By Kenneth Krogue

INTRODUCTION

This series of articles will highlight the fifteen time-wasters we at InsideSales.com have seen at one level or another in over 300 customers and many more non-customers since early 2004. Each article will highlight a single notable time waster and offer a “best practice” that will give you a place to start working on the concern.

TIME-WASTER #1 of 15: Poor Strategy

A poor marketing strategy leads your company to make devastating mistakes, select an inappropriate market, or fail to reach the right target audience. While the executive team has the main responsibility of defining the business strategy, every VP Sales, Sales Director and Salesperson should ask him or herself:

• What battle should we be fighting? If your main competition is well-established and much bigger than your company, you may find it almost impossible to gain notable market share in your target market. You may want to search out a niche where your product excels and seek for success in that area.

• In which target market will we have the greatest chance of success? Your offering may serve a large market well, but some segments will give you a greater return than others. Decide where you stand to make the most profit with the lowest amount of work and focus on that segment.

• What is the most effective way to go after the most optimized target market? Modify your marketing to your target audience: while retired people watch a lot of daytime TV but avoid using online search engines, small business owners are often the opposite.

• What is our most leveraged and least-cost source of deals?

Once you have formulated these core issues, further refine it by asking yourself:

• What is our core message? Boil it down to thirty seconds or less.
• Who is the target decision maker? What position do they most often have? What department do they work in? List each potential candidate.
• What are our products’ most valuable features, benefits, and impact? What pains or possibilities do we address in our desired industries? List the top 5 of each.
• What is our advantage over our competitors: price, quality, , or service?
• What is our Unique Selling Position: the single, most notable, most powerful position we can occupy in the market?

Best Practice: Make the investment to answer these questions and then make sure you and your people implement these strategies effectively.