Thursday, July 5, 2012

Strategy in Sales: Planning to Win

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Focused, directed and specific strategies are necessary to get a business booming. A lack of planning and strategy will at best result in mediocre sales and at worst result in economic failure. A sales goal without a strategy is like a trip to a city without a map; everyone ends up lost. A strategy is a plan for success. Learn about strategizing to increase your sales.
A business that doesn't have a strategy for sales will soon be a floundering, failed business. As we have seen earlier, success isn't possible without specific visualization of goals. Success also is impossible without the clear, concrete direction of a strategy, which results from focused visualization.
Having a written or planned strategy is the same as ensuring victory by looking at all possible outcomes of a situation and planning for a win. As Sun Tzu, the mythological author of The Art of War and master of strategy, writes: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle".
Sun Tzu's philosophy about being prepared for war directly applies to sales: if you want to be successful, if you want to win, you must have a strategy, and must be prepared. By looking at a sales situation like a battle or a war-like situation, the more you know your client or customer, the more likely you are to understand their needs and "win" a sale. A sales person must also know everything about his or her own company and product. Without that preparation, a client will not be impressed and will feel no need whatsoever to purchase the product or service on offer. A sales person must think of all the various angles, and have a sales strategy to maximize a successful outcome.
The master of the art of strategy in warfare also states: "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win" again underlining the proven philosophy that observation, careful analysis of situations, and preparation win battles. Specific planning, or strategizing to win, can and will boost sales.
A strategy for a business can be imagined as a map, with milestones for goals. A business may have one or two strategies, but one focused strategy is best. An example of a strategy to increase sales may be to sell one product to a very large company as a way to get a foot in the door, and then introduce other products to said company. Another strategy may be to sell one product to several smaller companies, and hope that good word-of-mouth advertising may attract more small businesses to buy the product. Having no strategy is a disaster; salesmen will have no direction and will not know where to focus their sales skills, achieving a very mediocre sales level at best.
As Sun Tzu explained, preparation and having a strategy is the key to winning wars. You will win the sales battle when you know yourself, know the client and the client's needs, while strategizing ways to provide for those needs. When both sides win; the provider makes a sale, and the client gets what he or she wants. A victorious salesman must plan to win first, whereas a successful business will strategize to win clients and sell to them.
Planning a winning focused strategy is everything in sales. For a business it's the roadmap to success, and requires visualization, and the establishment of measurable milestones and goals. Welcome to visit our website and Facebook Fanpage: http://www.tastetomorrowtoday.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/TasteTomorrowToday

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