A SellingBrew Playbook diagnostic entitled, “Seven Signs Your Sales Strategy Stinks,” provides a simple and straightforward self-assessment to help you determine whether or not your sales strategy is as effective as it really should be. And it’s a great tool for identifying weak spots and improvements that can have a tremendous effect on overall sales performance.
In reviewing the piece, however, I couldn’t help but wonder how many B2B sales teams actually have a sales strategy to evaluate and improve in the first place?
After all, there seems to be a lot of confusion out there about the difference between having a sales process and having a sales strategy. Of course, nearly every B2B sales team has a sales process of some kind. But it’s surprising how many sales operations are lacking a real sales strategy.
And it seems to me that before you can evaluate the quality of your sales strategy, you must first determine whether or not you actually have one. Here are four signs that you may not have a real sales strategy:
- Any company over a certain size is fair game as a potential customer.
- Every sales dollar is the same no matter which offering is generating it.
- The pitch and messaging are just whatever the sales rep thinks will work.
- Prospect cultivation is about seeing if the prospect is ready to buy yet.
Simply put, a sales process is about HOW your team does what they do. Of course, this is an important element for efficiency and consistency. But a real sales strategy is about WHO, WHAT, WHY, and WHEN—which are far more important for driving overall effectiveness.
So by all means, check out the diagnostic. Answer the questions honestly and objectively, and see if there are places where your sales strategy could be improved. It only takes a few minutes and it could very illuminating.
Just keep in mind that the biggest improvement you might be able to make is developing a sales strategy where none exists today.
