How do companies grow in an environment of constant change? That question is one asked of every executive (if their doing the job) every day. In the simplest of terms challenging the status quo on a daily basis is a good start. Because my 40 year career has a definite “sales” spin to it, developing and implementing a winning sales strategy has always been a logical first step for me. Simply put sales strategy development is the process of creating a business plan that meets or exceeds the published revenue and profit goals while creating teams that collaborate and challenge each other.

One of my early mentors told me once, “Greg, the first step of creating a winning sales organization is building a world class team.” What he really meant was simple, if the team isn’t right, comprised of people who want to win then success is not sustainable. Therefore, I always began with “do I have the right team?” If I didn’t, I went out and built it. Invest in your people. Invest in training and give them the resources to be successful. Communicate and talk to them consistently. They are the front line and equipping them for success will ensure you get the results you want.

So lets talk strategy. I believe the first step when developing a strategy is to define what exactly you want to achieve or rather your goals. I’ve always been a proponent of goal setting being a collaborative endeavor done along side of other departments and including the sales team members themselves. I’ve always done this in strategy development for the simple reason of alignment. Nothing will kill a strategy quicker than having team members who don’t know the strategy, because it was either poorly communicated, not fully understood, or their particularly role in it’s success was unclear.

The previous comments are about one thing, don’t develop your strategy in a vacuum – include other key stakeholders. The establishment of sales goals or objectives must be not only specific, but achievable, relevant to the overall organizational goals, measurable and time based (Monthly, quarterly, annual, etc.). Identifying these key performance indicators and measuring and publishing results will help to keep the strategy on track, but perhaps more importantly help to identify areas for course correction.

So the team is the right team, sales goals and objectives are established and communicated. So what’s next? From my point of view it’s now about the “How.” In other words, how will these goals be met or exceeded? What tools do we have, what tools don’t we have that we need? Do we have a clear sales process? Do we have a competitive edge or void that has to be addressed? Some business leaders refer to that as “what is our secret sauce or value proposition? Do we have a clearly defined target market? Are we in the right channels? How will we reach those target markets or consumers? What is our existing customer base and have we identified any new targets that exist? It’s critical we leverage data and analysis to understand the marketplace, competition, and trends.

Align with other departments. I can’t stress this enough, in particular marketing, operations, finance and customer service. It seems simple enough, but working in a vacuum is the death of strategy. Be someone who readily invites others into the “sales sandbox” and who isn’t afraid to take on and consider other ideas. Embrace constructive criticism. For example, in many cases field sales in only responsible for revenue generation, but if you aren’t aligned with finance, you would never understand that not every “sale” is a good “sale” if the company is losing money. Educate your team through sharing that information. For example, a front line sales person may not have visibility that a particular deal doesn’t meet the profit hurdles.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and many steps in the process, and the last two are not to be overlooked. Align your resources in the most effective way, and build a culture and environment that celebrates successes and learns from the losses. Do you have enough coverage? Is that coverage allocated in a way that ensures both current and prospective customers can be serviced? Culture should be one that focuses on accountability. But that doesn’t mean you start firing people every time a goal isn’t meant. It’s about creating an environment that people are proud of, have fun in, but work even harder to exceed expectations. As leaders we have to get out from behind the desk and get into the trenches. I’ve always said I would never ask a team member to do something I haven’t done or would be unwilling to do. Be an active leader and participant. Do these things and your sales strategy will be a winning one!