Creating an effective sales strategy is a daunting task. Most advice on the internet tells you that the strategy is workable if you have a solid process, a documented plan, and a team that knows your business inside out.
Most of the business strategies focus on internal operations. They enable the team to document internal processes successful but overlook the skills and communication you need to value your customers.
Sirius Decisions’ research suggests that the inability to deliver a value message is the number one inhibitor of a brand’s revenue. According to Forrester Research, only 15% of the sales strategies have a valuable message for the consumers.
In other words, if you cannot communicate well, your sales strategy is likely to fail.
Below are 10 sales strategies that would work wonders for your business:
- Build a Powerful and Valuable Proposition in Your Message
A persuasive and powerful message could help your consumers to come forward with their issues. You see, most of the consumers have difficulty explaining their issues despite using the best product. The purchasers won’t recognize your organization’s value until you show them. To help them with the root challenges and to prove your credibility, you need to come up with a persuasive message.
Illustrate a buying vision for your consumers and be transparent with your business process and actions. Transparency attracts the audience.
Building a powerful image is not about showing off your product or services. You cannot stay put hoping that the prospects will choose you above every brand. The right approach is to offer them the best viable solution.
Instead of talking about your sales strategy, try mapping out a buying vision specifically for your consumers.
- Create the Urgency to Change
Choosing one product over and over again is safe, comfortable, and reassuring. However, change in the choice is associated with risk. To increase leads and prospects, tell a logical story that makes a convincing case for why they need to switch to your product.
Help your potential customers to make decisions before they decide by themselves.
- Tell a Memorable Story
Telling straight facts is another thing and transforming them into a true story is another. But what’s more effective and compelling? The second one. Shaping your facts into a story could have you remembered by prospects.
Storytelling helps a person to visualize the product and services they are opting for.
- Give More Importance to Customer Journey
Customer or sales journey involves several steps like negotiating, closing the deal, qualifying, discovering customers’ needs, etc.
Marketing today is not about how your customers should buy from you. It is about how can they question so that they can address their issues and needs better?
Instead of forming a one-size-fits-for-all sales strategy, try shaping your strategy specifically to customers’ needs.
- Build Customer Personas but Do Not Rely Entirely on Them
Building buyer personas was good before but observing your customers’ behavior, life, actions, and buying decision won’t entirely help you to constitute a positive message.
In reality, buyers are motivated not to buy by outside influences such as insufficient or unsatisfactory processes, a huge change in business operations, etc.
( Also Read: 5 Important Strategies for Account Based Sales )
- Refrain from ‘Commodity Trap’
Solution-selling fashion is so common that sales teams all over the world have forgotten the real value of building a sales strategy. Do not fall into the commodity trap. Do not constitute your message according to the inputs you are offering to the market. Instead, leave your customers indecisive and create an urgency to change.
- Do Not Lead with FAQs, Lead with Insights
Asking discovery questions from thousands of customers won’t get you anywhere. It is like throwing an arrow in the dark. Presenting a solution backed by real-time insights could help you build a strong sales strategy. However, this is more than finding and filling data. It is about connecting dots of your sales strategy altogether using real-time website analytics.
- Align Marketing and Sales Goals
Very often, sales and marketing are considered two different departments but, in your sales strategy, they should be aligned. Marketing creates a communication bridge and that bridge leads to sales and revenue.
- Tailor Your Sales Strategy as Per Your Customers
Most sale strategies’ budgets are focused on customer demands. However, the majority of revenue comes from existing or old customers. only 10% of the budget is allocated for customer expansion.
Customer expansion requires a unique approach as it reinforces you to reposition in the market. Expanding the budget for new customers will increase the likelihood of them buying 16% more.
- Enable Ongoing Situational Training
Most training courses are related to gathering or reaching a wide base of audience. To be effective and emerge as one of the best brands, your sales training needs to be situational relevance and flexible.
On-demand or situational sales training enables you to provide a relevant solution to the situations.
Conclusion
Most of the sales strategies out there on the internet and in books won’t help you to succeed unless you put more value into sales conversations rather than customer expansion.
