Business
Effective selling is not a fixed set of techniques. It depends on the specific sales tasks a company's strategy requires. A selling approach that works well under one strategy can fail under another, so copying a generic best practice is a mistake.
For most firms, the hardest and most expensive part of putting a strategy into practice is getting field behavior and go-to-market systems to match the stated goals. It is hard because it mixes market analysis, incentives, people management and culture, all while markets keep changing. Firms typically deliver only about 50 to 60 percent of the financial results their strategies promise.
Value is created or destroyed in front of customers, not in planning meetings. Much of strategy is just talk until a price is actually won or lost with a customer. That makes pricing the moment of truth.
A market has never bought anything. Only individual accounts and customers buy. So a firm needs explicit rules for choosing which customers to pursue, yet most firms have none.
Many companies think they have a strategy when what they have is a vision, a set of values or a statement of purpose. These are important but different things. A strategy states concrete choices that people in the field can turn into specific behaviors.
Pay, incentives, control systems and performance reviews should form one chain that runs from strategy to metrics to reviews and development. Its purpose is to keep selling behavior in line with market realities. Of these tools, performance reviews are probably the most powerful and the least used.
Linking strategy and sales is not a problem the sales team or the strategy team can solve alone. It requires the leadership team to agree and to keep talking as markets change. Blaming the industry is often an excuse for not making improvements that are within reach.
The closer employees work to customers, the fewer of them say they understand the firm's strategy. Sales and service staff decide how value is actually delivered, yet they are the people least likely to know what the strategy is. This gap between big-picture goals and daily field work is where most of the promised growth disappears.
When strategy and sales are out of step, leaders cannot tell which one is failing. They demand better execution when the strategy itself is wrong, or they make a costly change of direction when the real need is basic sales discipline. Aligning the two is what allows an accurate diagnosis.
Most firms set prices from their own costs. They should price from what the product is worth to the customers they are targeting. Pricing from cost leaves money on the table and ignores the value the strategy is meant to capture.