As we approach the end of 2022, many of us are gearing up for the busiest sales season of the year. In the lead up to the holidays, your team is going to be in overdrive, working to keep up with increased demand and striving to maximise sales before the year draws to a close. It’s not all too surprising that you may feel like taking a rest once the big day passes. However, it’s important not to take your eye of the prize and to move onto your next venture during the lull most businesses experience between the 25th December and the new year. This is a great period of time to reflect on the year that has passed and to draw up new goals for the future. You should really consider coming up with a new and improved sales strategy during this time. This will help you to start the new year on the right foot, pushing your business in a positive and profitable direction!
What Is a Sales Strategy?
In order to create a sales strategy, you’re going to need to understand what a sales strategy actually is. All too often, phrases and terms get thrown around businesses, meeting rooms and conferences, with many people in the space not actually have a good grip of what they actually mean. So, let’s put wrongs to rights and set this straight from the start. Put simply, a “sales strategy” is a well thought out and thoroughly documented plan revolving around how you are going to position and sell your products or services. Ideally, your sales strategy should stand apart from the crowd, helping your business to stand above and beyond its competitors. A sales strategy will consist of a few key components – all which will work together to drive sales and business profits. Your sales strategy should:
- Outline a clear objective
- Provide guidance to teams working towards sales
- Include key information and data including KPIs and competitive analysis
In short, your sales strategy is in place so that everyone in your organisation understands what needs to be achieved to keep your business afloat and generating profits. Its contents will let your team know what is expected of them and should help them to hit their sales goals.
Reflection
The first step you will need to take if you’re planning on creating a new sales strategy is reflection. Chances are, if you’re even considering a new strategy, there’s a reason behind this. One option is that your business hasn’t been producing the results that you want to see. A new sales strategy is required to turn things around and to start producing impressive results. A second option is that you want to take your business in a new direction. Sure, things may have been going well, but perhaps you want to experience even more success – expanding, launching a new product line or reaching out to a global audience, perhaps. This means that you need to take some time to reflect on your previous methods and approaches. What did you like about them? What worked? What didn’t work? Ideally, you will have been tracking data that will give you some insight into this and some answers to your questions. If not, now is an important time to start, so you can let your data tell the story of your successes and failures. This will give you a basis to make informed decisions going forward! Information from stl can help you with this.
Create a Customer Profile
Now is a good time to take a look back at – or to create a new – customer profile. At the end of the day, to make sales, you need to truly understand who you are selling to. A thorough understanding of your target demographic will help you to make more informed decisions in every element of your sales strategy. Believe it or not, for the majority of companies, as much as 80% of revenue comes from a loyal 20% of customers who return time and time again. So, get to know these individuals. You can draw a lot of information on customers through marketing activities ranging from market research to email sign up forms. Look at customers who come back time and time again. Do they have anything in common? Are they drawn to specific products? How regularly do they shop? This can give you an idea of what kind of individual you need to be targeting with your sales going forward.
Complete a SWOT Analysis
If you haven’t completed a SWOT analysis before, now is the time to learn. SWOT stands for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats”. It is a form of analysis that will serve as the basis for strategic planning going forward. It will allow you to draw up an idea of your current competitive position, as well as what needs to be done to drive you forward. Undertaking an objective and fact-based analysis can help you to truly understand where your business currently stands, allowing you to develop fresh perspectives and come up with new ideas. While it can feel difficult to look at your company through a critical lens, this is an invaluable tool that is essential for your sales strategy. Consider both internal and external factors when carrying yours out.
- Identifying Strengths – what does your business do well? Where does it excel? How does it really stand out from the competition? This could range from a unique product to a low price point, successful branding and more.
- Identifying Weaknesses – what’s holding your business back? Is there anything that seems to be blocking it from experiencing the success it deserves? This could be anything from high staff turnover to poor financial management to manufacturing issues.
- Identifying Opportunities – do you have access to any opportunities that could give your business a competitive advantage? This could range from investment to collaborations to operating in a favorable tax zone.
- Identifying Threats – what could potentially harm your business? Are there any dark clouds hanging over it? The increase in essentials such as energy bills and fuel could play a part here.
Create Clear Goals and a Clear Plan
The above steps should really help you to understand the ins and outs of your business’ current operations – what’s working, what’s not, what can stay the same, what needs to be invested in more, what needs to change and so on. This is the point where you can start to set clear goals and come up with a clear plan to achieve them. The size of this venture will depend on the size of your business and the degree of change you want to see. Make this a collaborative project where possible. Present your ideas to others within your company in order to benefit from their insight. You need to make sure that your goals are realistic and can be achieved. Make sure to set a timeframe with deadlines, as this will ensure that everyone involved can be held accountable and progress can be tracked.
Present
Once your sales strategy is ready, it’s time to present it to everyone involved. Often, this is a good presentation and meeting to hold at the start of the year, when everyone has a clear mind and is ready to get started with new projects! Listen to feedback and consider whether any edits or amendments need to be made before pushing ahead.
Creating a sales strategy is no minor feat. You’re going to find yourself pouring hours of hard work and effort into this project. However, it is essential. Hopefully, some of the information outlined above will help to guide you towards creating your best sales strategy yet!