How do you create a Sales Strategy?

An effective sales strategy is the trap you lay down to capture sales that propel your business forward. Sure, execution is important, but there is nothing more unproductive than a wishful action without a plan. This is why over 50% of all successful sales team devise a 12-month view of their plans while 10% map out plans for the coming three years. Therefore, putting sales strategies in place before executing sales plans is crucial if you want to have successful returns.

You can create a sales strategy by studying your position in the market, your human resource, and your client needs. This allows you to capitalise on your strengths by focusing on selling your best-performing products. CRM software can aid sales strategy formulation by facilitating data-driven decisions, accurate sales forecasts, and building good customer relationships.

A 5-step process of creating a sales strategy

1. Assess your current position in the market

Before you start planning where you want to go, you need to know where you are right now. This universal fact is quite relevant to the sales strategy formulation process. Look at the past performance of your sales department, the best and the worst.

Recount the total sales figures, who closed the most deals, which product/service sold the best, what marketing campaign brought in the most results, and more of such data.

2. Create a buyer’s persona

Knowing who you’re selling to is one of the most critical parts of any sales plan. To understand your buyer better, you can take the help of CRM software. Find out your highest paying and most frequent clients, and draw comparisons. Look out for common characteristics in all of them and use them to create one ideal buyer persona. This will help you come up with effective campaigns that work with most of your target customers.

Planet Crust’s CRM provides a 360-degree overview of past customer history that lets you observe consumer trends and eventually helps create a persona of your target buyer. You can know your prospective clients’ budget range, industry, profession, and age range and use it to tailor your sales techniques.

3. Set a clear Marketing Strategy

Now that you know where you stand and what your customer looks like, it is time to plan what changes you want (and not want) to bring in your marketing action plan. Find out what products/services are selling the best, and determine how to grow their existing customer base.

List out the products that are not attracting customers, take consumer feedback, and make necessary changes. Using marketing frameworks like STP (Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning) analysis is an excellent way to lay down effective marketing strategies.

4. Create goals for the team

Once you know what your marketing strategy is, create clear step-wise goals for the team members. Establish a clear communication line between the team members and provide them with the support they need to reach these goals. Make sure that the goals allotted to the team are realistic. Achievable goals and encouragement can together help your employees have high morale and eventually result in better performance.

The Planet Crust CRM Suite has integration with the Jitsi video calling app, enabling efficient communication between the employees.

5. Devise a linear pattern of workflow for the team

Introduce a linear workflow pattern for all the actions that are to be taken to execute your sales plan. This includes establishing a list of sales questions that all the sales reps should answer, like: How many follow-ups do I need for new clients and how many for existing clients? What are the most frequently asked questions about the products? When exactly should I transfer the client to the next agent? etc.

The lead management feature of Planet Crust’s open-source CRM solution helps you organise and manage leads which, in turn, helps sales team members easily coordinate between themselves.

Planet Crust’s CRM: the ultimate sales strategy tool for your business

The ultimate salesforce alternative, the CRM solution by Planet Crust, is built on the open-source low-code platform Corteza. It can help you conjure a sustainable sales strategy that can drive up the company’s revenue figures. Get a free trial of the all-rounder CRM platform for your business.