Sales & Marketing Strategies: GPS For Your Business

Author: Valerie Dennis

Business owners have a lot to accomplish in a day, week, month or year. On most days, you may feel like you have all the symptoms of ADD because competing priorities don’t work on a schedule. So when the subject of sales and marketing comes up, it almost becomes a philosophical debate. How do justify the time and money for something that seems a bit intangible? Websites are great and sometimes really cool, but…will they make a sale? Sales and marketing efforts are not just about your website–that is a subset , a tactical element. You can have a really great product or service, but it is the strategies that will get it to market and build a sustainable sales pipeline. In other words, the best products and services don’t sell themselves—at least not for long. If they did, we wouldn’t have sales and marketing people—how dull would that be?

In a conversation recently with a prospective client, we were talking about how they invest in their client for the long-term—adding ongoing value and aiming for the sale after the sale. It is a good way to look at marketing and sales strategies, consider them critical investments. They are the roadmap for how you are going to grow—and keep growing. That’s worth time and money, right?

When might you need such help? Examples include: Before you enter a new market or start a company, if you want to validate a business concept, customer needs are evolving, introduce a new product or service, you need accelerated growth or greater differentiation, you want to find the next big thing, there’s an increase in competition and a loss in market share, or sales have stalled or declined.

What is interesting is that when we are the purchaser, we tend to weed out the “Me too” category. When we buy a car, running shoes, groceries, look for a doctor or day care, etc. we do our homework because there are a lot of options to choose from and places to buy. As the seller, we sometimes think our benefits are obvious. They might be—but there are lots of options to choose from and places to buy…and your prospective customer will do his homework. It starts with the basic premise if you aren’t easy to find or you didn’t find them, you’ve lost the prospective sale.

Naturally, we want the sales to keep rolling in and we want our customers to recognize our value. Some might say that their businesses are growing by referral. Perhaps for a lucky few that happens. But I would tell you that time and again businesses eventually need to rebuild the pipeline because referral business was only good for a while.

In the simplest analogy, sales and marketing strategies are like GPS—it will get you to the right place, unless you have a bad address and an ill-equipped vehicle. Here is what you want to know:

• you need an accurate address to get you to the right place, at the right time. (I.e. lead generation, sales prospecting, market research)
• your “hosts” need to know who you are and why they should talk to you—rather than your competition (I.e. brand, key messaging, differentiation, competitive analysis, product marketing)
• you need to know how many others are just like your current “host”, who might also buy from you (I.e. prospecting, channel development, sales pipeline)
• you need to know when to visit, what to say, how to say it and how to keep them talking to you (I.e. qualifying a prospect, sales strategy and process, marketing and communications)
• you want a reliable vehicle—does your car break down on the side of the road or is it shiny and new, with a navigation system? (I.e. brand, channel development, marketing strategy, sales)
• you need a map to give you turn by turn instruction–not directions like “take a left at the red barn, go past the cows–the spotted ones, not the brown ones…” (I.e. strategy, sales tools, marketing, messaging, customer relationship management)
• you need a guidebook to make your “trip” productive (I.e. sales methods and tools, marketing and messaging, customer relationship management)
• you want people to invite you back—or at least welcome your next visit–and they’ll only do that if you answer “what’s in it for me?” (I.e. sales pipeline, growth strategies, positioning, ROI)

Sales and marketing strategies help you get the right address (prospects), a working vehicle (message), the most effective route (channel)…and the sale. Sales is not a passive process. It requires discipline, strategy, planning and execution. If you put time and money into the quality of your products and services, why wouldn’t you put time and money into generating revenue?

From a lot of folks I hear “I don’t have time and I don’t like to sell” and when you drill down on that statement, they will also tell you they don’t know how to sell. That’s okay. Let’s face it, sales people are a distinct breed. But in this case it’s important find someone to help you overcome these challenges. The same goes for marketing.

I realize that it is difficult to invite someone into your business to help shape your strategies. It is a matter of trust, among other things. But business is dynamic, not static. Marketing and sales plans aren’t built once and kept for a lifetime. Market indices will affect your business, your competitors will reshape your customer’s preferences or needs, or product/service obsolescence will force the change. Stuff happens. But what I have found is that with the right people in the room (ideally people with practical experience who lived through the execution of their own ideas), who genuinely want the best for your business, you will find the answers you need and perhaps even some you didn’t think about. Sales and marketing is an investment, a critical one.

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