I’ve got a sales strategy…so I don’t need a corporate plan? (part 2)

In part 1 we looked at how simple a strategy is to construct, and we used competitive skiing as a way to demonstrate this. We will stay on the slopes in part 2 of this article which asks ‘Is a sales strategy enough to really grow my company the way I want to?’ to which the answer is ‘Not quite!’. Let’s explain.

You must identify your over-riding goal(s)

Bjørn Dæhlie - Sportsman to businessman

Is skiing what you want to do all of your life? Maybe you really enjoy it, but ultimately you want to go into sports management. You know how difficult it is to make a living from skiing alone, plus any competitive career is likely to be brief.

From a company perspective, what do you want to achieve? Grow it and become a major player like Amazon? Or grow it until someone makes you an offer, hopefully good enough that you can then go and do something else? I’m sure you can see how crucial this decision, the choice of goal, is to how you grow your company.

As a skier, it may influence your choice of specialty. Which would give you a better opportunity to enter sports management - downhill or biathlon? If its biathlon you may decide to specialize in cross-country, and biathlon to give yourself more opportunities. As a company if your long-term goal is to be acquired, which domains will help you best get there? Should you be a niche specialist that complements potential buyer’s offerings, or become a serious competitive threat?

You will not become a champion if someone out there is better and faster than you, so you will always have competitors just as in business. Racing against the clock is a clear metric, reflecting your success, just as win-rate is in sales for business. However, you are always racing against someone else, so whilst the clock is good, the ranking is really what counts. We use market share to measure our company’s success.

Your strategy may be to select a race to avoid a very strong competitor so as that you don’t go head-to-head before you are ready. In business, you may select a market to develop where a very strong competitor is absent for the same reasons.

Finally, you need to think about “Corporate Enablers”. In part 1 we stated that a strategy is simply “using the resources available to you to achieve the goals you set yourself”. What can you do as a business that will help you grow in the direction that you want to go in? As a skier you may look for sponsorship, whilst in business we look for investors. As a skier your sponsorship deal may prevent your long-term transition into sports management if you accept the wrong sponsor. In business your choice of investor or contractual agreements may make you less attractive to certain acquirers.

Identifying your corporate goal(s) is a critical step on the path to success, and goes hand in hand with an aligned sales strategy.