Sales Strategy: 10 Ways to Create the Best and Most Effective Strategies

How do you create the best and most effective sales strategy? Many believe that having a documented plan, a solid process, and a knowledgeable sales team is enough. However, most sales strategies are too internally focused, emphasizing procedures over the messages and skills needed to communicate value to prospects and customers.

Key Insights:

• ​Research from SiriusDecisions shows the number-one inhibitor to sales achieving quota is an “inability to communicate a value message.”
• ​Only 10 percent of executive customers say sales calls provide enough value to warrant their time (SiriusDecisions).
• ​Forrester Research found only 15 percent of sales calls add enough value, and just seven percent of executives would probably schedule a follow-up.

If your sales force can’t communicate value—why your solution is different, better, and worth more—your sales strategy won’t help you get more sales.

This article presents 10 tips for building a sales strategy that works, each backed by behavioral research and proven effective in B2B selling situations.

What is a Sales Strategy?

A sales strategy is a documented plan for positioning and selling your product or service to qualified buyers in a way that differentiates your solution from competitors. It provides clear objectives and guidance, typically including:

• ​Growth goals
• ​KPIs
• ​Buyer personas
• ​Sales processes
• ​Team structure
• ​Competitive analysis
• ​Product positioning
• ​Specific selling methodologies

While these guidelines help communicate goals and keep sales reps aligned, most strategies focus too much on internal operations. The actual skills and messages needed for winning conversations with buyers are often overlooked. The messaging element—what salespeople say, do, and write to create perceived value—is what wins or loses deals.

To be effective, your sales strategy must focus on customer conversations. Skillfully delivered conversations create a distinctive purchase experience, demonstrate value, and set your company apart.

10 Keys to Developing a Successful Sales Strategy

1. Build a Powerful Value Proposition in Your Messaging

Most prospects don’t recognize or can’t articulate their root challenges. Even with a remarkable product, buyers may not see your real value. Create a powerful, persuasive message that defines a new set of challenges aligned with your strengths. This uncovers previously unconsidered needs, creates contrast, and drives urgency to change using stories and insights.

2. Create the Urgency to Change

Many companies position themselves for a competitive bake-off of features and benefits, missing a critical first step: motivating buyers to change. Most buyers prefer to do nothing rather than change—60 percent of deals are lost to “no decision.” To overcome status quo bias, tell a story that makes a compelling case for why buyers should change now.

3. Tell a Compelling and Memorable Story

Facts alone won’t resonate. Use personal stories, metaphors, and analogies to bring your message alive. Storytelling paints a vivid picture, illustrating the contrast between the current situation and what’s possible, and connects your offering to the buyer’s unique situation.

4. Speak to the Customer Deciding Journey, Not Your Sales Process

A sales process is a set of repeatable steps, but selling today is not a predictable progression. Instead, focus on the Customer Deciding Journey—a series of key questions buyers ask as they address business goals. Be problem-centric, addressing specific buyer needs with relevant messages, content, and skills.

5. Don’t Rely on Buyer Personas in Your Sales Strategy

Buyer personas can lead messaging astray if used superficially. Real drivers of behavior are challenges within the buyer’s situation, not their professional disposition. Focus your sales strategy on the buyer’s situation and why their current approach is risky.

6. Avoid the “Commodity Trap” in Your Sales Strategy

Basing messages on needs prospects tell you can lead to commodity messaging. Instead, introduce unconsidered needs—problems or missed opportunities buyers haven’t recognized. Connect these needs to your differentiated strengths.

7. Lead with Insights, Not Discovery Questions

Being a “trusted advisor” by asking discovery questions and then presenting a solution is not enough. Buyers want salespeople who tell them what they should want, providing insights into what they’re missing. Wrap insights in stories that provide context within the buyer’s world.

8. Align Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are often siloed, leading to misalignment. Sales is the storyteller; marketing is the story builder. Both must align to persuade buyers to choose you.

9. Tailor Your Sales Strategy for Customer Expansion

Most revenue comes from existing customers, yet most effort is spent on acquisition. Retention and expansion require distinct messaging and conversation approaches. While acquisition challenges the status quo, retention and expansion reinforce your position as the status quo. Using a provocative message for renewals or expansions can increase the likelihood customers will shop around.

10. Enable Ongoing Situational Training

Traditional training is often scheduled and curriculum-based, not responsive to business strategy or market demands. Use flexible, on-demand training to address problems as they arise and equip your sales team with relevant messaging and skills.

Take Your Sales Strategy Beyond “Best Practices”

Most “best practices” won’t help your sales team succeed. Instead, create a strategy that communicates more value in sales conversations.

Get our sales tool, Winning the Five Value Conversations, for more research-backed sales messaging and skills for building a sales strategy that works.