Account Segmentation’s 2 Outputs that Start Your Sales Strategy
Crafting a Sales Strategy is Mission Critical to a Sales Leader's longevity in any given position. Research from the newly released e-book "Promoted to VP of Sales: The Year One Toolkit" clearly articulates the options a sales leader has when it comes to developing a Sales Strategy. These options are:
- Skip it – it's a time consuming process and results are needed now.
- Throw a strategy together quickly in hopes that it will land and bring you success.
- Take the time to develop a sales strategy correctly, understanding that all else flows from there.
Sales Leaders, if you’re living day to day, thrashing around, focusing on the “flavor of the day” and wondering if you’ll become the next 19-month interim Sales Leader… STOP! You are in control of the final numbers and the ultimate outcome of the sales team. But it has to start with a clearly defined Sales Strategy. A Sales Strategy has three components:
- Account Segmentation
- Lead Management (Demand Generation & Lead Generation)
- Sales Process
Each of these Sales Strategy components builds upon the one before it, and naturally flows downward through the Salesforce Assessment Framework. Start in the wrong place, or focus on the wrong component at the wrong time, and you’ll be "thrashing" around, wasting time, money, resources and ultimately falling short of your desired goals.
Sales Strategy Development must start with Account Segmentation
Account Segmentation will provide you with 2 outputs:
- Total Available Market (TAM) that exists for your product/services. These analyses provide the high level understanding of the size of the potential market, which can be broken down by vertical markets. The Ideal Customer Profile (see below) along with company specific firmographic data (also see below) are used to build the TAM. (examples: revenue size, number of employees) The TAM delivery’s the output upon which you can now build your territory design framework.
Total Available Market (TAM) Report
- Market Prioritization is an output/report that allows you to prioritize (based on firmographic criteria) the targets that match your Ideal Customer Profile within each region, market, and area. This section tells you who is the best fit to become your customer, with granularity down to the specific target name and geographic location. The Account Segmentation output is a list of potential accounts built off of the TAM that provides your Account Executives a way to prioritize on whom they should focus their most concerted efforts.
The collective output of information from Account Segmentation allows you to move to step #2 of the Sales Force Assessment framework – Lead Management. Lead Management will then be built off of the Ideal Customer Profile, wherein you can target potential clients with a variety of campaigns, depending on which best fits their profile. And you continue to move forward with the Salesforce Assessment Framework...
Build Your Sales Strategy the Right Way
Building a Sales Strategy is like building a house. You must start in the right place and lay the proper groundwork. Think about if you were to build a house without initially pouring the foundation. It might look great on move-in day, and you may live comfortably for a while, but after too long the floor starts to crumble beneath you. What happens then? You have to move out. Additional time and money are wasted because you didn’t build from the foundation – you got ahead of yourself because all you wanted to do was in move in to your new house. Do yourself a favor and don’t move in too soon. Build a foundation (Account Segmentation) and then move into a house that will stand for a long time.
Need more information or would like to discuss in greater detail - Click on the link below and find out how world-class sales organizations build Account Segmentation.
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