A startup sales strategy is key for a growing B2B organization’s success. Where do you start and what are some of the key components? This blog will provide some ideas on the components for your startup sales strategy.
Sales Planning
Without a plan it is hard to get to where you want to go. A startup sales strategy includes goals like revenue and activity targets. It also means being focused on your ideal customer as well as the buyer personas that you will be targeting. For most B2B startups it is better to have a narrower focus and then grow to adjacent targets. It also means developing a pricing methodology and the associated sales and marketing costs to support the revenue growth.
Sales Process
There are many key sales processes you should get in place as you start with your sales effort. This could include email scripts, call scripts, handling major objections, and most importantly the steps in your sales process. Using your buyer’s journey associated to your personas, you will drive your sales and marketing tactics and deliverables. There could be a few people within the organization driving the sales and marketing and having everyone on the same page allows for faster success and learning.
Sales Tools and Systems
The most important tool for a startup sales strategy is the CRM. There are many components of a CRM including contacts, accounts, deals, past activities, and future activities. Modern CRMs also have features that allow for email templates, lead scoring, and much more. There should be no excuse to not have a CRM as many are free or nearly free. Our current go to CRM is Hubspot. Don’t forget about the other tools including LinkedIn, other research tools, email marketing tools, and sales enablement solutions. It is important to have thought out your sales stack as there are a lot of options available.
Managing your Sales
After you have the plan, processes, and tools in place, it is important to measure, review, and make adjustments. This starts with reviewing your sales funnel. It can help not only predict future revenue and customers, but also provides excellent insight into your sales efforts. You can examine why certain opportunities are getting stuck in the funnel and not progressing. Could it be the wrong message for the wrong target? There are also other activities measured and managed that are more tactical. This could include which emails were interacted with through to which trade shows had the best leads. This becomes more complex as you grow the sales team. Managing your sales is an ongoing and consistent program.
VA Partners has worked with over 150 organizations and we would be happy to talk about your startup sales strategy. Reach out and contact me.
