Client Onboarding Checklist: Steps, Templates & Best Practices
A strong sales strategy can help your business win sales, achieve desired goals and generate more revenue.
While a marketing strategy can attract the right leads, you need a strategic sales process to nurture those leads through the funnel and close them successfully.
In this article, you’ll learn what a sales strategy is and how to create one. We’ve also included top sales strategy examples from real-life brands to inspire your own.
A sales strategy is a cohesive plan that outlines your sales goals and the actions you’ll take to achieve those targets.
It serves as a complete guide for your sales team and provides key information like selling methodologies, sales targets, growth benchmarks, sales processes, product positioning, KPIs, competitive analysis and more.
The purpose of a sales strategy is to align your sales team and assign actionable tasks to each salesperson. Sales strategies also help you track progress against set goals and make reporting easier and more accurate.
There are two sales methodologies in almost every industry and organization; inbound and outbound. You can use one of the two or both of them at the same time.
Let’s take a look at these two sales strategies and how they work:
An inbound sales strategy is when the buyer initiates contact with your sales team.
Companies taking an inbound approach typically create content that educates customers and solves specific problems. Then, they distribute that content where customers can organically find it and incorporate calls-to-action at various points to drive action from the target audience, i.e., getting in touch with sales.
The biggest benefit of using an inbound sales strategy is that you get more high-quality leads into your sales pipeline to begin with. That’s because people getting in touch with your business are those who were actively looking for your solution and your product or service caught their interest.
As a result, you have more chances of converting these high-quality leads into paying customers as they’re already prepped for the sale to some extent.
In contrast, outbound selling strategies involve salespeople initiating contact with potential customers. This includes cold calling, cold emailing and running ads.
The idea behind an outbound strategy is to reach as many people as possible, including those who may not be interested in your solution. The goal is to get your brand more exposure and persuade potential buyers to get in touch or buy your product or service.
The problem with outbound strategies is that they’re usually not as effective as inbound strategies. While you may get more leads into your sales pipeline initially, you may also experience more drop-offs at various points in your funnel.
That said, not all outbound sales strategies are bad. In fact, smart companies use a combination of both strategies to drive as many high-quality leads and sales as possible.
In this section, we’ll walk you through the steps of creating your own sales strategy. We’ve also included an editable sales strategy template for you to get started on the right foot.
A sales audit can help you identify gaps and opportunities in your current strategy. It’s a detailed analysis of the entire process and resources being used to make sales.
Find out if your sales reps are properly following the current sales process and how well it is aligned with the buyer journey. Additionally, identify the main strengths and weaknesses and think of ways to revamp your strategy.
Also, evaluate your key performance indicators.
Remember to analyze your lead generation process and the specific number of leads needed to generate the required sales.
Look for trends in closing deals and find out the number of stalled deals. Examine the pipeline for different sales reps and remove leads that are less likely to close deals.
Before you can build a powerful sales strategy, you need to know who you’re selling to. That’s why the first step is to identify your target customers and create personas for reference.
This is where an ideal customer profile (ICP) comes in. An ICP defines your most valuable customer and is usually presented as a visual document detailing their characteristics.
Your ideal customer profiles (ICPs) should be as clear and precise as possible. This will help you identify prospects quickly.
Try to answer the following questions when building your ICP:
Also, find out the psychographics, company size and buying process of your ideal customer. Use this information to focus your sales strategy on solving the customer’s pain points and highlighting relevant product features and benefits.
Conduct thorough market research to gather this information and collect insights using multiple methods, including interviews, surveys, polls and social listening.
Set realistic and quantifiable milestones for company goals, target revenue, and annual and monthly sales. Also, dig into factors like connection ratio, number of sales, length of sale cycle and closing ratio.
SMART sales goals and KPIs incorporate five important criteria for sales teams to focus on and achieve their goals. Here’s how you can employ them in your sales strategy:
A sales stack is a collection of tools and software that can improve the productivity and efficiency of your sales team by giving them access to key insights and data.
Below are some must-have tools for your sales stack:
Managers can also utilize sales tools to oversee operations and workflows and to keep track of leads. Sales reps can use it to manage their pipeline and set clear goals.
Pro Tip: Think about putting together a sales one-pager to go along with your pitch deck. It’s a great way to recap the important points and keep the conversation going after the meeting.A sales budget involves estimating your company’s total revenue within a given time period and then using that to set clear sales goals and allocate resources to various tasks.
Setting a sales budget helps your team stay focused and motivated, and it also allows your business to maximize profitability in the long run.
Create a comprehensive, step-by-step sales process to take potential consumers from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. This will help your sales team stay on track, make fewer mistakes and ensure more conversions at each step of the funnel.
Optimizing your sales process also helps you keep your customers satisfied and allows you to track valuable insights and collect data related to your buyers. Once you figure out a sales process that works for you, your salespeople can replicate the steps to improve performance and the overall health of your sales pipeline.
Use a tool that ensures your team is always on the same page. You can also use it to communicate in real-time, make calls, or share screens with each other.
A versatile tool will help your sales reps and team members stay organized and updated about new tasks and deadlines.
Whether you’re creating sales enablement content or sales collaterals, Visme's collaborative tool ensures your team members are in sync. You can invite team members to view, comment, or edit. Also, you can tag team members, leave comments (and assign tasks), resolve comments and more.
Think of your sales plan as a living document that should continuously grow to meet your business’s goals, changing customer demands and the ever-evolving competitive landscape.
Keep track of the latest developments in the sales industry, experiment with new and unique sales tactics and observe your competitors' activities. Then, revisit your sales strategy, and adjust and adapt as needed.
Level up your sales plan with the help of this template below. Or visit our comprehensive library to find sales plan templates that suit your needs.
If you’re looking to build a sales plan and present your strategy in front of the management or your sales team, we’ve got your back.
The sales strategy presentation below comes with 15 professionally designed slides to help you put together sales numbers and plans in a visually appealing way.
You can customize each and every aspect of this presentation in Visme’s editor. Use built-in graphics, fonts, animated icons, stock photos and videos, audio clips and more to personalize this sales strategy presentation.
Watch this tutorial to learn how to create an amazing presentation in Visme:
In this section, we’ll look at several inspiring sales strategy examples. You’ll be able to see how top brands are using popular sales techniques in real life.
Tapping into niche markets helps you address specific needs and attract quality customers. With less competition and lower costs of acquiring and keeping customers, your business is more likely to thrive.
Bamboo HR offers an excellent example of this sales strategy. The company focuses on creating engaging experiences at every step of the funnel for its target audience of small to medium-sized businesses.
For instance, they create targeted ads and sponsored content to address the specific needs of their ideal customers. This sales approach has helped the company increase its cost-per-lead efficiency by more than 40%.
At Visme, we understand who our most valuable customers are and what makes them tick. We collected that information using a combination of surveys, interviews and user data. Then, we utilized this valuable insight to go above and beyond in keeping them happy with our products and features.
For example, our templates can be sorted by industry and role to make it easier for our ICPs to find the exact template they need to achieve their goals. Visme’s blog also publishes helpful, insightful content that solves actual problems our ICPs face.
Sharing high-value content full of original research and quality ideas can help your brand become a thought leader in its niche.
This content, in turn, lets you tap into emerging customer pain points, helping them better understand their needs. As a result, they develop a preference for your brand — when it's time to look for a solution, they turn to you.
Slack, for example, regularly publishes helpful, insightful and authoritative content on remote work, asynchronous communication, collaboration and modern corporate culture. This has successfully positioned Slack as a thought leader and helped it win more business.
They also partner with known brands (e.g., IBM) for webinars and events on trending topics that interest their target audience. Take a look at the example above.
Social media is an exceptionally powerful tool for driving sales. Even Instagram evolved from a photo-sharing app to a complete selling platform within a few years.
Brands, especially in the eCommerce space, can benefit largely from social selling. That’s where most of your customers are spending their time, so it makes sense for you to reach them where they’re receptive and comfortable.
B2B and SaaS brands are also using social selling on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter to build relationships, share thought leadership content, reach out to potential leads, and bring in demos and inbounds.
Salesforce leverages social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to engage with customers and prospects through B2B-style social selling. Their proactive presence on each platform includes sharing content related to their brand and products, as well as updates about ongoing events and promotions at Salesforce.
One of the best ways to engage your audience and gain their trust is through storytelling. These stories inject personality into your brand and make you more relatable to prospective customers at every step of the sales cycle
Shopify regularly publishes interesting case studies and stories about their customers to boost interest and drive the audience to take action.
If you’re selling a SaaS product, offering a free trial can help convert more leads into customers as it minimizes the risk involved for them. If they like your product, chances are they’ll have no problem purchasing a subscription after the trial period is over.
QuickBooks, for example, offers a 30-day free trial that doesn’t require a credit card for all plans. This easy process makes it more likely for potential consumers to sign up and try the software before deciding to buy.
A limited-time offer can work extremely well in generating sales. This strategy entices the customer to act urgently so they don’t miss out on an exclusive or “limited-time” offer.
Secret Woods, a handcrafted rings store, uses the FOMO approach with its limited edition collection by writing, "Get a limited edition shell before it’s gone forever."
Another great strategy is affiliate marketing. Evernote does this by allowing you to earn a commission for every new user who signs up for a paid plan using your referral link.
Rewarding affiliate partners, especially in monetary terms, gives them the incentive to promote your product or services and boost your sales.
At Visme, our partner or affiliate program allows you to earn up to 25% in recurring commissions as long as the customer stays with us.
Discounts and deals are proven sales strategy examples that entice new customers and drive repeat purchases from existing customers. Essentially, customers get special offers and price reductions for certain products or services.
Witchery, a women’s fashion store, offers 10% off the first purchase for new subscribers and enjoys other member-only benefits.
Case studies show real-life proof that your product or service works. It highlights the success other clients have had with your product or service. When done right, case studies can help you build credibility and maximize sales conversions.
At Visme, we have an entire page dedicated to sharing how Visme has helped other brands achieve their goals.
Visme also has an extensive library of templates for creating one-page case studies or multi-page case studies. You can use them as marketing materials or sales enablement content to boost your sales strategy.
Utilize your case study as a lead magnet to attract or nurture leads. You can even pair your case studies with Visme Forms to boost conversions.
Retaining current customers is 5x cheaper than acquiring new ones. That’s why cross-selling and upselling are effective sales strategies that can help you boost profits.
Upselling is about convincing customers to purchase a more expensive item.
In this example, Readmag offers an upgrade that packs in a lot of value. Users get a free xyz domain when they upgrade to a paid plan.
Cross-selling is another effective strategy to boost your sales; it involves recommending complementary products to your buyers.
Here’s how Walmart uses cross-selling to drive more purchases. When a user selects a product from Walmart's online store, the platform suggests a list of related and complementary items that pair well with the original product.
Value-based selling (VBS) is a sales strategy that focuses on delivering value to the customer rather than simply promoting a product or service. It involves understanding the customer's needs, challenges, and goals and then presenting solutions that address those needs and provide tangible benefits. Ultimately, the customer’s purchase decisions hinge on how much value the product or service provides.
The power-based principle in sales is a strategy that acknowledges that power dynamics play a significant role in sales interactions. It recognizes that each party involved in a sale has varying levels of power and influence and that understanding and managing these power dynamics can lead to more successful outcomes.
In essence, the power-based principle suggests that salespeople should focus on maximizing their power and influence in the sales process while minimizing the power and influence of the customer. By understanding these principles, salespeople can
SPIN Selling is a consultative selling technique that focuses on understanding the customer's situation and needs and then tailoring the sales pitch accordingly.
The SPIN framework is broken down into four key elements or questions:
If you’re looking for sales strategy examples for small businesses, this is a great choice.
Solution selling approach focuses on identifying customers' needs and pain points and providing products and services that address those problems. With this selling strategy, the salesperson highlights the features and benefits of their product or service, demonstrating how it can solve the customer's issues.
This sales approach is based on the book The Challenger Sale by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon. Challenger selling is a sales strategy that emphasizes educating and customizing the sales process for each customer while also maintaining control over the experience.
The approach is based on the idea that customers don't always know what they need and that salespeople should be able to educate and guide them toward solutions that they may not have considered.
Ideally, a combination of sales strategies should work together to help you achieve business goals.
However, the most effective strategy is having a deep understanding of your target audience. Then, you must optimize every step of the sales funnel and buyer journey accordingly.
An engaging customer experience will result in higher retention and revenue and will help you make more sales in the long run.
Use different tools to interact with your customers and gain unique insights about them. Try to understand their pains, challenges, likes and dislikes. Then, react to these insights and create a sophisticated sales strategy and sales plan for your audience.
The five key sales strategy examples include
The “Four Ps” of marketing, also known as the marketing mix, are commonly used strategies for sales and marketing. While they are more closely associated with marketing, they can also be applied in the context of sales strategies.
These elements are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
Consultative Selling
Consultative selling is one of the best sales strategies. It is a customer-focused approach where the salesperson acts as a consultant, understanding the customer’s needs, challenges, and goals. Instead of simply pitching a product or service, the salesperson engages in meaningful conversations with the customer to identify their pain points
Value-based Selling
This is one of the most effective sales strategies. This sales approach focuses on providing value to the customer throughout the sales process. Sales representatives act as consultants, helping prospects make informed purchasing decisions by offering tailored solutions to their specific needs.
Relationship Selling
Relationship selling emphasizes building strong, long-term relationships with customers. Sales professionals employing this technique invest time and effort in understanding their clients on a personal level. They focus on communication, trust-building, and providing exceptional customer service.
Here are five steps to help you determine your target audience:
Visme can help you boost sales, build relationships and streamline the buyer journey with practical and visually appealing resources every step of the way.
Create documents, presentations, graphics and other print and digital media for sales enablement, marketing, HR and other purposes. Use features like collaboration, live sharing, presenting and more to bring your team together while creating amazing sales content.
Find out how Visme can help sales teams succeed. Or, look through these specific sales templates to find resources to help your team sell better.
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