8 Questions to Answer When Developing A Sales Strategy

By 2024, most professional services firms have embraced business development as a key business function and are realizing record hourly rates and a rebound in revenues after taking a hit in 2022. So, if your firm is yet to devise and implement a sales strategy, you are behind the curve. Developing a strategy requires aforethought. There are 8 questions you should ask and answer as part of this process.

What Is A Sales Strategy?

Before addressing the 8 questions, let’s first agree on a definition of sales strategy. Sales strategy is the manner in which a vendor goes to market. Sales strategy is governed by your client profile and how you wish to be perceived in the marketplace vis-à-vis your competition. Thus, market differentiation is part of a sales strategy.

Once you decide how you want to be perceived by your ideal client, you must deliver that message to that prospect where the prospect lives. Therefore, your message and where you plan to place it are part of sales strategy. The distribution channels / modes of delivery and the content delivered are called “lead generation tools.”

With that tiny bit of background, we can now turn our attention to the process of developing a business development strategy.

How to Develop a Sales Strategy

Developing a sales strategy involves a series of decision points all stemming from your vision for how you wish to be perceived by your ideal client. This vision should be determined in consultation with your sales lead or conveyed to interviewees toward the end of the evaluation process, and importantly, this vision should be in writing. Your strategy document should be short and actionable and should answer at least 8 questions:

1. Who is your ideal client?
2. What is your firm identity?
3. Which lead generation tools are both consistent with your brand identity and commonly used by your client profile?
4. How much funding is available for sales and marketing?
5. Who will carry out the various parts of your sales strategy?
6. What sales tools will be made available to them to do so?
7. What are your long and short-term strategic objectives?
8. How will success be measured?

If you answer these 8 questions, you’ll be well on your way to leading your revenue function with intentionality.