Building an effective sales strategy

It’s time to refresh your approach to sales.

Digital technology, combined with fears of a recession, are changing the buying behaviours of customers. More people than ever before are working remotely and this means that face to face sales opportunities are often being replaced by digital interactions.

This has given rise to hybrid selling. Hybrid selling is a combination of digital and in-person interactions. Most sales teams are very good at face-to-face interactions,but many lag behind on the digital side. You and your business could use this to your advantage by enhancing the online/digital skills of your sales team.

A recent study by Gartner predicts that by 2025 up to 80% of B2B sales communication between suppliers and buyers will occur on digital channels including email, social media, text, live chat and messaging apps. Self-service options will become increasingly popular as customers seek speed and convenience when making a purchase decision.

A study by another consultancy firm asked people what they wanted most from their sales rep, and people responded by saying, “please stop asking to meet with mein person. I’m too busy.” Your firm could turn this to your advantage by offering to enable sales interactions online and by training your sales team to embrace online tools.

Another key component of any successful sales strategy is customer retention. There are lots of statistics out there, the most famous of which is probably, “its five times more expensive to earn a new customer than to keep an existing one.” Your sales strategy should look to maintain existing customers, build on those relationships,and map out ways for your sales team to cross-sell other products or services to those clients. Again, you can do this by embracing digital tools to interact with your existing customers – as above, they are probably too busy to meet in person.

Your sales strategy should focus on how to make your products or services stand out.Train your sales team to focus on the problem that your customers are trying to solve and then help those customers to buy a solution to those problems.

Prospects are less interested in how a product or service works. They are interested in the benefits provided to them, by your product or services. As such, your sales team need to focus on understanding the needs of your customers and matching those needs with the solutions that your firm can provide. Finally, your sales strategy should be data-led, in order to focus your sales efforts on the right targets.