What Exactly Does A Sales Acceleration Strategy Look Like?

November 12, 2013

Any sales team wondering how to grow profitable revenue must start with a comprehensive strategy. Without clear goals and a plan of action, businesses will continue running into problems. They may even lose valuable customers to industry competitors.

What exactly does a strong sales strategy look like, though? Sure, any organization can draft a plan of action that looks good on paper. However, without the proper consideration for certain elements of the process, a team’s compass can suddenly steer employees in the wrong direction.

Selling Power, an online sales management resource, said strategic planning is a murky concept in the business world.

“The term ‘sales strategy’ hasn’t always been defined clearly in the sales profession,” Mike Moorman, the managing principal at global marketing consulting firm ZS Associates, told Selling Power. “Essentially, the term is about three basic questions: who is the salesforce going to sell to, what are they going to sell to them, and how are they going to sell to them?”

On the fundamental level, the website further defined the concept of sales strategy as the ability to identify a target customer segment, understand value propositions and create an appropriate salesforce structure and process.  If the members of a sales team were to dissect a successful sales strategy in half, here’s what they might find:

A detailed map and plan of action
Before any business is able to truly forge ahead with a comprehensive strategic plan, managers must first sit down with employees and fully deconstruct existing operations. Selling Power said paying attention to the sales process at the most basic, granular level is essential for fostering long-term success. Doing so provides stakeholders with greater clarity to identify the elements of the existing process that are working or not working. From there, businesses can map out a much more effective plan for the future. In other words, every sales strategy has to start small.

A dynamic talent pipeline
Another important part of any long-term sales acceleration strategy is factoring in the acquisition of new talent. Forbes said companies can benefit from implementing regular internship programs to attract skilled sales employees in the future. The website cited data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers that found found 60 percent of paid interns eventually transition into full-time hires. Managers are often wondering how to hire sales people in the most effective and cost-efficient way possible. Whether it’s through cold calling, headhunting or an internship program, businesses must include a reliable talent pipeline as a central part of any strategic plan.

Shields for the toughest questions
Long-term sales effectiveness also requires teams to be prepared for unforeseen challenges. Charles Green wrote on the blog Selling Fearlessly about the need to anticipate difficult questions from buyers once sales employees are out in the field. He said people often become flustered when customers ask blunt questions such as, “Why should I buy from you?”

“This isn’t a question that comes up after a long relationship, this is a question for the courtship, and at that stage the truth is you honestly don’t know enough about the customer to give a credible answer,” Green said.