Corporate, business, and marketing strategies are often too broad, or too focused on either financial or brand results only as to offer any clear direction to a sales team. Which means the support, focus, direction, standards, and mission of a sales operation is often reduced to little more than generating more business at better margins.
Because of this broader focus on the bigger picture, sales strategies all too often become a series of tactical activities that do little more than support marketing. In the end all that this achieves is making sales an expensive, frustrating exercise with salespeople viewed as being more trouble than they are worth. Regrettably, most organisations view their sales operations as tactical functions in the value chain. And in many ways they are right – that is if these organisations are looking at the sales activities performed by the “foot soldiers” they employ.
Selling is much more complex than just getting business (new or incremental).
Since 2012 we’ve been asking businesses of all varieties to examine their sales operations and sales strategy in particular, moving beyond merely increasing share of wallet or spend, to include capturing share of mind, engaging buyers developing loyalty, delivering enhanced value, solving buyers’ issues, and much more – all at lower costs while delivering better value all round. This helps sales operations define their own purpose -aligned with the business strategy- and develop unique strategies that support territorial, channel and market segments.
Good sales strategy poses the following questions:
- What directs the efforts of the salespeople on a sustained basis?
- What support, resources, skills and plans provide salespeople with the focus they need to be fully effective?
- What gives the sales force the discipline and sets the standards of behaviour, that differentiates one professional salesperson, from another; or that reinforces the brand equity the company has invested in creating?
- What is the optimal size for a sales force, and the best way to remunerate, reward and motivate them? And how does one shape the sales force to make sure it is able to best serve customers and prospects?
- What is the optimal sales structure for the organisation as a whole, for the regions / states, and for the branch operations that will ensure sales has an unfettered track to follow; that synthesises the sales effort with the organisation’s strategic goals?
- And finally, what infrastructure allows salespeople to function at optimal levels without being hamstrung by unnecessary administrative activities, complex management dictates or inadequate information support?
A strategic sales force – one driven by a focused sales strategy, rather than a panel-beaten corporate / marketing strategy or territory plan for capturing incremental share of spend – is a highly treasured asset. It will deliver better results for the organisation’s customers and as a result, for the enterprise itself.
When you implement an effective sales strategy underpinned by a functional sales operating system and great leadership wonderful results emerge:
Selling Better Faster – Total Sales Team Turnaround
“The change has been outstanding. Two years ago I couldn’t have imagined that Sales would be in such great shape already by now. In 2 years we’ve gone from double digit losses over 10 years to double digit growth. I thought it would take years but here we are now with a fantastic sales team, sales infrastructure and processes, high effective sales strategy and culture that is growing and making a huge difference to our business and our clients. As an accountant, I knew very little about sales but Barrett’s Sales System, Strategy & Operations Framework and the Barrett team have steered us in the right direction”. GM of Australian $4B publicly listed company, December 2019
A good place to start is knowing where you stand: What is really in place?
The Barrett Sales Operations Audit assesses your sales strategy and operation across 17 core elements and delivers a unified go-to-market sales strategy – including models, tools, tactical activities, and metrics – ready to be integrated back into the marketplace via the sales teams.
Remember everybody lives by selling something.
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A year ago
It’s time to look ahead. It’s time to get selling.
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