Let’s take a look at the sales strategy. The sales strategy is crucial because many times we think we have the right strategy and we have been doing it for a while so we continue doing it. We may improve it a little bit. But sometimes it happens that we actually get the strategy wrong.
So let me give you an example. I was talking to a CEO that was telling me in 2008 that he purchased a company. What they do is they design commercial kitchens for restaurants and universities. How they get the business is that they sell to architects who are actually building the buildings. And once they’ve built the building, when it comes down to doing the kitchen, they come in and they design these kitchens and cafeterias and do a great job. But in 2008 just two months after he purchased the company, there was a big crash, and 50% of his pipeline, *poof*, just disappeared. And nobody wants to do any more business with them because the economy is completely crashed. Nobody knows what’s going on. The sales strategy was to sell to architects. After some long thinking, they decided okay, if we wait for architects, new business that comes in, those buildings won’t be built for two years, we’re going to be out of business for six months. So they skipped the architects and went directly to the people that run restaurants and kitchens for universities and go in and re-design those. So they changed their strategy and it allowed their salespeople to go in and close business. This way, the sales cycle was shorter, the work cycle was shorter, and they got their sales faster.
Once they changed their strategy, instead of actually the company closing, they increased their backlog by 300% and took the sales up to a dramatically higher level all because they gave up the old strategy and picked a new one. They had to do it because the company’s survival depended upon it. So the question is do you have the right strategy? Are you holding onto this old strategy because it works, but there might be a better one in place? And that’s a question you need to ask yourself all the time. Do we have the right strategy? If you do, make it better. If you don’t, look for a better one and execute that with all the resources you’ve got.
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To check out the rest of this awesome series, click below:
Build a Strong Sales Organization – Part1
Build a Strong Sales Organization – Part2
Build a Strong Sales Organization – Part3
Build a Strong Sales Organization – Part5
Build a Strong Sales Organization – Part6
