Writing a Sales Strategy

A sales strategy is a plan of action for achieving sales targets and objectives. It involves identifying target customers, determining the products or services to offer, setting pricing, and outlining the steps to take to close deals. It is crucial that creating a great sales strategy is essential in growing our revenue and profits.  Here are some steps to help you write a sales strategy:

1.     Understanding Your Market - The first step in developing a sales strategy is to identify your target market. Who are your ideal customers? What are their needs, pain points, and purchasing habits? What is the competition doing and how are they succeeding as well as faltering.  By understanding your market, you can tailor your sales approach to meet their specific needs.

2.     Understand What Customers Need – Ask the customer what they are having pain points with.  What is concerning them to grow their business?  What is their greatest area for need?  What is it that they believe is missing in the product offerings at this moment.  Ask lots of questions.  This is crucial to understanding what the customers need.

3.     Use The Correct Sales Process – The key thing that makes anyone successful is following a process.  As boring as that sounds, a structured process makes us more efficient.  Our speed and free thought will go up because of the process.  Check out The Sales Process Uncovered Book for more information. 

4.     Setting Goals – Goal setting is crucial to have a target to shoot for for the team.  We need to know what we are shooting for, or we will hit nothing.  Creating SMART goals that are strategic and have a time table so we can gauge how we are doing to the goals.

5.     Recalibrate – Just because we set our goals and our plan does not mean we are done.  The market constantly changes and customers come and go.  We need to recalibrate regularly, travel with sales team, and be intentional to check our plan to see if it is still relevant.

Sales strategy is essential for achieving sales targets and objectives. By using these five steps you will have a winning sales strategy to stay ahead of the competition.  This increases revenue and profits.  Now that is a strategy I like!

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with the best customers and top employees.    How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  How can we land and keep top talent in our organization with the salary wars.  Kevin teaches your sales and leadership teams how to build the key ingredient to be successful with their relationships and take your goals to the next level with high levels of engagement.

Kevin’s website: www.kevinsidebottom.com

Kevin’s email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com

The Sales Process Online Membership Site 

https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/pricing-page

The Sales Process Uncovered Book 

https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8XUM4QL2RC6M&keywords=the+sales+process+uncovered&qid=1673274567&sprefix=the+sales+process+uncovered%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1

Does Free Shipping Increase Sales?

If I include free shipping, will it automatically increase my sales?  Does free shipping make people buy more?

These are a couple questions that I have been asked about the free shipping topic.  Unfortunately, the answer is, it depends…  With Amazon selling so many things people have been accustomed to being able to get free shipping on a great deal of their orders at a lower dollar amount.  Amazon does a fantastic job of customer service with free shipping, easy returns, and ease of shopping. 

Just adding free shipping on a product that we offer does not mean that will automatically generate more sales.  We need to look at our products that we are offering and understand the current customer buying habits first.  How often do we receive returning customer purchases for the same product.  Who is buying our product.  Why are they buying the product again and again. 

Before we just pull the trigger of offering free shipping, we should understand what our business is doing and understand our customers.  This will help us understand if free shipping is worth it.  Simply adding free shipping is not going to be the end all save all either.

We may need to know how to get customers to buy add on products so that we can generate more sales as well.  This means that we will need to set the dollar amount high enough to get add on sales.  If we simply add free shipping for one product we will lose the opportunity to sell more accessory products to our customers that they may be missing out on.

We likely have a great product line that the customers have not tapped into yet so we need to find ways to get them to buy more or our offerings.  Typically add on products that are smaller in purchase price have higher profit margins as well.  How can we entice others to buy these add on products. 

Amazon in their app makes it so easy to get to the dollar amount by getting customers to order multiple things.  They also offer prime service subscriptions so that people can get their orders faster, but the customers pay for this.  Amazon also makes it easy to return products which is why people keep coming back.

It revolves around customer service.  How we serve the customer affects our sales more than free shipping could ever do.  If we want to generate more sales, the customer experience with us has to be high.  The customer has to know that we are there to help them be the hero of their own story.  If we do that then we will win more sales. 

Free shipping alone will not drive more sales unless we are doing other things to enable the customer to win when they do business with us. 

How can we serve them better should be the filter we use to drive more sales.

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet

https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book

The Sales Process Uncovered Membership Page

What Are They Expecting?”

If you have followed my blog posts for any length of time when we talk about what the Customer wants.  You should know that the customer wants to have these three questions answered. 

Do I like you?  

Do I trust you?    

How can you help me?

These three questions may seem simple and redundant, but if the customer does not know, like, and trust us, then we will not be doing business with them.  Customers want to know that they will be served and helped to a better future.  This is not just some thoughtless process they go.  It is crucial for survival.

These three questions have been with us as part of our fight or flight mechanism to keep us alive.  It has served us well and is a continued mechanism that has helped us as we evolve into better cultures.  Having this mechanism work for us helps us stave off making poor decisions on products and services that may not meet our needs.  It also keeps us away from those not so helpful individuals that just care about making money no matter the cost.  

Customers are not just people who buy products and services either.  They are the people we lead, work with, and interact with in social settings.  If we use this filter in our view of others, we see that everyone is a customer and we are sales people.  Even leaders are sales people.

We need to treat those that we interact with as customers of our own personal brand if we are going to be successful.  Whether it is a sports team, political, non-profit, or a for profit organization we all need to serve each other and let others know that we can be liked, trusted, and help others.

If we focus on those three questions, we will be able to grow influence which is key in leadership and sales.  Without influence we go nowhere together. 

Our customers need us to help them solve their issues and move forward.  They key is identifying that issue and how to implement the correct solution to help our customers.  If we don’t then we risk being thought of as a commodity and low trust levels.  That is why so many people do not trust governments anymore as politicians have forgotten who the customer is.

We need to serve our customers well and provide them answers to those three questions if we are going to move forward no matter what profession, position, or status we hold.  Everyone needs to serve each other and then we can grow more trust with easier transactions.  

Just remember the last time you had an amazing experience at a restaurant.  What did you do?  You likely told others why they needed to go visit the location.  Just think what would happen if we served each other so well that they told others they needed to work with us.

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet

https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training

What is the Best Sales Strategy

Welcome back,

Today we are going to go through what a good sales strategy is because this comes up quite often with sales teams.  What is your strategy to win the sale?  Most of the time the sales person is thinking on the fly and often falters when pressed for details.  This is also when the sales person is confronted that thinking on the fly is not going to work.

With the sales landscape ever evolving, sales people need to have a good sales strategy. 

Here is what I have use as my sales strategy: 

Have a plan to serve the customer with a process that walks with them through their five buying decisions

That’s my sales strategy.  I want to serve the customer and walk with them through their five buying decisions in a way that allows them to buy the best product that meets their needs.  In order to do this. I must do a few things.

I must build rapport and trust with the customer.  If I know who I am meeting with, I can do research on them to learn about them and their families.  If I don’t have that option, or want to learn more, I can ask questions.   A great deal of questions to understand them and their needs.

The easiest way to build trust and rapport is to learn about customers.  We need to make sure we are learning about the customer because if we are not doing so, the three major questions that the customer has will go unanswered.  Do I like you? Do I trust you? How can you help me?  These three questions if unanswered spell defeat for a sales person because the first buying decision for a customer is in fact the sales person.  If we do not know, like, and trust the sales person, we are not going to buy from them.  Especially when there are so many options out in the marketplace.

The sales person is essential in growing the product line.  People buy from people. 

To help sales people I have created “The Sales Process Uncovered,” to help the sales person use the roadmap on how to sell effectively to customers.  It starts by asking a great deal of questions and the different types of questions needed to uncover the customer’s needs.  This process has worked in different industries, in different markets, and B2B as well as B2C sales.

That is right I use a process to solidify my strategy.  All the successful people use a process whether it for championships, expeditions to uncharted territories, or business.  Even those amazing Navy Seals that are the elite of the elite use a process for preparing for a mission.  Those individuals use a process to plan, action, review, and do it over again. 

If you want to have a great sales strategy, you need to implement a sales processes that will help us walk with our customer.  By doing so influence actually increases with the customer and if we do a great job selling, the customer will start telling others why they need to do business with us.

Who wouldn’t want that? 

If we want to gain sales success, and achieve great goals, we need to have a plan and the easiest way to do that is have a process in place that is simple and repeatable for success. 

If you want to gain some more insight about the sales process uncovered and how it can help you, click here.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

Stop Jumping Into Your Sales Pitch

Ever attempted to buy a car, furniture, or some large electronic device and the sales person asked how you are doing and immediately dives into trying to sell you something?   At this point you have likely decided it is time to plan your escape.  Hopefully not with the sales person holding on to your leg saying, “Please Stay!!!”

Far too often sales people jump right into the deep end of the pool and start trying to sell to customers before they understand the customer.  How do they even know the situation before they make that leap? Most often times sales people are spitting out all sorts of features and benefits of the product / service they offer in hopes something will make customers say yes and close a sale.  What most sales people forget is that customers buy to satisfy needs, not features and benefits.  It’s a simple concept, but hard to put into practice unfortunately.

When I train sales professionals, I have to make sure that I highlight this fact each time I start the training.  We as sales professionals need to stop launching right into a sales pitch early on in the sales process.   The customer is actually put off by this practice of selling.   I know some sales people at this point think that sales is just a numbers game so keep it up and a sale will happen. 

Most customers will wait for the presentation to end patiently and then thank the sales person for their time before making a way to the exit as fast as possible.  People want to feel heard and understood.  Too many times sales people leap into action and sell something because they are looking for that next kill.  Most sales people think of sales just like hunting for something. 

I started selling like this, but quickly learned that sales is actually like farming.  When we hunt we can eat for a day if we end up achieving our goals.  When we farm and plant the seeds, take care of the soil, we will harvest a feast for a long period of time.  We start small and grow our influence with the customer over time. 

By changing out mindset and focusing on how to serve the customer well we will gain more influence and generate more sales.  We need the customer to buy off on us before they will ever think about buying our product or service.  That’s right people will not buy from us if they don’t know, like, and trust us. Here’s another fact, the larger the sale, the longer it takes to understand the customer’s needs.  That means the sales process will take longer.

I have structured multi-million, multi-year contracts and every one of these deals took years to come together.  Not one of these customers has ever stopped on my doorstep and said please help me, I need you to sell me your product without growing the influence with them first.  I had to grow influence before they would look at me as an option to help them with their larger investments.  They gave me opportunities for smaller deals and then as they grew to trust me and trust that I understood them well enough they gave me larger opportunities. 

Apple has done a great job of getting people to line up for their new products, but back when they started, hardly anyone wanted their products.  It took years of the correct leadership, marketing, and growing influence to get to where they are today.

Each day there are new strategies on how to sell to a new sophisticated type of customer, but most of these new sales strategies are trying to do the same exercise of growing influence with the customer.  Shortcuts may work for the short term, but long term they fizzle out and influence erodes.  I have used the same process for almost two decades to sell to different industries, and in different parts of the world.  It’s a simple process and it helps the sales professionals walk through the customer’s five buying decisions that they must answer before they will purchase our products or services. 

We have to meet the customer’s needs and then we will be rewarded with their business and grow influence with them for future sales. 

If you’d like to take the opportunity to learn this easy to utilize process to increase your sales click here.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

What Customers Crave

For the past couple of weeks, I have been hoping that you have been able to understand how to generate more sales and influence with your customers.

Today, let’s talk about what customers actually crave from us as we sell to them.  What is the customer really asking us each time they interact with us whether face to face meetings, calling customer service, on social media, etc.  What is it that the customer is trying to communicate to us? 

Customers want to be known and heard.  That is right, our customers want to be known by us, called by name, and to know that without a shadow of a doubt that our teams will support their needs!  They also want us to know what they mean when they can’t articulate into words.  So how do we do this for them?

We need to be intentional to reach out to them to figure out what they need.  It’s that simple.  Get out of our comfort zones, stop trying to guess, and actually ask the customers what are their struggles.  What issues do they currently have so we can go to work to resolve those issues.  All of the great customer focused organizations like Amazon, Apple, Google, Zappos, etc are customer focused organizations. 

In the book Invent and Wander, all of the Amazon shareholder letters are shared from inception up to now as to what Amazon is focused on.  The root of all decisions is how can me make doing business with Amazon better for the customer.   Decisions revolve around that one main core value.

Customers were even asked what other products / services they would buy besides books when Amazon started in 1997.  That question led to expanding offerings from books to windshield wipers, to today where you literally are now able to purchase groceries in certain areas.  Asking the customers for their input is powerful and a large task at the same time.

I would also ask customers that we are currently doing business with to understand what issues they have with dealing with us.  When we see common themes we can know where to spend our time to focus on improvements that will actually move the needle.  When customers notice improvements, their confidence does increase.

We also need to make sure that when the customer is buying from us that we make it as easy as possible to deal with us.  That is key because they are already having resistance to parting from their hard-earned money.  They are investing in making their lives better.  We need to help them with that decision and make sure when the customer invests with us customers are taken care of.

Not do we need to make sure our products / services meets the customer’s needs, we also need to make sure the customer experience is exceptional.  Too many organizations make it so hard to do business with in an effort to make sure the organization is showing profits to its shareholders.  Now I’m not saying we need to make sure we are giving everything away.  What I am in fact saying is that we need to make sure our focus is on how to enrich our customer’s transactions, experience, and life with our product / service so that they don’t hesitate to purchase from us again.

Only then will we be able to look back with exceptional growth in our markets.

Check out my online training The Sales Process Uncovered for help with growing your sales.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

Customer Loyalty, We Want It Right?

Good morning everyone,

Everywhere you look you see articles on how to build customer loyalty.  Just about every major retailer has a loyalty program.  Offers are given with point systems in hopes of retaining customers.  These are all great things, but there is one area that businesses are falling short.

What about the new customer that does not know our brand and has no idea how awesome we are?  What are we doing today to keep them for a lifetime?  These individuals want to believe that if they join our “club” we are going to take care of them, but they have been taken advantage of so many times they may be a little skeptical.

All of us can be Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A in the future with lines for the drive through wrapping around parking lots and disrupting street traffic flow.  What we need to do is think about ways to serve customers so well that they want to keep coming back.

Both Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A do one thing really, really well.  It’s customer service.  That’s right they are always going above and beyond the call to serve the customer. This is resulting in customer loyalty, a Fanocrocy, and great business success even during pandemics.  People will literally wait in 20 min lines for a cup of coffee, and chicken sandwiches. 

Chick-Fil-A also has one thing they do every time they serve us when we say thank you.  They respond immediately with “it’s my pleasure.”  They literally ingrain each employee to be customer service focused.  It does not matter which location we to go, we still get great consistent service.

When an organization focuses only on profits and not on serving the customers it never ends well.  Doing the right thing consistently over time creates loyalty.  Making sure we have set up a solid customer service focus no matter how long the customers have been doing with us is key to achieving customer loyalty.

Focusing only on maintaining the customers we currently have loyalty with will erode as they expire.  Yes, I have checked the data everyone expires!  If we only focus on those that have bought several products from us to generate loyalty at the risk of making things right for a new customer, we will LOSE!!!

Too many organizations focus on short term profits.  One main driver for this is publicly traded companies focusing on making their stock holders more money as their main goals.  All organizational goals serve this one main goal.  How do we make shareholders more money? 

Organizations should also not focus on helping only those that have pledged loyalty to their brand, but consistently doing the right thing to generate future loyal “Fans.”  When “Fans” pledge their loyalty to us, they tell others how awesome our organization are.  They share stories of how we have helped them and rave about our service.  We have sales people selling for us that are not on our payroll.  Wouldn’t you like that?

Do not take the customer’s payment and walk away from the transaction waiting to see if the customer will buy from us again before we give extra effort.   Give the extra effort up front and every time we engage people and we will be rewarded!

Check back in next week and I’ll help you with a few ideas on how to grow more loyal customers and some ideas of how to gain more fans that will sell your brand.

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com