The next step in your sales strategy is to look at current and historical performance. With that data, a clear revenue plan and action plan needs to be developed.
Once you have the data on hand, you need to answer the list of questions below:
Macro and general business factors
- What is the growth rate in the current economy (national, provincial, city)?
- What is the growth rate in your industry?
- What was your company’s revenue growth rate last year?
- What revenue growth can be expected this year?
- What is the stretch growth rate target?
Account, territory and product/service factors
- How much growth can you extract from your existing accounts?
- How many referral leads can you get from existing accounts?
- How much can you increase revenue with existing products in your current territory?
- How much can you increase revenue with new products in your current territory?
- How much can you increase revenue with existing products in new territories?
- How much can you increase revenue with new products in new territories?
Is it reasonable that the fastest revenue to generate will be from existing accounts? Are referrals a quick way to generate revenue?
Our experience has shown that the slowest and most expensive new revenue will result from sales for new products in new regions.
However, if you are in a saturated and highly competitive market, this might be the only way to hit the revenue growth numbers.
How to get started
Our recommendation is to start this sales strategy process with account plans for your top 10 clients.
This will be aimed at growing your revenue with them as well as actually using these current clients to develop your referral base.
By understanding at a base level where you did well in past periods, you can forecast future performance and identify where to focus you sales efforts. This is simple to do once you have the required data.
If your team has been given sale target equating to a 10% increase on the last period, you need to create an action plan that guides your teams focus to achieve the target.
The “Spray and Pray” method in today’s competitive market will not cut it. Focus on the industries, territories and products that are more likely to bring growth.