We all know that sales are the lifeblood of any business, but it can be challenging to get into a groove when you’re just starting out. You need a strategic sales plan.

This article will explain what a strategic sales plan is and how it can help you grow your business by increasing sales while lowering costs. We’ll also highlight several easy steps you can take right now to build one for yourself!

Define the Problem You Solve in Your Sales Plan

Before you get too far into the sales process, clearly define the problem you are solving for your client. Then, make sure your salespeople understand the problem you’re solving. That’ll be the first step in building your strategic sales plan.

This is not a solution-based approach; it is an identification of the actual issue(s) at hand.

Once you understand what’s happening in your client’s world, create a problem statement that defines how their current state affects them and their business objectives.

This statement will help guide efforts throughout the sales cycle, from making demand-generation plans to closing deals.

Identify the Pains That Your Product or Service Address in Your Strategic Sales Plan

Pain points are the reasons a customer buys your product. In other words, they’re the problems you solve for them. Your sales plan should always include and account for your clients’ pain points.

If you’ve got your buyer personas, that’s already covered, and you can use the pain points defined there. If you still need to build your buyer personas, read this immediately, and return to continue leveling up your sales.

Consider these options:

• Use Lead Magnet Assessments on your website. This will allow you to engage better with website visitors, increase website conversions, and get the information you want.
• Run Interviews with current clients. You’ll get information directly from your target audience. Also, you’ll improve your client’s experience with you by showing them you care enough to sit down and see how well you’re solving their issues.
• Conduct Market Research. Analyze the market to identify the most common issues and how well your product/service caters to them.
• Leverage Social listening. Identify real-time user feedback on what issues users are experiencing with their current solution and how your product or service might help solve those issues.

The goal is to identify the problems your customers are experiencing and then use that information to create personas. Personas are fictional representations of your different customer segments that you can use as reference points when developing your marketing strategy.

Determine How Your Product or Service Helps Each Specific Buyer Achieve Their Goals.

You’ve already identified your ideal buyer and the high-level goals they want to achieve. You know what their pain points are, as well as how your product or service can help them satisfy those needs. Now it’s time to dig down into each buyer persona on a more granular level. 

Figure out how your product or service helps each specific buyer achieve their goals and deal with their pain points.

For example: if you own a retail store that sells clothing and accessories, one of the most common ways you could segment your customer base is by age range. Your 18-24-year-old customers may look for clothes that express their individuality. The 25-40 year old demographic might focus more on fit and quality. Everyone 40+ may want easy outfits they can wear daily. Their goals differ, and their pain points differ.

Understanding what each buyer’s trying to achieve and solve will dictate how you approach the conversation and the pitch you’ll use to sell your product/service.

Include an approach for each major pain point within your strategic sales plan to help your team utilize the most relevant features of your product with prospective leads.

Build Your Strategic Sales Plan According to What Your Customer Wants and Sell What They Need

Building a strategic sales plan may seem complicated. It’s just a breakdown of each process step and ensuring that you focus on what your customers want, not what you want them to agree to.

For example, let’s say you sell an email automation solution. The lead in your sales pipeline has expressed that a big issue is dealing with bots opening their emails which messes up their automated lead scoring.

Most people think the problem is that it’s just bots opening emails. That’s pretty close since the bots are the pain point. The goal is solving the mess the bots are causing with the lead scoring. Identifying this goal will allow the sales team to focus on how your automation tool deals with the email-opening bots pain point within its lead-scoring process.

Remember to focus on what your customer wants within your strategic sales plan. Then you can start selling them what they need.

Take-Aways

Remember, the most important thing when building a sales strategy is to keep your focus on the customer. You might have some good ideas about how things should work, but they need to align with your customer’s expectations (and goals) to work! Don’t get distracted by what you want them to agree to — instead, use your strategic sales plan as a guide to help you understand what they need and how you can provide it.

So remember to account for the following within your strategic sales plan:

1. The Problem You Solve
2. The Pain Points Your Solution Directly Addresses
3. Focus on what clients want
4. Sell what they need

If you’re looking to build your own strategic sales plan, get some experience from our SMarketing experts, and they’ll show you exactly how you can start leveling up your sales.