You can feel it: for some time now, your sales strategy has been running out of steam, and your salespeople are having more difficulty selling effectively to your prospects. It is in this context that you look for inspiration, techniques that have proven themselves in other companies to generate more turnover.
What is a business strategy?
1. What is a business strategy?
Based on solid market research, your commercial strategy consists of putting down on paper your objectives (in terms of turnover and growth) and the means to implement to achieve them. This reflection allows you to refine your positioning on the market compared to your competitors, and gives you a precise vision of the path to follow to develop your business.
The choice of your positioning on the market will be based on the different possible customer segments. Depending on your strengths, your objectives, your financial and operational capacity, you will decide which ones to target as a priority.
Will you target traditional customers of your business, or will you seek out emerging segments? What means will you use to reach them? How will you adapt your offer to the targeted clientele? Are you going to base your competitive advantage on an aggressive pricing policy, or rather on a particular characteristic of your products or services?
Finally, the commercial strategy is materialized in a marketing mix which defines the exact nature of your products or services, their price, the distribution networks and the means of communication. It must be built over a period of several years (at least two) in order to serve as a road map for the actions to be taken and the decisions to be made.
Need to go further to design this crucial strategy for your business development? Consult our article “How to build an effective sales strategy?” to learn all the best practices!
6 examples of business strategies to inspire you for your business
When it comes to choosing an angle to attack your market, there are several types of sales strategies you can implement. Nothing better to inspire you than these 6 examples of proven business strategies !
1. Implement a key account commercial strategy
Do you know the 20-80 law (or Pareto)? It establishes that 80% of your turnover is achieved thanks to 20% of your customers. This is a law that is true in many companies, regardless of the sector of activity in which they operate.
Faced with this law, the corresponding commercial strategy then becomes to deploy a majority of the energy of your salespeople to sell to major accounts , i.e. these famous 20% of customers who generate the majority of your turnover.
To begin, make a list of the key accounts (or major accounts) that you are targeting in your market segment.
To help you identify them, draw up a portrait of your typical customer. Many criteria can help you paint a portrait of this ideal client:
Then, establish a map of the organization of your company, to understand the organizational workings and decision-making processes. Indeed, approaching a major account can be time-consuming if you go about it incorrectly, the most important thing being to manage to contact the right person in the hierarchy .
Next comes a more or less long phase of making an appointment with your current entry points with the prospect.
The objective behind this is of course to have a satisfied customer, but also a customer able to recommend you to their colleagues or superiors, and to provide you with their contact details.
It will also be necessary to favor a key account sales representative in your organization as a single point of contact , who will be able to build relationships of trust over time.
Another approach is to attend trade shows or conferences that your target attends. Your company can also choose to be a sponsor of the event. Beforehand, find out the type of people who are going and the number of participants. The more people you have, the more chances you will have to network and find potential new major account clients.
2. Respond to calls for tenders
Calls for tenders constitute a considerable source of business to develop your turnover, as well as a good way to broaden your notoriety, particularly among the public.
Another important advantage: you are guaranteed to be paid, in principle within 30 days maximum, and you can receive an advance.
Public calls for tenders do not only concern large companies. VSEs and SMEs can respond as a group of companies. A market that interests you is therefore a good opportunity to form partnerships and expand your prospects.