It’s time to start thinking outside the box with your sales channel strategy; here’s why you should get started right now.
Companies often follow conventional paths to sales growth. But the leaders—the ones who acted differently and fought against status quo–receive the biggest gains. You don’t have to be a huge risk-taker to see a difference in sales, but thinking outside the box never hurt anyone.
Don’t allow your sales channel strategy to stagnate. Look for new ways (that means no one else is doing it) to grow your business, build partnerships, and create sales opportunities.
Evaluate your current sales channels: what’s working?
Go through every sales and marketing channel your company currently utilizes. Trackable data behind each channel is better, though we know it’s not possible for all. What matters is that you have a full-view, result-oriented viewpoint of each strategy.
Now make a list of media, outbound, inbound and PR tactics that might have success, but you haven’t implemented yet. These would be sales channels that similar competitive companies employ, but you haven’t found a strong enough reason to use yet.
Interested in automating your sales follow-up and closing more deals? Blitz can show you how. Schedule a free demo and watch your business grow!
Finally, now that you have a full list of considerations, brainstorm new sales channel strategies from scratch. What avenues haven’t even been brought to the table yet? How might they expose a competitive edge in connecting with your target market?
Encourage employees to bring new ideas to the table and present challenges
You know what’s one of the toughest problems for a business owner? Accepting the fact that you don’t have all the answers. The second big problem is staying comfortable. Why try to fix something that’s not broken?
Both create problems for a new sales channel strategy. Who knows how to spot sales opportunities better than your actual sales team? Why wouldn’t you seek out competitive advantages through unique sales channels?
The point: encourage your team to present ideas. Challenge them to push your sales channel strategy in a new direction. Foster a company culture that values out-of-box thinking and an outlier mentality.
Peter Caputa, the man responsible for creating Hubspot’s famous partnership program, spent a long time promoting the untapped potential of the sales channel. He says in a recent article,”regardless of your resources, encourage employees to identify opportunities and propose experiments to capitalize on them.”
That’s how he was able to bring Hubspot’s partner program into the mix. It now supports over 43 percent of the company’s sales revenue.
Sometimes it takes a controversial strategy to differentiate yourself
Everyone tells businesspeople the same thing: be different. Well, easier said than done. Branding only goes so far. What matters to customers is how you do business – is it different? What can you offer that no one else does? (At Blitz, for instance, we offer businesses the easiest and most effective solution for sales follow-up.)
Those questions influence risky answers (risks that most people aren’t willing to take). Hubspot, for instance, literally alienated potential markets by pointing to “inbound marketing” as the way of the future. They also publicly shot down traditional media to cause a stir. But, despite the outrage, people came to share and believe in their message.
You have many competitors out there. And probably a whole universe of potential customers. Keep trying to please everybody with the same old products and services, and you’ll go down eventually.
When you consider your sales channel strategy into the coming year, look for the gaps that other people are missing. Encourage your employees to seek them out, too. And then challenge your company to follow through and experiment.
Interested in automating your sales follow-up and closing more deals? Blitz can show you how. Schedule a free demo and watch your business grow!
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts with our readers!