Sales strategy and process go hand-in-hand much like sales and marketing.  They are similar, work together, dependant on each other yet not the same.

Sales strategy is like a broad stroke on a canvas.  Process is like the more detailed, refining strokes that finish a work of art.

Putting together a sales strategy for your small business is much like the outlines we prepared in English class to write a paper.

It’s as easy as deciding where you want to go, how you want to get there, and goal-setting with deadlines and deliverables.

In defining my sales strategy for the upcoming year, the first thing I had to do was take a look back at the current year.  

Here are some of the things I asked myself:

• How has my business grown during the year?
• What were my successes?
• What were my failures?
• Did things turn out how I planned?
• Where had I grown during the year and why?
• Do I like what I’m doing?
• What do my clients need?
• Do I want to change my offerings?
• Do I want to expand in any way?
• Who are my clients?
• Where are they coming from?
• How did I acquire them?
• Where can I improve and how?

You get the idea.

After the brain dump, I asked myself, “How do I want or how does my business need to grow in 2015?  

1. Do I want to throw in the towel?  Heck no!
2. Do I want to scrap it all and do a 180?  Nope.
3. Or do I want to refine offerings, expand on them, and tweak a few processes?

Yes, “C”!  Because I truly LOVE my clients and the work I do for them.  And I LOVE the freedom and lifestyle my small business offers.

Now I know my sales destination for 2015.

The next step was to develop some goals on how to get there.  I listed my top five (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) sales goals in my little notebook that is my constant companion.

Once I had my goals in place, the floodgates opened up and everything else was gravy.

The details, the how-to’s, the processes began to surface.  It was a matter of answering how I was going to achieve my goals – a, b, c, through z if that what it takes.

If you’re a trees-instead-of-the-forest kind of person, you will want to record the processes to the most minute detail.  Or if you’re anal retentive.  Depends on who you ask.

This is a super-smart thing to do.  

Why?  Because as an entrepreneur, you need to have a company manual in place; a set of standard operating procedures for everything you do.

When building your team or expanding, it means the difference between having to train someone from memory as opposed to having a step-in-ready organization with processes in place for everything.

When you sales strategy and processes come together, be sure to take the final step of putting it in a spreadsheet, broken down by year, quarter, and month.  There’s nothing like a visual to stay focused and motivated.

The hardest thing about developing a sales strategy and processes is taking the time to do it.

Seriously.

I did mine on a plane on the way to Ft. Lauderdale.

Once you get started, it’s fun and it doesn’t take a lot of time.

And it becomes easier after you have the first one.

As Sir Richard Branson said in recent interview on entrepreneurship,

In the end you have to say, Screw it. Just do it.