The sales strategy is an important part of any company. It can help you determine how much time and money you should spend on different products or services, which people are worth marketing to, and the most effective offers in your industry. Although, creating a sales strategy isn’t easy!
In this guide, we’ll walk through the steps involved in creating an OKR-based sales strategy for your business.
What is a sales strategy?
A sales strategy is a plan for how you will sell your product or service. It’s an important part of your company’s overall strategy, which helps you to decide how you will sell and to whom. A good sales strategy will help guide decisions about what kind of market research is needed, who should be targeted in an initial campaign (and by when), as well as what additional resources and support may be needed throughout the process.
If we look at it from another angle, this type of thinking goes beyond just deciding on some specific tactics – it also provides direction for any additional steps or activities related specifically towards achieving those goals!
How to create a successful sales strategy with OKRs
Understand your objectives
Before creating a sales strategy, it’s important to understand your company’s objectives. What do you want to achieve? Are there any specific targets or benchmarks you and your team need to meet to consider it a success?
To better understand these questions, try asking yourself what it means for your business when someone says they “succeed.” What does that mean? For example, what happens next if a customer is happy with their purchase? How will this impact their decision to return (or not to) for another purchase (from you or any other retailer) in the future?
Understand your market
- Understand your market.
- Understand your clients.
- Understand your competitors.
- Understand the trends in your industry
Set metrics to measure progress
Metrics are the key to success. They’re the only way to measure progress, and they should be measurable and achievable for you to know whether or not your company is making headway toward its goals.
It’s important that metrics are reviewed regularly—at least once per quarter or so. Regular reviews ensure metrics are still relevant and provide an opportunity for reflection on how well you’re doing compared with other companies in your industry.
Establish key results
As the name suggests, key results are the most important things you need to achieve to achieve your overall goal. They’re also known as “KPIs” (key performance indicators) or “KPIs.”
These must be measurable and actionable because they can help guide your team as they work towards achieving their goals. You should establish these with three main steps:
- Write down what you want to measure and how you’ll decide it has been accomplished. For example, if one of your OKRs is “increase sales by 5% over the last quarter,” then write down what that looks like at different stages of growth so that everyone understands how much progress they have made towards this goal;Â
- Collect data points related specifically to each KPI;
- Analyze these data points using graphs or other tools
Evaluate the gap between where you are and where you want to be
The next step is to evaluate the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
To do this, create an OKR that measures a subset of your KPIs and then evaluate your progress toward each target. If there’s too much of a gap, focus on improving only one or two at a time until they reach their targets (you can use this process for all KPIs).
Once everyone has agreed on their OKRs, measure progress against them over time using the same metrics as traditional goals: number of days completed per quarter, percentage completed by month, etc. Gradually increase complexity by adding more criteria such as “percentage complete vs deadline date” or “number of days completed vs budgeted amount.”
Create an action plan to close the gap
Once you’ve defined the gap, it’s time to create an action plan. Action gaps help you close that gap as quickly as possible and also how to measure progress.
- Define your goal: What is it that we’re trying to achieve?
- Identify how much money or resources are required: How much money or resources do we need to succeed?
- List the steps needed to reach our goal: What specific activities do we need to do before achieving our goal (e.g., identifying opportunities and customers)?
Importance of sales strategy
There are many reasons why a sales strategy is so important. First, it’s the first thing that your company will see when they look at your organization and its goals. If you don’t have one, they won’t know what to expect from you.
Second, it shows other departments how they can help with their initiatives by working together on the same goals and meeting those individual needs within the department or team (e.g., finance).
Examples of sales strategies with the help of OKRs
OKRs are a great way to measure results and hold yourself accountable. They can help you get more done in less time, focus on the right things, communicate with your team, and stay focused on the important stuff.
For example, you aim to make $100k in sales by January 1st, 2023—but what if that means only taking on a few extra clients? Instead of trying to get everything done all at once (which would be overwhelming), set up an OKR that focuses on a few clients at a time: “By January 2023, I will have sold 100% of my current pipeline clients.”
Conclusion
Take a look at your sales strategy and see what needs improvement. Then, make the necessary changes to ensure that you are making progress toward your goal. The best way to do this is by utilizing OKRs — they’re a simple yet powerful way of tracking company performance and creating accountability within an organization. Using them, you can create a culture that celebrates success, analyzes failures, and helps everyone understand where they stand relative to other team members.
