ENEWS > FALL 2007

Your Business in Mind
Developing a Comprehensive Sales Strategy

For an organization to go on the offensive, the development and execution of a cohesive sales and marketing strategy is critical to the organization’s success. In order to develop a successful strategy you’ll want to focus on visualizing the future and getting there first. This implies creativity and rapid execution.

The most successful strategies have a foundation of involvement, ownership, and commitment. The right combination of internal processes, training and resources (both physical and human) provide an organization with an enormous capacity for creative strategy development. Additionally, the most successful strategies involve all components of the organization including service delivery, information technology, human resources, customer service and physical distribution.

Emphasize the sales force as the primary role in all distribution channels, sales outlets, and client interaction. Strategy development should include input from front-line resources. Senior management is often too far removed from opportunities to create truly effective strategies.

Below are detailed steps to developing your organization’s sales and marketing strategy.

1. Roadmap - Start at Destination

• Form a strategy team and include all stakeholders.
• Clearly define business objectives and ensure complete understanding.
• Review sales performance (sales, activity, etc.) including what works and what hasn’t.
• Relate how actions tie to roadmap.

2. Organization and Structure

• Supports roadmap.
• Supports market segmentation.
• Provides a framework for everyone to succeed including tools, resources, and rewards.

3. Strategy Workshops

• Work on situation analysis – critical success factors.
• Work on opportunity analysis – involvement from entire organization including SWOT, competitor analysis, distinctive capabilities, and all hands on deck philosophy.

4. Action Plans/Execution

• Best bet initiatives.
• Implementation schedule.
• Measurement schedule.
• Milestones.
• Satisfy clients and make sales.

Jeffrey Gregorec
Senior Director, Corporate Sales, ACT!
Sage Software