Honestly? It’s go time. There’s no more time for dilly-dallying and tinkering under the hood of your sales strategy.
It’s time your business started to get some real results.
But to do that, you need to reignite your spark for setting solid sales foundations.
The thing that’s actually going to make the difference between you getting from A to B.
You know we’re great believers in building it yourself, not buying it from some business development agency that doesn’t really know (or care about) you. And ultimately leaves you with no control.
But that’s always easier said than done, right?
Wrong. You don’t need a fully working system to get started; you just need to start.
Unlike many facets of life, this is the one place where you can start flying the plane while you’re still building it.
Don’t know how? Here’s how to get some quick wins under your belt and start building your momentum for years to come:
The problem as it stands
You’re losing control.
Obviously, you need to bring back control to your business and fast. Yet, to do that, you must have all of the components of your sales engine running like they’re under the hood of a supercar.
But building a sustainable sales engine has to come from within, regardless of whether you bring someone in to help you build it and equip you with the skills and processes needed or do it yourself.
The control you seek doesn’t come from a flow of leads supplied by an external agency.
It comes from building a sales engine within your business and creating true accountability and ownership around it while owning your demand-generation agenda.
So, how do you go about doing exactly that? You need to go about setting solid sales foundations that last the test of time:
The groundwork for sales success
There’s no trickery necessary for sales success; you just need to get started. Not waiting until the time is right. Not waiting until you think you’re ready.
No, you should lead with your gut. And by that, I mean get started now and then iterate later.
Bring back control to your business by setting these solid sales engine foundations that will take your momentum further:
Getting your market fit right
First things first, you’ve got to get your market fit just right.
Ask yourself, are you really fit for market right now? Are you reaching customers? If you’re losing control, you’re likely not.
But don’t get me wrong, getting it right is not all about rebranding or launching a new website. And more about identifying the opportunities and staying aware of the market and competition.
To do this, it really centres around 3 things:
1.A concise value proposition
Your value proposition is a succinct statement that communicates the unique value and benefits your product or service offers to your target market.
It answers how you’ll solve the problem rather than selling the solution to the problem.
2.Understanding your competition
Who’s going to eat your lunch? Who’s taking up room in your space? Once you know, you want to study them and their offerings. Are your propositions similar? Determine how you can be different.
Going into conversations effectively blind, with nothing to lean on, is somewhat crazy. That’s why, as part of the positioning and sales strategy process, we identify enablers that help you get over the line.
Think about your core strengths as a business. Are you an expert in design? Do you have a pedigree in a certain industry?
By identifying the attributes and traits that enable you to open conversations and close deals, you can lean on them when you do have those all-important conversations.
3.Finding your whitespace
Where’s your blank canvas? It's about locating opportunities where there is less competition and where your business can carve out its own niche.
When it comes to finding your business's unique niche, it's important to locate areas with less competition. This means making subtle adjustments to your positioning and how you appear to your audience.
However, your competitor mapping should involve more than just researching existing operators in your field.
Plotting your competitors on a graph and analysing where they may be in the future is a great way to find a whitespace for your business.
Taking this approach to finding your whitespace will help you identify which competitors are closest to taking your market share and which ones may pose a threat in the future.
Remember, when revisiting your positioning, it’s rarely a complete pivot on what you were doing before. Instead, it should be about subtle tweaks here and there and adjusting how you appear in the minds of your audience.
Nailing your sales strategy
After you've honed in on the right market fit, it's time to craft a winning sales strategy. Here's how to do it:
- Target Audience Focus: Begin by pinpointing who you want to engage with. Understand your ideal customers inside out, including understanding their pain points, desires, and preferences. These precise customer profiles will form the foundation of your strategy.
- Tailored Offerings: Stop trying to sell big all the time. Aim to create several gateway products as compelling solutions that address their biggest pain points. They should be lower in price than your core offering but still extremely high in value.
- Attraction Strategy: Develop a clear and effective attraction strategy to captivate potential customers. Align this with your audience's biggest pain points, desires and needs.
- Engaging Sales Offer: Craft an irresistible sales offer as a conversation starter. This process might involve segmentation, introducing gateway products, and deploying intelligent messaging that piques the interest of your prospects.
- Strategic Messaging: Think strategically about your messaging. It should capture attention and convey the unique value and benefits you offer. Your messaging should be clear, persuasive, and tailored to different sales process stages.
- Flow Planning: Develop well-defined sales flows that guide prospects through the buyer's journey. This approach includes considering how you move potential customers from initial awareness to consideration and, ultimately, conversion.
By nailing these aspects of your sales strategy, you'll be well-equipped to effectively engage with your target audience and foster valuable conversations that can lead to successful sales outcomes.
Reaching audiences (at scale)
When it comes to reaching your audience, it's crucial to think through your approach. Are you leveraging things like:
Targeted Approaches: Think about how you're targeting your audience on these platforms. Are you focusing on organic growth through thought leadership and content marketing? It’s about taking charge of the outbound efforts through email and LinkedIn yourself using smart tools and the right soft-sell and relationship-building tactics to generate warm prospects that you’ve identified and built relationships with - but here’s the important part - at scale.
Social Media: Consider how social media platforms can be powerful tools for audience outreach. Platforms like LinkedIn offer opportunities for professional networking and engagement, while others like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can cater to different demographics.
Diverse Content: To resonate with various segments of your audience. This can include creating gated content to capture leads, hosting podcasts to share valuable insights, producing engaging video content, or crafting written thought leadership pieces to showcase your expertise.
Controlling the conversation
Guess what? Content marketing is far from dead. Content is still king for one reason only:
It’s the perfect opportunity to guide your audience through their pain points, the funnel and educate them on just what it is you do.
This approach forms the basis for your thinking and authority building that helps you scale beyond simple articles and posts into an overarching narrative that layers across all of your owned channels.
Overall, your content should:
- Inform your audience
- Educate your audience
- Act as a conversation starter around your services
- Guide prospects through the funnel
- Position your business as the only choice in the minds of your audience
More so, sharing your value as a thought leader can help position you as the go-to source of information about your product or service and, even in your whitespace, set you apart from your competitors.
Networking
Sales is and will always be a relationship game. So think, where are you going to see and be seen?
Networking isn't all about boozing and schmoozing. It's actually about community. It's about who we know and who knows us.
It offers the chance to engage with individuals, grasp their needs, and establish rapport, which is pivotal for sales success.
And there's really no excuse these days; you don't even have to leave your house or your office to connect with industry peers. You can simply engage with things like:
Social media networking
Join the conversation! Instead of only posting content and updates on your profile, actively participate in discussions or conversations on other people's profiles or within various social media groups, threads, or comment sections.
Virtual networking events
To get a few princesses, you've got to kiss a few frogs.
What I mean by that is not everyone you meet while networking will be your ideal customer, but they'll sure help you get there just by you participating.
So get out there and engage with a diverse group of people and start discovering valuable connections along the way.
Podcasting and webinars
Absolutely do your own podcast, but remember to collaborate with other podcasters or webinar hosts, as it allows you to reach a broader audience that may not have discovered your content otherwise.
It's a different way to introduce your expertise and offerings to new potential followers, customers, or clients.
Online communities and forums
Join industry-focused communities where you can share your expertise and knowledge and, most importantly, add value.
By providing valuable insights and information, you'll position yourself as an authority in your field, which can attract potential clients or customers.
In-person events
I know it’s getting chilly out there, but as December approaches and in-person events surge, industry-specific gatherings are becoming your prime opportunity to connect with prospects.
These events offer targeted networking, face-to-face interactions, valuable insights, lead generation, and a chance to reinforce your brand's authority within your niche. Don’t sleep on them, embrace these opportunities to grow your business.
Let’s wrap this up (or not)
Like I said before, it’s go time.
There’s no more time for tinkering; and even so, it likely won’t get you anywhere.
It’s time for action. It’s time to start building your pipeline and putting some proper energy behind it.
To do this, though, you’ve got to take your whole team with you on the journey, get them excited about it and start thinking about what your sales culture looks like and push on moving those new leads you’ll bring in through the pipeline through the with consistency and energy.
Get started setting those foundations. It’s time to get some results for your business.
Now, you probably guessed it, but we’re experts in building sales engines.
If you’d rather an expert come into your business for a short period of time to help set up your engine and equip you with the skills you need to get the pipeline flowing, please give us a call.
We’d love to roll up our sleeves, get into the trenches with you and set those successful foundations together.