Entrepreneurs demanding sales growth is business as usual. Achieving that growth presents the challenge. While a specific marketing plan is a good strategic start, results depends on actually connecting with prospects and converting them to customers. Targeting customers who pay is a clever figure of speech and a lousy strategy. Launching sales initiatives broadly into the marketplace is slightly better. Identifying niches where the business has experienced success integrates concepts and tools that have a legitimate chance of delivering. Coordinating marketing and sales activities with consistent messaging, targeted criteria and measurable benchmarks pave the way to sustainable growth. But how?

Process
Preparing for success means planning with a clear path to executing the best available tactics. First, incorporate market research to understand who wants the product or service, and why. Be thorough and be quick in identifying opportunities. Fully expect the target to evolve. Prospects appear more clearly once the selling starts and new users come out of the target market’s crevices. Next, connect with known and desired prospects. Selling is a numbers game. Prospect with a quantity-driven mindset.

A broadly quoted sales truth states, “Nothing happens until someone sells something”. Consequently, prepare for success. Successful entrepreneurs anticipate their reality. In establishing growth processes, the ability to deliver the product or service must have integrity. Businesses do not want to outsell their capacity. That damages their brand. Consistent storytelling, coordinated collateral, operational capacity are essential to successful growth campaigns. Ultimately, the successful process nails marketing, prospecting, selling, fulfilling, and measuring.

Results
Measurement extends beyond sales planning and activities to include results. “What gets measured gets managed” is an old business cliché. Often clichés endure because they are true! Beyond measuring dollars spent on social media, collateral, market reports and advertising, track prospect feedback identifying successful and unsuccessful tactics. Spend money on activities that produce results. Stop spending money on activities that do not produce results. It is not as easy, nor obvious as it sounds.

Upon achieving results, repeat. Achieving success and repeating winning tactics establishes business momentum. Key targets to track include understanding costs associated with incremental sales. Margins matter. Catalog anecdotal intelligence that reveal success. While these activities use financial and time resources, ignoring them ultimately wastes financial and time resources by continually reinventing success characteristics. Spray and pray may lead to blowing away immediate sales targets when opportunities are fertile. But when the marketplace demands competitive selling, then measuring and analyzing results with surgical precision is the only way to sustain growth.

Takeaways
Spray and pray kills bugs and sales momentum! Planning is essential. So, is effort. The process takes time on the front end. Ignoring planning wastes time throughout the process. Launching new initiatives stokes competitive fires and creates enthusiasm. Nevertheless, use marketing intelligence. Coordinate messaging for better storytelling. People still buy emotionally and justify with logic. Prepare, then execute niche driven growth initiatives. Sustain winning processes, which includes regular setbacks. They ultimately drive superior results. Market for quality, then sell for quantity! Focused efforts will deliver results. Repeat success tactics. Build momentum. Slaughter the goals!

By Glenn W Hunter
Managing Director of Hunter And Beyond, LLC