No sales strategy can succeed if the strategy is not clearly communicated and cascaded from the top of the organization down through management and to individual sales people. In this blog series, we covered key insights for getting off to a quick start in the new year and creating focus on the sales strategy.  You might remember from both of those posts that communication of the strategy played a big role in both getting off to a quick start and creating focus on the sales strategy.

The #1 key to communicating and cascading a new sales strategy is being transparent with your people and clearly stating to everyone in the sales organization what the strategy means to them in their role.  At a high level, a good strategy should be simple and clear enough that everyone in the sales organization can state its purpose in 1 or 2 sentences.  However, even if you have a clear strategy by this definition, when you get down to individual roles within the sales organization, it can still be very unclear what each person should be doing differently to support successful execution of the new strategy.

So as a sales leader what areas should you focus on when communicating the effects of the new sales strategy on the role of your sales management team and the front line sales representatives?  Through SOAR’s partnership with the Atlanta Chapter of the Sales Management Association we have identified three key areas to focus on when communicating and cascading the sales strategy throughout the sales organization.

The three key areas are:

  • How each role will impact the sales strategy
  • How each role will support the sales strategy
  • How each role will be compensated with the new sales strategy

At this point, I would like to discuss the importance of the difference between area 1 and area 2.  When you explain to someone in a given sales role how they will impact the sales strategy you should be showing them where in the sales process or sales cycle that their interaction with the customer or management of sales resources is important for the new strategy.  When you explain to someone how they will support the sales strategy, you are identifying the specific actions or activities at each impact point you want them to be doing to support the execution of the strategy.  It is important to cover both as the actions or activities will be different depending on the point of impact in the sales cycle relative to the new strategy.

As the year moves into February and you embark on month two of executing your new sales strategy, reflect for a moment on your initial strategy communication.  It is not too late to go back and discuss these three areas with certain people on your team you feel may not yet be grasping how their role fits into the new strategy.  Remember to be transparent, lead with the areas of impact, then the actions or activities, and finally relate it to their compensation.

This post is Part 3 of a 6 Part Series on “New Year, New Sales Strategy: How can sales leaders drive successful execution of new sales strategies in the New Year?”  The content of this article has been developed by SOAR Performance Group through work with the Atlanta Chapter of the Sales Management Association.  Thought input for the article was derived from a recent Atlanta Chapter meeting and can be attributed in part to Atlanta Chapter members and discussion leaders from Ricoh, UPS, Equifax, PWC, Aon Hewitt, Google, Vantedge Group, and Georgia State University.

See more in the series on new sales strategy:

 

How to Communicate and Cascade the New Sales Strategy