideal customer profile, sales channels, market positioning, etc. Competitive advantage is the critical factor that is extensively leveraged while creating a sales strategy or plan.

The sales strategy is a guiding force for the sales team and helps them close more deals. Since it also sheds light on the customer pain points, the sales rep is better positioned to handle prospects’ queries. It’s a tried and tested approach to increasing sales which is then used by others. However, it’s important to note that a sales strategy evolves as the business grows. Therefore, sales reps must be proactive in assessing the changing dynamics to make the most of a sales strategy.

Sales Strategy Examples

There are various approaches or examples of how one can strategize sales processes to achieve business goals. Here are some examples of sales strategy:

  1. Account-based selling: This type of strategy depends on the particular account or customer. You can upsell to a customer who is already interested in your product. Example: If you are an insurance company you may ask, “Sir, we have an upgraded family plan that provides double medical benefits, would you like to upgrade to our Gold Plan?”
  2. Value-based selling: Here, you focus on delivering value to your customers. For example, if you are a cloud calling solution, you would focus on how cloud calling smoothes business communication being cheaper, flexible and by integrating with major applications and focus on the ROI of the product and service.
  3. Referral selling: This is one of the most important strategies as word of mouth matters a lot. An inbound sales strategy, it helps to build good relationships over time. Your satisfied customers refer your products to their dear ones and in return, you offer them some free gifts to brighten up the deal. So, more customers come to you looking for something specific to their needs.

How to Develop a Winning Sales Strategy?

Developing a winning sales strategy in an ever-evolving world is a real challenge. However, some businesses are able to prosper by leveraging a dynamic sales strategy. Here’s a step-by-step approach to developing a sales strategy for business growth.

Learn how to attract potential customers

The first step in developing a sales strategy framework starts with learning how to attract potential customers. Regardless of a company’s offerings, it’s crucial to understand what it takes to attract potential customers. How much revenue you expect from these customers is an important question to ask. Once this is answered, you will be in a better position to devise the right strategy.

Joel York’s sales strategy for SaaS businesses defines three critical sales models to close new customers. It describes these models using axes in different quadrants. This can be used as a reference point for creating a sales strategy for most businesses.

Most start-ups find themselves in the bottom left quadrant as it’s easier to scale and grow a business. Choosing the wrong quadrant as your sales strategy can ruin your business. For example, acquiring customers for a low-value product by spending a higher amount is not feasible.

Find out when to add sales to a self-service model

The next step in developing a sales strategy is learning when to add sales to a self-service model. The advent of eCommerce has revolutionized how people buy and sell goods and services.

Today, most products or service offerings are sold in an automated fashion, requiring no manual assistance from the seller. However, when the stakes are high, people need a face to talk and discuss their concerns. This is when you need to bring salespeople into the game.

Selling low average value products/services shouldn’t require manual intervention to close deals. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be feasible for the company to offer its products or services. However, complex, high-value products and services with higher closing TAT must be cautiously approached. Sales should be given vital importance in this scenario.

Your website can indeed convey the benefits and features of your offerings. However, building trust is hard when a considerable sum is involved.

 Assign specific roles to different sales team members

Each member of your sales team must have a specific role which should be clearly explained to them. Making people accountable and focused is easier when they know their particular roles. New sales reps might struggle to close deals with new customers. It’s essential to understand the capabilities of each member and assign tasks best suited for them. Also, it is crucial to incentivize people in the sales process.

There are different ways to sell a product or service. Broadly, it can be categorized into inbound sales and outbound sales. Both these processes differ and require varied skillset to get the job done.

An example of sales strategy is when inbound sales members analyze key trends and optimize funnels to increase conversion rates, social media marketing, etc. However, outbound salespeople need to put themselves out in front of customers to explain the USPs of a product/service to close deals.

Create an ideal customer persona

Creating an ideal customer persona (ICP) can remove the guessing game from the picture. However, it can be hard to describe when you have a broad target audience. The more accurate the description of the ideal customer, the better the chances of conversion. It will help you weed out the unwanted audience and prioritize ones who can be converted into paying customers. In addition, a good ICP can help to identify new potential customers quickly.

Building a sales strategy is much easier when you know the target audience in and out. Creating the ideal customer persona can boost your marketing ROIs as you will not be wasting money chasing outliers. However, in many cases, businesses create a vague ideal customer persona.

This will not just waste resources but also negatively impact the sales pitch. The end result will be lower than the potential revenue, profit, and customers. Therefore, it’s crucial to identify the niche for your target audience.

Step in the advisor’s shoe

The sales process in the modern digital era is quite different from what it used to be. Earlier, people had to speak with a sales rep to initiate the buying process. Sales reps had a significant advantage since the customers didn’t have all the required information to make the purchase. However, in the contemporary period, things have changed.

People no longer have to get on a call or approach the sales rep. Instead, they can quickly obtain all necessary info from the seller’s website.

This makes us wonder what the need for a sales rep is. Well, a sales rep can certainly add more value and put things in context for customers. You will have to learn how to add value to customers buying a product or service.

It is crucial to be a consultant or advisor to your customers to gain their trust. You must bridge the gap between their needs and your company’s offerings. It’s essential to understand their needs and then tell a story they can relate to. Following up with prospects is highly recommended.

Deliberation while moving upmarket

As SaaS and other businesses grow from small to established enterprises, their growth aspirations also expand. Therefore, a new marketing strategy is deployed to reach new customers and expand product offerings with the existing ones. Initially, they are selling a simple product (low-value) with a self-service model.

However, moving up, new features are added to the basic product, a modular pricing approach is adopted, and sales reps are brought into the picture.

Increasing the average price from $10 to $100 or $1000 because of new features alone won’t guarantee sales. There is a need for operational and cultural shifts within the organization to be successful while moving upmarket. Some critical questions that must be asked before moving upmarket include the following.

  • Should the product be offered separately or in modules?
  • Do you need a new lead generation pipeline to sell high-value products?
  • Is your existing customer base ready to pay more for a better product?

Experiment with sales strategies  

Business growth is accompanied by structural and operational changes most of the time. The development can be due to various reasons. However, the outcome is an increase in revenue and profits. Many a time, businesses close enterprise-level deals and shift their entire focus on acquiring high-value customers. Although, it’s good to be ambitious. It can be detrimental to put all your eggs in one basket.

Experimenting with new strategies is crucial to finding the ideal sales strategy framework. CEOs, CMOs and other high-profile company executives often get new ideas for business expansion. Creating a culture of experimentation is essential to encourage all team members to think out of the box and come up with creative solutions. Many a time, the management take impulsive decisions and move quickly. However, it should be done with careful planning, documentation, and analysis.

Leverage channel partners to accelerate growth, not create it

While creating a sales strategy, focusing on the growth partners is essential. Unfortunately, new businesses often make the mistake of leveraging various channel partners to create demand. It’s not the right way to get things started. Although channel partners can be a catalyst in your growth, it is only done at later stages when you have a customer base.

Conclusion

You will have to work on acquiring the first 100 or 500 customers before onboarding channel partners. It’s crucial to note that sales channel partners are only good at selling things that have proven demand. If you have already identified the demand and have a decent pool of paid customers, you can onboard channels partners to accelerate growth.

Sid heads the global Sales Team at JustCall. He has been instrumental in establishing the foundation for the GTM functions at JustCall, driving the organisation into a growth phase. He is passionate about enabling organisations to build great customer experiences using technology. He is always looking to help startups beyond work, advising early stage companies on all things Sales & GTM.

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