Your Sales Strategy

1. The Right Approach

1.1 Base your sales strategy on your business and marketing plans.

• Set out in detail how you will deliver marketing objectives, target market segments and support major marketing activities, such as promotional drives. See Planning your marketing.
• Identify the key aims of your strategy. For example, which target markets you are aiming for and the timescales involved.
• Get realistic, accurate plans by involving sales people (see Writing a business plan).

1.2 Understand your market. See Research for your marketing.

• Find out more about your customers. For example, what products they want and what level of service they expect.
• Establish when, where and how your existing customers buy. If you sell to other businesses, identify who influences buying decisions, who actually makes them, and who is responsible for placing orders.
• Monitor the key trends in your market, such as market changes and the activities of competitors. Take into account changing customer tastes and developments in technology or legislation.

1.3 Concentrate on generating profitable business.

• Rank customers in order of profitability, identifying existing, and potential, key customers. Take into account the total cost of selling to each one.
• Identify what you are good at by analysing the activities that led to your most profitable sales last year.
• Define the benefits to your business of serving each type of customer. For example, a high-profile customer may provide you with credibility. Or, your first one or two customers in a new sector may enable you to make several other sales in that sector.Give all benefits a weighting and focus sales activities on the most worthwhile customers.
• Only sell to unprofitable customers for a good reason. For example, sales to a large customer may provide an essential regular revenue stream.
• Try to improve your gross margin on your less profitable sales. For example, you might use a cheaper sales channel (see 3).