How to Create a Go To Market Sales Strategy and Territory Growth Plan

Hi, I'm Kevin McCann with Revenue Growth Mastery. And in this video we're going to show you how to create a go to market sales strategy and territory growth plan that's customized to fit your company's particular needs. This is meant for any small to medium sized business and even companies with only one employee. Now this can actually be used by a sales executive that's preparing for their QBR or their quarterly business review. Or it could be used as a sales territory growth plan for a sales rep or business owner. And it can even be used as a go to market sales strategy plan by a business owner looking to break into a new market or expand existing markets or even to launch a brand new service or product. So as an overview, in beginning the process, you want to plan your work and work your plan. And when you do that, great things happen. This will outline the crucial elements of your territory plan and what you ultimately put into it. It's up to you. We're helping you lay out the core criteria for a go to market strategy that you can then use and leverage as a template to build your own roadma. So this is actually intended to act as a roadmap for your sales territory over the next several weeks, months and years to come. And I'll be presenting this using the first person wherever possible, as if you are the one reading it. So you'll see a lot of I's and me's and mys in here because it's intended to provide you with thinking points that you can use to help grow your own business. So the first section of your go to market strategy will be called the executive summary. Now the interesting thing here is that this is actually the first part of the plan. But my recommendation is that you write it last once the rest of your plan has been completed. Because what it'll do is give you the clarity around what's inside the plan. And this will help you summarize it and get your head clear on everything you just organized and included in this plan. So you'll want to focus on this. Which immediate opportunities will you be in a position to go after first so so that your business can capture some new customers, generate revenue, maintain profitability, and position itself to stay in business for the long run. Now, the second part of the executive summary is the mission. So what's your mission? And again, this should be pretty concise. It shouldn't be any longer than a paragraph and should succinctly state your primary focus. An example would be to add 25 new clients or achieve quota If I'm a sales execration or to be a significant contributor to the company. But I'd recommend being as specific as possible inside the mission. So for instance, what would being a significant contributor actually mean? Would it mean going on ride alongs with other sales reps? Would it mean taking a leadership position of my peers? So try to be as specific as possible in this particular area. And then after the mission comes objectives. So what you want to look at is what are my primary objectives? And in this section you want to list out three to seven items that you might must accomplish to realize the mission that you just put down. An example here would be to overachieve quota each month, or sign five new accounts by June, or develop a vertical market strategy by July 1st. So whatever your goals or objectives are, you want to make them smart. And smart is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bounded. The next section of your go to market strategy and territory development plan is including the keys to success. So you want to identify key items that over the course of the next month, quarter or year that will enable the attainment of those objectives to occur most easily. So we're actually starting at like 30,000ft here with the executive summary and the mission. And then every step of the way we're starting to get right down to the ground level. So each section is a little bit more granular than the section before. An example here would be to identify our key value proposition. Articulate that through email, through phone and in person. And how are we going to do that? So those are maybe some examples of what we need to figure out to execute or to deliver on the objectives that we had in the previous slide. Another one could be solid utilization of company resources, including upper management and the technical teams. So for instance, how are we going to make sure that we never lose a deal alone? As a sales rep, that was one thing that my management always taught me is that if you've got a talented team, make sure you leverage every possible resource on that team to win the game or to win the deal. Next is your sales territory summary. So you want to provide an overview of the territory that you're targeting. And when you do that overview, you want to look at what are my existing partnerships within that territory or that patch that I'm looking to penetrate. Where can I leverage their relationships and their resources to help penetrate the market? When you're looking at growing business, there's really only three ways to do it. You can cold call, you can network, or you can market which is actually a pretty big bucket. Or you can do all three at the same time. This happens to fall into the arena of networking. How can I leverage my network and my partnerships to maximize my engagement with net new prospects and existing customers in the territory? And if you've been in business for a while, you want to look at current customers and reference accounts that we can also leverage to support our growth of net new business. Next, you want to look at the geographical description of the territory. Where are the accounts clustered? Ask yourself, what vertical markets do we have and are we strong in? Are we heavier in health care than we are in financial services? Or is higher ed our strong suit? And technology is our emerging market. So be very descriptive of what niches you have dominance in and what niches you want to go after and break into as net new opportunities. Then you also want to look at what is the current competitive landscape. So as you're mapping out your territory, you really want to be clear on this. Because a lot of salespeople and frankly business leaders tend to overlook their competition or don't give them enough credence or really don't even know how their competition is presenting themselves in the market. You have to know what the competitive threat is in order to be able to deal with it. Otherwise you're just shooting from the hip. So there's the sales territory summary. Next, we want to get into the sales strategy. So you want to define customer buying criteria by product, by service, or by solution. You want to understand what their criteria needs to be in order to buy your product or your service or your solution. Now, depending on what you're selling, it could be technology, it could be a service. If it's consulting, I want to know what the pain points are that my prospects have that would make them a likely candidate for the service or the product that I can bring to the table. So you have to be very clear on what that is in your business. Next, you want to define your company solutions by the products and services you provide. So if we understand their buying criteria, then we want to naturally be able to map our value to each of those areas, product, service and solution, directly to their care abouts. So you'll define your solutions after you define their needs. Otherwise you're just creating a product and hoping someone will buy it. We want to understand their pain points first and then be able to explain and articulate how our products and services help address those pain points. The third area here is you want to define your account list by geography, vertical, market and solution categories. So we Talked a little bit about that on the previous slide when you're defining your territory. But just make sure that once you boil it down to what the account list is, let's segregate them by vertical markets and industries so that we can start to get momentum and be able to have a well launched campaign. So instead of going and talking to a technology company and then the next hour we talk to a healthcare company and then the next hour we talk to a manufacturing company, let's group them together so that we can start to get some momentum and understand the language in those vertical accounts and then start to penetrate groups of accounts. So that's something that happens in the sales strategy section. Next is define which solutions you want to target to which group of prospects and accounts. So for instance, maybe one of the solutions that you have is a perfect fit for healthcare, but has no place being sold to a higher ed customer. So you want to be specific around what products or solutions are going to be an ideal target for, for the verticals. And the reason this is important is that not all products or services have the same profitability. So if your goal is to increase gross margin or profitability for the year, you want to make sure you're selling your most profitable solutions. Well, if your most profitable solutions can't be sold to a particular vertical, then that's going to be noted in the sales strategy. And it's critically important. So it sounds fundamental, but a lot of people miss out on this until it's too late. So having the strategy in place before you go and execute, absolutely critical. Next we look at what's the sales approach. So we want to script out how are you going to approach each prospect by solution. Then you're going to script out how are you going to approach them on the phone. And then you're going to script out how you're going to approach them by email. And then you're also going to script out questions for the first meeting that have to be asked in order to determine if this prospect or customer is a good fit for me. So this may seem very fundamental, but this is so critical because what we find with sales organizations is that they kind of get hung up on this. It's like, okay, I've got my great product, I know my territory, now go sell. Well then on the fly they're trying to figure out what am I going to say or how do I handle sales objections or what am I going to do to overcome those sales objections or what if they don't take my calls, how do I Communicate in writing. You have to figure out all these things up front if you expect to be able to launch and go to market quickly. This is absolutely critical. So next, you want to structure how do I spend my day or my week or my month? And you want to take into consideration your own peak moments. And I say this because we typically have our highest level of energy first thing in the morning. But the thing is, is that we tend to do email or, you know, get caught up from the day before in the morning, which is actually backwards. You want to use that morning time, the time that you've got the most energy to go and swallow the biggest frog right away, right? You want to do the thing that you like least, like cold calling or marketing or going after net new customers first thing in the morning, which by the way, is also the time that you're most likely to catch people, your prospects, your customers at their desk anyhow. So maximize the value of your time by using your peak moments in the appropriate ways. Next, you want to create your definitive action plan. So we've got the mission in place at 30,000ft. Then 20,000ft, we've got objectives. Then 10,000ft, we've got the keys to success. Now we're hovering around 5,000ft with the territory summary and the sales strategy. And this brings you right down to the street level with a definitive action plan. So what am I going to get done? When is the goal for it to be completed and has it been completed? If so, when? So each one of these you want to build out, and your spreadsheet will probably be much bigger than the one on the slide here. But you want to put each one of those next actionable items with the targeted time and date and a complete stamp on it so that you can see how you're rolling through your action plan. So in summary, now we have a plan, which is great, right? But the last thing you want to remember is that you've got to work the plan. Planning is great, but execution is much better. And planning without execution is basically useless. It's wasted thought, it's time wasted, and it serves no point. So I guess I could say that if you have no plan or no plans to execute all this stuff that we just laid out here and then don't even bother setting up your plan. You have to work it. You have to execute it to reap the benefits. So follow up, change things that don't work. Add new ideas to the plan each month, each quarter. The key here is know who you want to work with, what you're doing, what you're selling, what you're going after, when you want to have it completed, how you want to go about it and where you want it to occur, and then why it even matters. So you've got to answer those five questions. The who, the what, the where, the when and the why in your go to market strategy. If you get that done and you have next actionable items to execute on it, you will be successful. Now to help give you a jump start here you can actually download and use our template if you go to our website at bit ly rgm gotomarketplan and I think here the caps actually matter. So it's Capital R Capital G Capital M dash Capital G O Capital T O Capital M ark it A R K E T Capital P L A N for plan and if you have any questions feel free to reach out to us at our website revenuegrowthmastery.com or you can email us at helpevenuegrowthmastery.com thanks so much for watching this video. We hope it helps you grow your business. I'm Kevin McCann and make it a great day.