Sales Strategy | Low Risk Sales Growth

A Sales Strategy is made up of Behaviours + Activity + Skills + Vision = Results +

Often times when leaders think about sales strategy, it can easily lead to overwhelm, and at the same time invoke something referred to as ‘paralysis through analysis’…. at at that point, confusion reigns and focus is lost.

Compound that with more than a handful of voices, agendas and opinions and the process can get rigit fast.

At Morton Kyle, we don’t believe this is where any organisation wants to end up…

So we try to simplify things.

By asking a few questions, questions like: do you believe:

• You can have whatever sales results you want?
• That your product or service can dominate your market?
• That your sales reps can deliver to and exceed their sales target?

• That sales forecasts come true?
• That your sales engine is efficient and effective?
• Your sales process and sales cycle works, like it should, predictable and stable?
• That the sales staff are happy, engaged, motivated?
• And sales activities align with everyone’s vision and mission?
• That existing customers rave about you?
• Small businesses and large and large watch your progress, growth and evolution?
• Your customer care NPS score and market research confirm you’re on the right track?
• And people take notice of your media advertising, your direct marketing, social media, your exhibition and events because they know you get it right first time…?

I ask because – these questions form the basic pillar of many successfully designed, delivered and executed sales strategies…

I believe you can have whatever sales results, sales culture, raving fan base, and productive sales engine you want as long as you plan and execute for those outcomes.

Sales Strategy 101

1. FACT: You’ll mainly get the success outcomes you’re prepared to plan, commit and TRULY work for.

2. FACT: It is unlikely you will get the sales outcomes that wildly extend beyond your sales strategy and sales execution plan

3. FACT: You will get whatever sales results you can engage and excite your team to aspire to and strive for.

That’s why the Morton Kyle Sales Strategy doesn’t just look at the academic side of the sales plan…you know the ones – they look great on excel but fail in the execution!

I help you harness your vision and ambition in relation to your sales outcomes, and then unpicking what habits, activities, focus, skill, and resources you need to deliver those results.

And how you intend to measure those outputs daily, and alter the course accordingly using Action, Speed and Results as the key metrics

• Action = identifying the right things to work on to hit the numbers – orders, revenue, margin and conversion rates
• Speed = let’s get a uplift in results as fast as we can to start celebrating success and building momentum
• Results = build value-able sales dashboards that track progress and map out the next actions

How?

Using a tried and tested sales growth strategy designed to generate a sales plan that includes continuous sales improvement, growth and team accountability.

Sales Strategy | Start at the End!

There are 100’s of ways to increase sales…

But not all of those ways will work for you.

Forget about 20+ page sales strategy documents!

Focus instead on success by starting with the end in mind.

Reverse engineer your sales success by focusing on the very specific needs of your business, your product or service, your customers, your ambitions.

Working with the end success in mind makes the journey from where you are to where you want to be much swifter…and a lot clearer.

Which means you move with greater speed, higher levels of clarity and focus because you’re certain of the path.

And you and your team will know when you’ve arrived!

Using the Morton Kyle practical sales strategy, we’ve worked with sales leadership and management teams to:

What Sales Outputs Do You Want?

Decide what you want.

You might want to use rank what you want from 1 to 10

Then set your course…

How many on this list would you like to focus on next year, next quarter, next month?

Once you’ve decided – call Carol on 0779 002 1885 and book your call to discuss your low risk route to scalable sales growth

A Sales Strategy for All Ambitious and Growing Businesses

Whether you’re looking to:

• Kick of a sales strategy planning session
• Help your reps sell me
• Increase revenue from existing customers
• Convert more sales opportunities from your social media, direct marketing and media adverting activity
• Use your great customer care feedback to attract more prospects to you…
• Build a stronger sales process to win more new business
• Shorten the sales cycles
• Achieve the Holy Grail of an accurate sales forecast

Get it right and your sales strategy is something the whole sales and marketing function can live, breath, align with and deliver to every single day.

And that’s true regardless of the sales and marketing opportunity.

It could be networking, exhibition and events, cold pitching, cross-selling, strategic account management, or account re-activation…your strategy drives the habits, actions, outputs and actions.

Don’t Need a Sales Strategy?

Yes, you really do!

Because, as we speak, you’ll have at least one savvy competitor:

• Constructing a cunning sales and business development plan for your demise.
• Identifying niches that you could earn very well from.
• Building a sales and marketing plan, a sales strategy for their growth and your exclusion.
• Targeting your current customers.
• Flirting with your sales prospect pipeline and any potential prospects you’ve already identified as being a perfect fit for an approach…
• Watching your social media.
• Scanning your direct marketing.
• Reverse engineering your sales process.
• Picking apart your pricing.
• Checking out your best reps
• Scrutinizing your products or services.

So, in a world where competitors can come from anywhere and everywhere, and move at lightening speed then you can see why drifting along is not a workable option.

And you can also see why having a clear, well though out plan, milestones and goals are the very minimum needed to exist in a competitive space?

In truth, those competitors may or may not get to your targets before you do…

I’d Like Your Competitors to Fail More Often – Especially When They Attack Your Sales Prospect and Customer Base..

Wouldn’t you?

So, a sales strategy plan that looks at sales activity, daily sales results, daily sales success habits, critical sales success behaviours and selling skills is an absolute must.

This type of sales strategy works quickly, and it works because the focus is so short term.

This removes the element of ‘drifting’.

The plan is daily, it’s reviewed constantly, everyone knows what’s expected of them, the successes are celebrated frequently and the deviations from course amended swiftly.

It’s a no-fail sales strategy in action!

Why Does This Sales Strategy Deliver Great Sales Results?

It works because you measure the right things, at the right time, and in the right way, with the sure certainty that you’ll get where you need to be, in line with the plan.

Plus, it works because what’s the other option?

Are you in a business, working against a sales plan that you reference at the end of every moth and decide if it’s a tick or a cross.

That’s just 12 HISTORICAL check points!

Two things should scare you about that situation:

It’s 12 check-ins, and

It’s historical – so wave goodbye to changing the weekly results whilst the game is still being played!

That’s totally crazy, when you could have at the very least, 52 WEEKLY CHECK POINTS.

EVEN BETTER IF YOU HAVE A SALES CHECK POINT EVERY SINGLE DAY!

The risks are too high to take any wild chances on working without a sales plan that DAILY covers every aspect of the sales process, sales cycle, sales activities.

Also, you’d be surprised at what your sales function is actually capable of when everyone plays to their strengths.

Truly surprised!

Shocked indeed about what can be achieved when they work with certainty, when the sales engine and sales cycle is predictable and stable, and sales forecast are less fiction and way more fact.

Plus, you can imagine what this does to the confidence, motivation and drive of your average sales rep…they don’t stay average for very long. A taste of success is a marvellous motivator.

And, if you need any more convincing, resources are too precious to invest time and effort (and money) without a well thought out activity based sales strategy, then just know this…

Competitors are too hungry for your downfall for you to get away with a sales plan as sloppy as that!

Your Sales Strategy to Unite Your Sales, Marketing, Customer Engagement Team and the Whole Business…

A sales and business development strategy defines your intent.

It directs your intention.

And takes others with you.

All on the same journey to reach the same destination, together, as colleagues.

It’s a common, unifying language.

A language of sales and business success.

The spotlight is reaching far and wide.

You’re all pioneers working towards the same goal, in the glow of the same burning ambition to succeed.

You’re all happy to be on this common pathway because you know you’re all get there.

And you know the rate and pace of progress and your expected ETA towards your sales goal.

Success is well defined.

So, you’ll all know when you get there.

And each step forward is a shared step towards sales success.

A stage to be celebrated.

It’s a plan for how and where you’ll spend your time and money, what KPIs you’ll drive, how you’ll measure those KPIs.

Measuring your progress against those KPIs

Plus, it looks at where you are now. So, it doesn’t cover all the stuff you’re sales team are great at, instead it just looks at what you need to do to IMPROVE on what you already have.

It’s the ULTIMATE bridge from HERE to a BETTER TOMORROW

So everyone in the sales function can move forward, knowing exactly what they have to do.

It’s a unifying plan.

With milestones.

With checks and balances.

But…sales strategy plans don’t all look the same, that’s why we use goals and data to guide you to the best outcomes for your business.

A sales strategy for an ambitious and demanding businesses is wildly different from a sales approach that’s defensive.

A revenue growth strategy for disruptive businesses could incorporate huge changes.

Changes may including niching, disrupting the market, ditching products or services and maybe even existing customers.

Maybe opening up new sales channels, reformatting the delivery mechanisms, looking at new social media sales channels, looking at new sources of sales leads, maybe media adverting, exhibitions and events, direct marketing, online marketing or selling online.

It could mean revising the sales reps job, having them approach different client and prospect groups, reworking their bonus structure, driving different sales messages and sales activities

Focus on high level competitor attack, new market entry, partnership and affiliate development, remodelling pricing frameworks.

It might also include switching clients to new services, revising the profiles of perfect clients, upgrading contract terms and agreements with existing customers.

Maybe it involves dropping some suppliers and expanding others or sourcing new.

Perhaps changing customer interfaces, refining the supply chain.

Your NPS or Customer Care Satisfaction core maybe your leading sales improvement metric…who knows what your plan might look like!

Even setting up brand new sales markets globally.

Reformatting the price list, moving to a SaaS model, segmenting your offerings.

The list is almost endless.

Now compare that with a sales strategy simply designed to maintain the status quo, a ‘business as usual’ holding sales strategy.

Less risky, more about consolidation, maybe creating loyalty programs, maximizing referrals, maintaining margin, growing volume…

Either way, the truth is, the financial results you get in your business are a direct result of the quality of your business plan, your business development vision and your sales and business growth strategy.

Just as having a great map makes for a better and less stressful journey.

Fact!

Growth takes purpose.

It rarely happens by chance.

In fact, unless you’re wildly lucky, it never happens by chance. Everyone needs a plan.

You know what you want…

As a leader, in a typically highly competitive market you’ll know business growth, profitability and market survival/domination won’t happen unless you:

• Take control
• Create or spot opportunities
• Take action and
• Push forward

It’s by design that you get the business results you want, when you want them.

Your sales strategy identifies how you will go about attracting and retaining the clients and business you want.

Your sales strategy will direct your focus.

The aim of a realistic and focused business development strategy is that it helps you achieve more with less…and it tells you where to go, and when…and it measures your progress….and prevents your journey progressing too far and too fast down the wrong road!

It lets you know you’re on track.

When you’re drifting…and what to do to bring you back onto a success track.

That way, you and the business become more effective.

With less stress, less wasted time and fewer wrong turns, conserving precious resources.

Plus, you get to plan all of this out on paper before you actually commit to any action.

That way you can plan, plan and plan again.

So if you can see that journey’s not going to get you where you need to be you throw that plan out and start again.

Nothing lost.

Now, isn’t that far easier than winging it, with all the associated unknowns, plus the risks and stress you face?

Isn’t that so much better than simply following the leaders in your industry, turning up 5 minutes late to every change?

Or maybe running knee jerk responses to ever competitor on your block?

Wouldn’t it be better if you could use an agreed way to avoid chasing worthless clients, entering unprofitable markets…?

Where you’re consistently promoting key messages, your marketing strategy will be on point, measurable and will build trust.

Doing this you’ll stack the odds in your favour and avoid competing with competitors on a playing field that’s not tipped in your direction.

You’ll never invest in building sales positions that lead to a dead end.

You’re not simply building a sales pipeline, a sales engine or invoicing machine anymore, you’re building a business with foundations for continual sales growth.

Fruitless option won’t be part of your plan.

If you find that your results aren’t what you want, then your sales growth strategy is ineffective and is sending you in the wrong direction.

Which means you’re wasting money, but more importantly, you’re wasting time.

Let’s face it…

• You know where you want to go.
• Where you want your business to go.
• What sales results you need.
• You know what turnover and profit you require.
• You wouldn’t be in business if you didn’t.

That’s why developing a detailed and well thought out sales strategy is critical…before you DO anything.

A sales strategy designed specifically for the level of ambition you have for your business and sales function.

A sales and business growth strategy that encompasses all of your goals…

Be that sales, profit, turnover, market share, sales acquisition cost.

It will also cover new market entry, fighting competitor attack.

Perhaps building customer loyalty, automation, channel development.

Your sales strategy is simply being able to have confidence in the ongoing business performance.

During the process you get the opportunity to evaluate what you really want in your business.

After that it’s about looking at options, associated risks, costs and returns.

Having established those you keep and commit to some of those options.

Plus you can comfortably discard other considered options knowing that you’re focusing on the critical elements of your plan.

You’re giving your finite efforts to knowingly work on tasks fine tuned to deliver the predictable sales and business results.

Creating Your Sales Plan – What’s Next?

It all starts with a coffee…book your confidential meeting by calling Carol on 0779 002 1885 or email carol@mortonkyle.com

Discretion assured.