How to create a winning sales strategy
Today in this article we want to talk about creating a sales strategy that always wins and we think that could be an exciting topic.
Have you ever heard the phrase “the product sells itself”?
A great sales strategy will make any product sell immediately.
A strong sales strategy lays the foundation for consistent and successful sales. A sales strategy is unique to the type of business.
In this article, we’ll help you build the foundation of a solid plan to help you meet your goals for leads and close sales at a higher rate.
What is a sales strategy?
A sales strategy is a set of decisions, actions, and goals that define how your sales team will plan to sell products or services to increase revenue.
The sales strategy should always be reviewed, evaluated, and optimized.
The most important component of choosing and implementing a sales strategy is your customer.
For this reason, the sales strategy should not be integrated and is different for each customer.
Why is sales strategy important?
When you develop a product or service, the ultimate measure of its success is sales.
While many managers don’t focus enough on developing the sales strategy and spend more time on product development and imitating their marketing plan.
This is a very costly mistake.
To understand the importance of sales strategy, it is better to first understand the difference between marketing strategy and sales strategy.
Marketing strategy
To increase the visibility of services or products
Sales strategy
Sales strategy focuses on selling services or products
No matter how efficient your marketing plan is and your products are of good quality; if your sales can’t get a good result, all your efforts are practically useless.
To achieve the desired sales results, you need a well-defined sales strategy that can cover your marketing plan.
A sales strategy helps:
- Know your target audience
- Understand your unique selling points
- Develop your business idea
- Identify your best sales channels
- Improve the way you interact with your customers
- Find the right vendors to help you achieve your goals
- Understand the needs of customers at every point of their buying journey
- Using strong techniques and creating a good sales process.
Types of sales strategies
As we said, customers are different from each other, and different organizations should have different sales strategies according to their customer’s personality
Inbound sales strategy
Inbound sales strategies, like inbound marketing, emphasize actionable content to attract customers to your business.
Creating a website, writing a blog, and optimizing web pages are some of the ways to attract an audience through an inbound sales strategy.
In this method, customers or audiences who are interested in your business are actively looking for a solution or information to eliminate their challenges and concern; so they tend to buy from you.
At this stage, your salesperson act as a consultant addressing the questions and concerns of your audience and influencing their decision-making process.
Finally, according to the interactions that take place between the seller and the customer, they become buyers.
Outbound sales strategy
Inbound sales strategy attracts customers interested in your product, but this method may not be enough to increase your income.
An outbound sales strategy allows you to connect with your potential customers.
How to create a sales strategy?
Here are some steps process for creating a successful sales strategy:
1- Identify the right market and persona
Look at your existing customers and understand who buys your products.
This is very important because, in most businesses, there is a gap between defined customers and actual customers.
The first is the person you are marketing to, the second is the person who buys from you.
2- Highlight threats and opportunities in your sales strategy
Analyze your current situation, one of the best tools for this is SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
SWOT analyzes the current state of your business and shows you a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses against your competitors.
You can also identify opportunities and threats to your business.
3- Coordinate and align the sales and marketing team
Once you’ve identified your current position using SWOT, align the marketing and sales team to create a powerful value proposition that both teams agree on.
Both of them have the same goal, which is to reach customers and income.
The cooperation of these two teams will improve your business.
Some things that make the marketing and sales team work better together:
- Set up a meeting for both teams
- Create opportunities for collaboration
- Set aside time for their group projects
- Make sure that the communication between those two teams is stable and consistent
4- Specify the sales process
The sales process is a part of the sales strategy and a set of activities that a salesperson follows to achieve a defined goal.
Having a clear sales process gives you a great view of what activities the sales team has done; it also identifies activities that need improvement.
5- Choose the right people for your sales team
Recent research conducted by Harvard shows that 81% of happy sales teams had a higher annual performance.
With that in mind, you need to recruit people who can relate to your sales team and are a cultural fit for your company.
Try to schedule happy working hours for your sales team.
Having a happy culture in your sales team not only encourages people to join your organization, but also helps retain your best salesperson.
Common sales strategies
1- Increasing online sales through social media
Social media is one of the most common methods people use today to increase awareness or buy and sell.
For this reason, nine out of ten retail businesses are active on at least two social platforms.
You need to make your sales funnel as efficient as possible.
So be diligent in determining where your target customers spend their time and engage with them in the medium they are most active in.
2- Become a thought leader
Sharing the advice, and tried and tested practices you have in your business is one of the best ways to build personal branding and give your organization more credibility.
3- Properly research and identify qualified leads
Even the most powerful plan can’t make up for targeting the wrong customers.
Encourage your sales team to research customers and identify optimal leads before talking about your product.
Examples of successful sales strategies for sales teams
1- HubSpot
Founded in 2006, HubSpot has grown to over 56,500 customers in over 100 countries and over $510 million in annual revenue.
2- Shopify
Shopify has set a record: Reaching $1 billion in revenue, faster than any other SaaS company, and is valued at over $20 billion today.
Conclusion
Negotiation is considered one of the most important stages of the sales process, where the deal can be concluded or realized.
This is essential that you have a perfect plan to lead the way.
If you want to win in this journey, you better have a solid plan.
We hope you enjoy this article and we would like to you share your thought with us in the comments.