Cliche or Truth (or Both) — Better Sales Performance Means Fighting the Right Battle

It’s absolutely cliche, but one of the things people most often ask me when I’m consulting is, “What’s the #1 thing I can do to make more sales today, tomorrow, and next week (as opposed to next month, next quarter, next year)?”

Usually they ask thinking that I’m going to give them some killer pitch or closing tip, some bit of wisdom that will totally transform their sales process, or maybe something that’s going to magically get them dozens of easy prospect referrals.

And it may be just as cliche as the question it answers, but the #1 reason for sales under-performance is poor marketing and target strategy.

As I’ve said before in my “15 Time Wasters of Inside Sales and Marketing,”

“A poor marketing strategy will lead your company to make costly mistakes, select the wrong market, or fail to reach the right target audience. While executive management has the primary responsibility of defining the sales and marketing strategy, every VP of Sales, Sales Manager, and Salesperson should ask him or herself:

What battle should we be fighting?”

I recently heard a quote that states, “There’s nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Without the right strategy, it doesn’t make a lick of difference how professional your pitch and collateral are, how fine-tuned your demo and closing skills are. If you’re harvesting the wrong field, it doesn’t matter how hard you worked to plant it.

Successful strategy starts with:

  • Defining the core message.
  • Defining target decision makers.
  • Identifying the #1 pain you address for prospects.
  • Defining your most relevant competitive advantage: price, speed, quality, or service.
  • Finding the single coolest, most powerful stance you can take in your market.

Author: Ken Krogue |
Summary of Ken Krogue’s Forbes articles

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