aQuity

This is akin to asking: Is there a one universal method for preparing an egg? Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy? The short answer is – No! In the B2B context this is especially – No!

However, there are some fundamentals, regardless of the scenario, circumstance, goals, target market, methods and product that any Sales Strategy must address:

1. What is to be achieved?
2. How is it to be achieved?
3. What measures are required to eliminate the obstacles?
4. How will we know that we are making progress towards achievement?

It seems that the 4 x 4 Matrix even rules here. These four fundamental questions can be raised at the CxO level, the Sales Leader level, the individual Sales Professional level and in fact by anyone striving to achieve a goal. The hobbyist, the professional, the chef, the airline operator, engineer or astrophysicist have these four questions as a base aid. There is no escaping these vexing questions when embarking on the How and in particular in the case of Sales Strategy Development.

Why differentiate?

So, given these basic tenets, why would the Sales Strategy and its components differ from one B2B organisation to the another? The answer lies in a combination of base factors, being:

• The dictates of the organisation’s overall guiding Strategy (if any)
• The nature of the Product / Service Spectrum
• The defined Target Market(s)
• The viable Routes to Market

	Strategy	Service	Market	Routes
Goal?	✅	✅	✅	❌
How?	✅	✅	⚠️	❌
Eliminate Obstacles?	❌	⚠️	⚠️	⚠️
Measurement?	✅	✅	✅	❌

This table clearly illustrates that like a fingerprint, every organisation’s approach will differ. This statement is valid, even in the case of where the industry, services and target market are identical. The input of additional other sub-factors, influences and nuances provide additional complexity and often clarity. We differentiate because we know that the answer to ‘Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy?’ is No. So, let’s do a quick review of the prime factors.

Organisational Strategy

A Strategy is a clear statement on the attributes of the ideal customer or Client that they wish to serve (target market); Where they wish to serve – immediate neighbourhood, surrounding areas, regional, national, territorial or international; How will they serve these customers in this market, achieve the quantified goal, how any obstacles will be addressed and the progressive target timelines- When. The Strategy often benefits from the Why – the guiding values articulated in the Vision and Mission statements, provided that these are authentic.

Many brilliant and enduring products and services have evolved from the premise of identifying a vexing problem and developing a solution. The flip side of the same coin is that others found their existence in the pursuit of a technology or idea by enquiring minds that eventually resulted in a solution or the creation of an entire new market. Others capitalised on the successes or failures of previous inventions and creations.

Eureka! And now what? What’s the next step?

Ergo, by accident or design, new needs are created or existing needs are addressed. The latter will have more competitors in the market. The distinction clearly indicates an example of the need for a differentiated strategy. The latter dictates that a substantial differentiation of the offering is required, in the mind of the prospective Client. Possibly an ‘Early Adopter’ strategy is required in the former.
In short it is always and fundamentally the quest for the answer to the question ‘Why do we exist and who do we serve?’ Strategy consultants have a field day with this and bank significant funds while CxO members ponder and vex.

It is becoming clearer that the response to ‘Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy?’ is definitely a negative.

Products and Services

This involves the very frank understanding of the attributes, qualities, limitations and competitors of the offerings. Are they consumables, perishables, commodities, bespoke, tailorable, scalable, parameterised, packable, transportable, generic or specialised services? What problems do our offerings solve? Can we identify those organisations that could benefit from our existence and services? What sets us apart? Why would we even rate a second look?

Do we make it easy for the Client to understand why we are relevant to their issues? Is it easy for the Client to interact and engage with us? Do we confuse the Client with all the features and functions of our products and services? Or do we embark on an approach of understanding? Understanding the Clients’ issues and then matching potential solutions to the contents of our toolbox. Or, do we try to apply the contents of our toolbox to every Opportunity, with a scant understanding the Client’s issues and its desired outcome? A hammer looking for a nail.

In short, do we establish trust and engender credibility to provide relevance to the contents of our price list? More harshly – are we punting commodities or seeking solutions? It could even be a combination of both.

The very nature of our offerings and our face to the world negate the question: ‘Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy?’.

Some examples

An oversimplified real life example: Yesterday I contacted a company via their website for the availability of timber boards for a new project (Yes, I have many hobbies). The request was precise and included the approximate sizes that could fit into my SUV. The response was a quotation, complete with banking details, for a quantity of 3.3m boards. Caution is often better than valour, so I requested confirmation of the request for shorter boards. “We don’t provide such a service.” was the email response. Many lessons abound from this example and there are many more tragic missed opportunities in the commercial B2B world.

In our new digital economy there are many more examples of dissatisfaction, which primarily relate to B2C transactions. But especially in B2B engagements, the proponents of pushing only what’s available in the toolbox, excel at snatching defeat from the jaws of sustainable victory. The culprit is not listening to the Client’s pain and desired outcome.

Another Example

What we advocate at aQuity is a prime example. CRM’s could be gainfully employed as productive tools. However, in the B2B world they are often a hindrance and are invariably counter productive, unless they include sound Opportunity Management practices. Without OM disciplines, most if not all CRM’s gradually regress to mere, but expensive Contact Management Systems. This is an example of a software sector having lost the opportunity to add value, gain credibility and provide that which B2B organisations seek – meaningful and professional dialogue with potential Clients. A quick overview of the core of the aQuity Opportunity Management app illustrates the point on differentiation.

To paraphrase the CRM malaise – ‘My potential Client doesn’t care that I don’t remember her birthday, but she does value my contribution in addressing her pressing issues.’

How can we differentiate ourselves and that which we have on offer if we aren’t acknowledged to be adding value through our complete approach of applying expertise, specialist knowledge and product application? How does our Sales Strategy address this matter? Which Sales Methodology is most appropriate? Have we developed an Engagement Plan? Do we follow best-practice Opportunity Management methods?

To rephrase this in the frankest and harshest of terms – How can I avoid the unprofessional approaches of my competitors? How can I employ and deploy the best practices of consummate professionals?

Target Market

Having defined our target markets, have we analysed these? Which organisations constitute the target market – by name? Where are they geographically located and do they match our ideal Client profile? How many are there? Therefore, what is the market potential?

Many years ago when I represented a USA agri-software outfit in my home country, I often visited the principal. I was amazed that they could identify in a schedule and on a map all the maize growing farms which had not yet acquired their product. Names and contact details were available on demand. Not all countries have that level of access, but that level of granularity is essential.

What do we know about each and every potential Client on our list? What should we know to help qualify our chances and refine our approach?

How can these potential Clients be reached? Do they have common needs or sets of issues? What detailed information do we have? What are the potential entry points?

Short version – When you have a set of organisation names, their geographic locations, the names of their management, background information and their current financial status – in your target sector, then you have tangible data to begin working with. Without this, you have nothing. Without this you are skating on very thin ice or treading in very deep salty water. Time invested in establishing the granularity of the situational challenge invariably results in a short-cuts to meaningful Opportunity access and success, by avoiding weeks of wasted Sales effort.

Do you have a Prospect Acquisition Plan?

It’s a fundamental question – how do you attract Clients, interact with them and retain them? Have you done your homework? Does it require personalised, face-to-face engagements; mere order taking processes; hard nosed selling; retail or exhibition space; subtle marketing reinforcement; channel sales; franchising; partnerships, etc? This question is a continuous priority for leaders in successful organisations.

The vast differences in approach are best illustrated with some helicopter-view examples:

B2B & B2C scenario

A regional or even a national outfit that specialises in office supplies, which services any size organisation and even has some retail presence. Attributes: Consumables, Commodities. Focus: Direct & on-line marketing campaigns and distribution capability. Differentiation: Service, stock availability & variety, knowledgable order takers. Challenges: Out-market all competitors and penetrate a vast market. Target customer member: Who places stationery orders? How do we connect with her? Requires ATL and BTL Marketing Strategies.

A more complex B2B Scenario

A manufacturer of plastic containers which has injection moulding, blow moulding, rotational moulding, thermoforming, and compression moulding; competency. Attributes: Low margin commodities, but also specialist mouldings. Focus: Split between marketing for small margin commodities/repeat orders and sales prospecting for high margin specialist needs. Differentiation: Competency, quality and innovation. Challenges: Split between out-marketing all competitors/vast market penetration and identifying/attracting more profitable bespoke customer opportunities. Production line process interruption for bespoke orders and scaling specialist moulds profitably. Resulting in internal constraints/conflicts. Target customer members: More complex, but Marketing strategy involves a lot more sales involvement and requires a Sales Strategy.

A focussed B2B scenario

Our Client with a unique solution for those large and multi-national organisations whose processes have become too cumbersome, too involved, too costly and over time lack cohesion. The approach is extremely clever and efficient, and once deployed induces sanity, reduces costs and improves the customer experience. Here the focus is 99% on direct Face-2-Face sales engagements and the remainder on marketing. The success is dependent on the development of a Sales Strategy that encompasses the execution of a global Prospecting Plan, a focussed Engagement Plan and a practicable Opportunity Management Plan.

Highly sector specialised B2B scenario

Another Client focusses on the niche process of managing the booking, media selection, content, timing, budget, payment of the Marketing campaigns, effectively. Again a very focussed global Sales Strategy is necessary to capture specific markets. These are obviously those marketing service organisation that specialise in complex mass marketing projects, like FMCG.

Compound Derivatives

The complexities of the airline, hospitality, energy, agriculture, consulting, technology sectors, etc; nuanced by many variations and influences – lead to many boggling options.

The Cobbler’s son

The aQuity Opportunity Management app accesses 700+ UN Standard Industry Classification Codes. Nuancing these for location, culture, product/service and specialisation would result in a vast array of possible strategic approaches, maybe about 80 million at rough calculation. Many CxO’s are flummoxed by the array of options and the daunting task of crystallising the essentials and would rather go to lunch. Others learn from those who have the scars or try the tried and tested methods.

If this doesn’t provide the answer to: ‘Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy?’ then we have not achieved our objective.

Routes to market

Having completed the “easiest” part of the process of deciding the WHO, the WHAT and the WHERE, it always comes down to the HOW. This seems to be the most significant challenge to most organisation. Following the train of thought thus far, one fact is crystal clear: ‘Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy?’ is an inane question.

How will our target Clients know that we exist? Can they find us? How do they know that they need us? Should you focus more on marketing (expensive) or lean towards a sales intensive approach (expensive). Diligently processing the questions raised in this blog, reduces your risk.

Appetite

The marketing approach depends firstly on the appetite for growth and expansion. It influences the strategy significantly. Many entities are very comfortable with their current situation and rely on organic growth for incremental gain. They rely on population expansion and natural inflation. That is probably why the mortuaries will never tank. Some organisations rely on external factors like inflation, gradual population growth and exchange rate differentials for increased revenues and margins. But they will be devoured by those with a purposeful Sales Strategy.

Our Client, importer of a well known brand of TV’s based their growth strategy on a continually weakening exchange rate. They were confident in the fact that the source currency would continue to strengthen against the local currency. Meaning that they could perpetually pass the consequent increased local currency cost + standard margin onto the retailer/ distributor. So volume growth was not the key focus of their strategy, but rather the reliance on factors outside their control. Of course, the retailer would add their margin and pass this onto the consumer. Our advice involved a different merchandising, sales and costing model to mainly counter increased competitive presence. Unfortunately, our advice was not heeded. The result was obvious – that brand of TV has not been available on the shelves for two decades.

Entrepreneurs are not economist, treasurers or currency experts and shouldn’t rely on the external factors for their fortunes. My cautionary advice – ‘If you don’t grow, you die’.

The Goal?

Secondly, it depends on what you want to achieve. What’s the goal? Is it based on the reality of the circumstances, resources, market and capabilities? I am unsure if I am mangling the axiom ‘Cut your coat according to your cloth.’ But then there is the wonderful work of Portas & Collins – BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), which demonstrates that the application of disciplined thought, planning and execution determine the size of your coat.

Who do you Serve?

Thirdly, channeling your efforts on those that would value your services, should be the subject of all initial initiatives and be the core of the Strategy for the immediate future. Capitalising on a persistent loyal Client base provides a compass for future direction. Growth and expansion; whether organically, vertically, exponentially, horizontally, acquisitively or through innovation – must start somewhere. That ‘somewhere’ is the kernel and foundation of success. ‘Somewhere’ is often elusive and for the tenacious, is attained after many attempts.

Summary

Confusion reigns and options abound. Luck sometimes plays a part, but it is research, analysis, perseverance, discipline, focus and applying these to the principles that determine the outcome. Outcomes are always strange, interesting, unexpected and vexing. The shelves of the local bookstores display the biographies and the travails of the entrepreneurs and companies. These could be failures or successes. But no endeavors in the B2B world are binary. Partial successes, new opportunities, reworked offerings and resilient attempts, write the history of many enduring local, regional, national and global entities.

There are never any instant answers on the road to Utopia. Product, passion and enthusiasm are a minuscule contributor to success adoption. Discipline, critical thought, research, planning, market knowledge and applying appropriate qualification methods are some of the essential attributes. Frank assessment of the strengths and vulnerabilities of your current situation is always a good starting point. Wishful thinking and vague ideals are for the dreamers, unless they are able to follow the lofty, but valuable strictures of BHAG.

We started this blog by asking ‘Is there a One-size-fit-all Sales Strategy?’, because that question should trigger some serious research and critical thought processes when reviewing your own situation. We hope that some of our ideas may provide some real value against the bland strategy templates available from Google, the consulting fraternity, etc. and inspire you to develop your own and unique Sales Strategy.

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