How to develop an effective sales strategy

We explore how to develop a comprehensive sales strategy, starting with setting specific 90-day goals that align with your broader annual targets and tracking meaningful metrics to measure your progress.

• Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals
• Understanding your target market and developing detailed buyer personas 
• Segmenting potential clients to create tailored approaches rather than one-size-fits-all solutions
• Crafting a unique selling proposition that addresses specific customer problems
• Focusing on genuine benefits rather than just features or advantages
• Designing an effective sales funnel with clear qualification processes
• Working backwards from conversion rates to determine required lead volume
• Tracking metrics at each funnel stage to optimize your sales process

If this information is helpful, please consider liking, subscribing, or even buying me a coffee to support the podcast. For a deeper dive into face-to-face sales techniques, check out my free one-hour webinar at www.salescrafttraining.com or explore my comprehensive sales training course.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Setting Goals
• 5:42 Understanding Your Target Market
• 10:42 Sales Channels and USP Development
• 16:32 Benefits and Sales Process Design
• 19:07 Closing Thoughts and Course Offer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hello again and welcome to another podcast. Now, in the last few podcasts I've spoken a fair bit about questioning and getting very clear on the problem that you solve and who the people are who would have that problem. So if you haven't listened to those podcasts, I do recommend them, and the idea of the podcast is that they work as a bit of a series and, of course, you have the option of jumping on my sales training course where we go through everything in a lot more detail. So in this podcast I'm going to talk about how you develop a sales strategy. So we're sort of backing up a little bit from where the last few podcasts have been and looking at the bigger picture. So before I do that, I just want to remind you and just ask if you help me out by liking, subscribing and maybe even buy me a coffee or subscribe to the podcast. However, it is because that allows me to keep doing this, which I hope you find these podcasts useful. So the very first part about a sales strategy is to just set your broad goals, and one of the best ways of doing this I've found is to do 90-day goals, so at the beginning of every quarter or perhaps towards the end of a quarter and, looking towards the following quarter, look at what it is you want to achieve over those 90 days and how that fits into your broader strategy for the year. So the annual strategy, which is good to have and probably, realistically, looking longer term, you're looking three to five.

Speaker 1: 1:50

I think going beyond that is not terribly helpful, really, but certainly three years. What I mean by that is you would have a growth plan, so there might be a revenue target, number of customers maybe, number of products, number of launches, however it is you're promoting your products and who you're promoting to Get some numbers written down, because what happens is if you don't have numbers whether it's short term or long term, first of all, how do you know if you're doing well, how do you know if you're meeting those targets? And secondly, if you're not tracking your day to day numbers, typically you'll be the numbers that you think you're doing are a lot better than what you're actually doing, and I would pretty much guarantee that. So it is really important to track your numbers and you need to be tracking your numbers against targets, and for most of us, we will work on an annual target because we'll have, as we go into a new year, maybe in the planning at the end of the current fiscal year. Normally we'll look at what our aims are for the following fiscal year, based on what we've achieved in the current one, and that might be in terms of revenue, it might be in terms of clients, whatever it might be, and then those targets will obviously break down to quarterly targets and monthly targets. Now that might be a straight split if you're booking the same kind of numbers every month, or it may be that you're driven on a more periodical basis.

Speaker 1: 3:22

So it might be that there are certain times of year where you tend to do more business than at others, or it could be that the sales cycles you work with might be quite long. So I've worked with government as one example, and typically the targets are set for the new year, normally around the last quarter of the previous year, and it's really important to get a handle on what those targets are and what those acquisition plans are if you're selling into government, because what's likely to happen is you'll have to do a lot of work in the beginning of the year, but some sales may happen early in the new year, so these might be sales that were held over from the previous year because budget wasn't available, and then other sales will happen later in the year, so generally around Q3, you might expect the planned sales to happen. But what sometimes happens, with government particularly, is that some people don't spend their complete budget, and so what they do is they just make extra purchases to justify claiming the same budget the following year or maybe even increasing it. So the reason for going through all of this it's really important to understand how your clients budget, what their buying cycles are, what their planning cycles are, and make sure that you're in tune with them and that you're ready to go so you might offer them periodically a special deal, because you know that there's extra money available and you want to make the most of that. You want to make your offer very attractive. Extra money available and you want to make the most of that. You want to make your offer very attractive.

Speaker 1: 4:58

So this is stepping back and looking at it from an annual perspective, maybe a three year perspective. As I say, going beyond that starts to become unrealistic, because so you're getting into an area where there's factors going on that are beyond your control. They could be global, which we're seeing at the moment. As I record this in May 25, there's a lot of global nonsense going on. That was totally unnecessary and probably unpredictable, but there we are. Also, you know, things happen that we don't see and that can be on any kind of time frame, basically.

Speaker 1: 5:35

But the point I'm trying to make is the most important numbers for you are probably your annual targets and then breaking those down into quarters and then months so that you know what you need to do for the month, and obviously you can break that down further to a weekly target. So it's really important that you look at your goals. You can use smart if you're familiar with that. So smart goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. So the beauty of that is that you the importance of being specific is you're very clear what the goal is. If it's to get more clients, that's frankly, pretty useless, because what does that mean? It's actually pretty meaningless. If it's to grow your client base by 200%, then you've got your current number of clients and that will equate to a specific number. So that is very specific. It's also measurable, so you know how well you're doing against that target. It's also important to make sure they are achievable. There's no point just pulling numbers out of the air that are hopelessly unachievable. They need to be relevant, so they've got to fit in with your longer business strategy as well, which might mean that you focus on one part of the business part of the year and then switch to a different part for the rest of the year. However, that might work for you and time bound. Obviously, you need to do them within a certain time frame, which is what I've been talking about, and clearly short term objectives need to fit into long term. So hopefully this is all pretty obvious.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So where do you go from here? So you need to understand your target market, and this is something I've been talking about in the previous podcast. This is something I've been talking about in the previous podcast. So how well do you understand your target market? Who is your avatar? Who is your ideal client? Who is the person that you want to be spending time with? Because they are the person, the people that are most likely to give you business. So you've really got to be able to identify them and be very clear about the problem that you solve.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So part of that might include some market research, might need to look at industry trends. You might need to look at competitors. What are they doing? Are there competitors? If you're in a niche where there's nobody else, is that a good niche to be in? It's a valid question. You need to be solving a problem that people have not, solving a problem that nobody does have. So that's really important. And also understanding customer behavior, which is really what I've been talking about in terms of the buying cycles. So do people tend to buy pretty regularly on the same amount every month? Is it predictable? Or do they tend to buy at certain times of year? So for those two types of clients, two different types of client, you will need to have a different sales strategy, and obviously that ties into your marketing strategy as well, which is not so much what I'm talking about in these podcasts. I'm more interested in the direct sales aspect of it, and particularly face-to-face sales.

Speaker 1: 8:39

So do your market research, understand if there is a need for what you offer and then start developing your buyer personas, your avatar. Who are the people that want to buy from you? How do you identify them? Who are the people that want to buy from you? How do you identify them? And from there, it's a really good idea to segment your client base, so your base of potential clients into different categories. So it might be geography, it might be age groups, it could be sex, it could be anything you know. Whatever's relevant to what you do. And remember, be two or three avatars for what you offer, but the reason they would want your offer is slightly different for each one, so you need to split that down into specific offers for each avatar. So I'm not a fan of the one size fits all, because generally it doesn't. So it's really important that you get very specific so that when you are talking to people, if you're promoting to people, they feel that you're talking to them like you can read their mind. That's really important.

Speaker 1: 10:09

The next part of planning is to look at the right sales channels. So I'm primarily looking at direct sales. So this is where you would be engaging with people face to face at a pinch, maybe on Zoom calls, that kind of thing. Obviously, there are digital sales channels, so that could be social media, it could be commerce websites, it could be email marketing, and then you might also think about partnerships and affiliates. So if you collaborate with other businesses where you complement one another and you have the same clients, that can also produce dividends for you as well. So have a think about all of that.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Where I'm really going to focus is direct sales, because this is the area I'm primarily active in, and the thing to look at then is to develop a unique value proposition or a unique selling proposition. Essentially, what is it that differentiates your product from your competitors? But also that needs to match very much the problem that the client has. So this all comes back to mind reading your client. When your client, if you're given a small pitch, a 30 second pitch or whatever it might be, your client needs to feel that you've just got in their head, you're mind reading them. You're suddenly describing a problem that they face every day, maybe and they haven't really discussed with anyone, or it's a problem that they have been thinking about recently and they are not quite sure where to go for an answer. So it's really important that you talk about them and not about yourself, and this is one of the big mistakes that I see lots of salespeople make, and it's something I've spoken about in other podcasts. So that unique selling point needs to really be targeted specifically at the needs of your avatar, your ideal client, so that you're mind reading them and maybe in that proposition, in that USP you talk about things that differentiate your particular proposition.

Speaker 1: 12:29

So in coaching terms we call this chunking down. What I mean by that is just getting deeper and deeper into specifics. So, for example, if I am selling cars, so the person I'm looking for is somebody who buys cars, I want to chunk down. Do they want a four-wheel drive car? If that's what I'm doing, so I'm chunking down further. I'm looking for someone who wants a four-wheel drive car, maybe I want someone who spends a lot of time off-road, maybe needs winches, that kind of thing, maybe on the wheels that I need on the vehicle, they don't want low-profile tires because they're not so good off-road, so you want more regular profile tires. So hopefully you get the point. I'm chunking down further and further.

Speaker 1: 13:13

I'm getting deeper down into the detail and each of those details as you chunk further down, you start to differentiate yourself from other people who sell cars, for example. So you're in the four wheel drive part of it. So you start to chunk down. Somebody's looking for a four-wheel drive car won't be interested in a two-wheel drive car. So I've already created a differentiation there. So hopefully that's making sense and you really need to chunk down as much as you can and that will also get you very clear on your avatar. So the person who is looking for a specific solution. You get very clear on what the solution is they're looking for and then, once you get clear on that, you can develop the set of questions that allow you to qualify out the people that you don't want to be wasting time with and qualify in the people you really are likely to buy from you. So this is all very similar to what I've spoken about before. You really need to focus on benefits.

Speaker 1: 14:14

But again, when I started in sales, I was taught FABs, features, advantages, benefits. So the first two, I think, are pretty generic. You know a feature is a feature is a feature. You know the vehicle has four wheels. What's the advantage of that? Well, it could be stability, it could be drive options, could be anything. So those two things are pretty standard. But the benefit, in my opinion and what I've learned, is that the benefit is only a benefit to the person you're speaking to.

Speaker 1: 14:48

So a different example of that is if I was selling speaker phones. This is going back a little bit, but it was an example I found quite convenient. So what is a feature of a speaker phone. Well, you press a button and you can hear the person at the other end on a loudspeaker and you can talk into a mic. So it's sort of like having a regular conversation with someone. What's the advantage of that? Well, it keeps your hands free. It means that several people can listen in on the call at the same time. It helps people, maybe, who don't have brilliant hearing. So I know this might be going back a bit, but I remember with my father with his hearing aid. He couldn't actually hear on a regular telephone. It's going back a bit, but speakerphone is fine.

Speaker 1: 15:34

So these are all advanced jits, but what are the benefits? Well, this is where these things are only a benefit if they are relevant to the problem that your client has. So, although advanced jits can all look very good, if none of them are of particular importance to your client, then they're not benefits. And if none of them are of particular importance to your client, then they're not benefits. And if none of them are important, then you're talking to the wrong person. So I hope this is all getting very clear.

Speaker 1: 16:02

So the next thing is to just be clear on your sales process. Now, this also is really important. So you need to look at lead generation First of all. How are you getting leads into the top of your sales funnel? So that might be advertising, it could be organic, you could be networking, you could be going to trade shows. One way or another, though, you're trying to get potential clients into the top of that sales funnel, into the top of that sales funnel. So that's the very first step. The next thing is qualification, and this is where you want to, as quickly as possible as possible, get rid of people who will never buy from you, because you really want to get that lower part of the sales funnel filled with people who are in the kind of high 90s at least 90% chance of selling to them. And I've already spoken about qualification Again.

Speaker 1: 16:54

In the course I dive in a lot more detail. So what is your sales funnel design? So what I mean by that is what is your customer journey? So this basically takes them through from that initial contact to signing an order. So what are the steps? So, for example, it might be responding to an email, they might apply for more information or a freebie of some sort, and you've got their name on a mailing list. You then send out a welcome email straight away. Then you might do some nurturing emails, you might create some reason for them to have a meeting with you or you might initiate that yourself and, yeah, that might result in a demonstration, for example, it might result in an evaluation and then after the evaluation, you would look to close. So this is just one example of a possible client journey.

Speaker 1: 17:55

But it's really important that you understand each of those steps, because what you need to do is look at how well you're doing on each of these steps. So if you're closing one in 10 at each of the steps, you basically work backwards. So if I'm on sale, you multiply backwards each step by 10 and it might mean that you need a thousand people in your sales funnel at the very start to result in one order in your sales funnel at the very start to result in one order. So that isn't a great conversion rate. But again, the point about this is, if you don't know what your conversion rates are at each stage, you are likely to be doing a lot worse than you thought and you may even have unrealistic targets. So if you need to make 10 sales, and that means 10,000 leads, so 10,000 people need to go through that whole funnel with your current conversion rates at each stage. Is that realistic? So I don't know. So these are just some things to think about.

Speaker 1: 18:55

I'm going to wind it up here. If none of this makes sense, or if parts of this don't make a lot of sense to you, first of all, I do recommend you just jump on and listen to the um, go through the free webinar. It's an hour-long webinar, takes you through some of the steps, face-to-face sales. So just go to the website, which is wwwsalescrafttraining, and beyond. All of this is covered in the sales training course. So if you haven't considered that, please do. And that is designed to take you through each of the critical steps, each of the critical aspects of running a sales business, and giving you solutions and best practices at each step. Okay, so that is it for this podcast. I hope you found that useful and I will speak to you in the next one. So bye for now.