6 Steps to Creating a Coherent a Sales Strategy

Are you currently being asked to look at your customer or Channel strategy for the next 1, 3 or 5 years?

In my more senior Sales roles, I was asked to create strategies for my customer or Channel and project what growth could look like for the next 5 years.  It felt like an annual tick-box exercise that I would complete once a year and then never think about for another 365 days.

However, the ability to create and implement a coherent strategy is an essential skill to becoming a senior leader in any business.

What is a strategy?

The best book that I’ve read on strategy is “Playing To Win” by AG Lafley and Roger Martin and I will be heavily referencing their work in this article.  They define a strategy as follows:

“…an integrated set of choices that uniquely positions its firm in its industry, so as to create sustainable advantage and superior value relative to the competition.”

This is very different to what many FMCG Account Managers and Sales Leaders think strategy is.  A set of objectives with a catchy name like “The Five To Drive” is NOT a strategy.  That is simply a list of goals to pursue for the month, quarter or year, which is derived from the actual strategy.

As defined by Lafley and Martin, strategy is very much long rather than short-term, and a good strategy should aim to drive sustainable market and share growth as opposed to focus on quick wins.

Some people are naturally better at “big-picture thinking” than others.

Some of you may point to the fact that you hold a middle-management position which prevents you from creating a true long-term strategy.  Your bonus is dependent exclusively on achieving in-year targets.   

However, this shouldn’t limit you from trying to develop your own strategic thinking.  There are salespeople and leaders who seek to achieve their objectives (and by extension bonus) at all costs.  They make irresistible offers to their customers to stockpile product at the end of the year to hit their targets, only to compromise the fast start for the following year.

On the other hand there are salespeople or leaders who choose to see the bigger picture and prioritize the long-term health of the business and their account. 

Whilst this is a quite basic example, in my experience there are those who are more naturally more strategic than others.  I’ve worked with colleagues, who even at the National Account Executive level, I could already predict would go on to assume senior leadership or even C-suite roles.  I identified this from the way they operated and the types of questions they asked.  They seemed to possess the ability to look ahead to the future and see the bigger picture.  I fully admit that this was a skill that I naturally lacked, as I was always more detail-oriented. 

However, if like me, you are not naturally this way inclined, this does not mean that you cannot learn how to be more strategic.  I have read several books on this subject and as already mentioned, “Playing To Win” has in my opinion been the best.  Lafley and Martin outline a 5-step process to build a coherent strategy, which I will share in this article.

What is your vision or “winning aspiration?”

The overarching vision or “winning aspiration” needs to be captivating.  It needs to go beyond wanting to drive x% growth or be number 1 in the category.  Your organisation should have already created and cascaded this vision, although if you can’t instantly bring it to mind, then it is probably unmemorable and not at the heart of everything the company does.

There are some excellent examples of company vision statements but if you work for a business which doesn’t inspire you through its vision, then you can create your own mini vision for your team.  

Your own team vision could be focused on wanting drive long-term growth predominantly by breaking new ground in different categories, or perhaps seeking to provide the best Online shopper experience.  This type of vision is more strategic, since success is unlikely to be achieved in the short to medium term. 

For example, the investment of time and resource to create the best Online experience will have a wider impact in the longer term.  Not only will this improve conversion on the customer’s website, but shoppers could also use the website to research products and buy them in other physical stores.    

Where will you play?

Once you have a created an exciting vision, you then need to understand where you want to play. 

If you manage multiple customers, this could involve investing more time and resource in certain customers which have bigger growth potential than others.

As previously mentioned, it could involve identifying new categories (or sub-categories) in which to play.  For example, many companies in the last decade have tried to find ways to compete in the value or Discounter space.  Conversely, other businesses have sought to grow by enrolling wealthier shoppers. There are many ways to define your battleground.

How will you win?

When the customer, category or sub-category where you will play has been defined, the next step is to establish how you will win in that space.

If we use one of the previous examples of entering a more premium sub-category, this could involve creating a new product range to attract those wealthier shoppers.

As an Account Manager I’m sure there are those of you reading this rolling your eyes.  How could you possibly influence the creation of a whole new range? This type of project needs sign-off by the Executive.

However, just flagging the concept can put you on the radar internally with senior stakeholders and start the ball rolling for a project which could bear fruit a few years down the line. 

Another great option could be to look at your company’s range in other markets.  You might find existing SKUs for other European, North American, or Asian markets which could be sold successfully in the UK market.

There might be other simple options.  For instance, a business trying to play in the Discounter space could simply use a third-party co-packer to create multipacks which offer better value.  There are endless possibilities.

It is important to note, however, that the winning methods you devise must give your business competitive advantage.   There will be unique aspects of every brand which gives it an advantage over its competitors.  You need to stay true to this, since merely copying a competitor’s product or promo strategy will offer zero differentiation and create a race to the bottom on price, which will in turn suck value out of the entire category and damage the long-term health of the brand.

What capabilities will you need to implement the strategy?

Implementing your ways to win will require investment and resource.  Hopefully you will already have some existing capabilities in your organisation to help you win.  However, if you are looking to create a new range then this will probably require CapEx to upgrade existing technology and production plants.

Entering new categories could also necessitate investment to purchase new data.  Regardless of the existing or new capabilities required, you will need to build a business case to present to senior stakeholders, which should hopefully in turn lead to them signing-off the vital resources.

What systems or processes are needed to cascade the strategy to the rest of the business?

How you will cascade your strategy to the rest of the business should not be overlooked.  It is all well and good crafting a compelling strategy on paper.   However, if you cannot inspire other critical stakeholders to help you bring the strategy to life, it will remain on the cutting room floor. 

You need to find ways to simplify the strategy into specific steps for different cross-functions and teams across the business.  This is probably what you are used to seeing with regards to the aforementioned quarterly or annual key objectives. 

Let’s say that one of your ways to win within your strategy is to better connect the Online and In-Store shopper journey.  With the help of your Shopper Marketing colleagues, you might create unique point-of-sale with QR codes linking to the website, from which point you could set a target for the Field Sales team to place as much of that POS on shelf as possible.  It is a simple action but 100% necessary for a successful execution of that strategic pillar.

What are the risks and what are your contingencies?

I wanted to add another step, which is not included in Lafley and Martin’s process and that is to a) anticipate risks to the plan and b) have back-up solutions.

Identifying risks and contingency-planning is so often disregarded – Lord knows I did it myself on many occasions throughout my career.  It is arguably the least glamorous part of building a strategy but if it is neglected the whole plan will fall apart at the first hurdle. 

Nothing in life or business follows a perfectly linear path.  It is inevitable that there will be bumps in the road to contend with en route to achieving strategic goals. 

Maybe the new range you launched has poor rate-of-sale and the customers are threatening delists? Perhaps the solution to this could be to invest more in above-the-line advertising or deeper promotions.

Or maybe you can’t gain access to the high-quality assets you need to create best-in-class product display pages on your customer’s website? A potential solution here could be to work with a third-party agency to create those desired images and assets.

The key here is that these risks and contingencies need to be identified early in the strategic planning process so that you can act with pace when the inevitable challenges arise.  If you leave it until after the initial rate-of-sale data comes out to decide to create a new TV advert, then it will be far too late.  Your customer will have delisted the product long before that advert sees the light of day.

How building Mental Fitness can help you create engaging and coherent strategies.

Building your Mental Fitness is essential to being able to create engaging and coherent strategies.  Overcoming negative, self-limiting beliefs and having the tools to access creativity, curiosity and intuition will put you in the best position for this type of big-picture task.

As is true of any lasting habit change, this takes at least 6-weeks of intense work.  If you are interested in this game-changing program then take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and then book a free 30-minute coaching call with me at https://calendly.com/chris-exp to find out more!