5 Things to Avoid when Building a Digital Sales Strategy

Saphyte Team

3 min read

Updated: April 27th, 2022

We are all aware that markets and segments are important categories to consider when formulating sales strategies. However, here’s a fact: a market never buys anything – only customers. Your customer is the “home stretch,” connecting your sales process with business development efforts and conceive marketplace results.

So, to rake in sales, firms resort to a de facto strategy to rake in the result of the deals their salespeople bring in. Consequently, salespeople will sell to anyone they can, often at discounted prices, to hit the monthly volume quota. When businesses implement a de facto strategy, they don’t realize they also spend on opportunity costs like money, time, and people allocated to their customers. 

If businesses continue to operate under these circumstances, it will eventually lead to loss of positioning with their customers and, over time, the nurturing of “commodity competencies.” In other words, their sales force may get better and better at striking deals that are not valuable for customers, leading to more problems in the future. 

So, how can you build an effective digital sales strategy? Easy. All you have to do is know what to avoid when creating your own digital sales strategy? Here’s a quick starter guide for you. 

Mistake #1: Hiring Salespeople who can’t make sales

Hiring the right people in your team is the key to sales success. Most hiring managers go with their gut and just “wing” the entire hiring process most of the time. Remember that you have your own sales context; therefore, you must have a unique hiring profile. 

Appreciate and embrace your own sales context; with that, you can start to establish a theory of hiring criteria that will work for your business. Also, stray away from biases as this will affect your scoring decisions of every candidate against that criteria. ALWAYS follow the criteria. 

Mistake #2: Underestimating your Sales Compensation Plan

Sales compensation plans are the most underrated tool in a CEO’s toolkit. When you align your sales compensation plan with your desired strategic change, things will start moving in the direction you wanted. Whether you’re looking to enter a new industry, gain market shares with a product line, or expand into new geo-targets, your sales compensation plan will be your compelling driver of change.

Mistake #3: Mis-aligning your Sales and Marketing

Traditionally, sales and marketing are two groups that will never align together. There are plenty of misconceptions and biases between these two groups. Marketing perceives the sales department as a bunch of over-paid spoiled brats. While for the sales department, the marketing department lies around doing arts all day. However, in an era where buying journeys start online, this dysfunctional relationship is the dementor’s kiss for your company – if this type of culture ever exists in your company.

It is essential to align your sales and marketing departments adequately for you to sustain your business adequately. Evaluate your marketing and sales deliverables and the tasks that each member should commit to one another. Constantly monitor your progress and share reports daily with the entire team. By doing so, you can effectively manage your sales and marketing funnel without dealing with strained relations. 

Mistake #4: Focusing on Forecasting rather than Coaching

Most sales managers allot the generality of their time watching over and maintaining their sales forecasts and pipeline, thus losing plenty of opportunities. Instead of facing those numbers, sales managers should focus on coaching and developing their salespeople’s skills and strategies. Studies show that dynamic and effective sales coaching can have 28% higher win rates. 

So stop looking at those charts, and start looking at your salespeople and how you can help them reach their sales goals. 

Mistake #5: Investing in Technology not Meant for Front-line Salespeople

Over the last few decades, most sales technology purchased is designed to help sales leaders conduct pipeline reviews and manage forecasts. They ended up being useless because their front-line salespeople do not use the software. 

When sales front-liners can’t use proper technology meant for them, data integrity suffers, and the original design and intention of the purchase is swept under the rug – forever.

When you invest in sales technology such as Saphyte, it helps your sales front-liners sell faster by removing or mitigating admin tasks and streamlines the processes they manage dozens of times per day. Investing in the right technology allows salespeople to sell better by demonstrating the full buyer context to the salesperson at all times. Furthermore, sales technology that profits salespeople is the best path toward capturing sales leaders’ data to run the business. 

Key Takeaway

Your digital sales strategy can make or break your company. By knowing the things to avoid when building your own can prevent you from future disasters. To effectively develop and maintain your sales strategy, you need tools to gather, keep and access data, and keep business processes simple and make work easier for your employees. Saphyte can help you get started. 

Saphyte is a UAE homegrown business operating out of Dubai. It is currently helping hundreds of companies drive digital transformation through local support, zero implementation fees, competitive subscription models, and an advanced CRM ecosystem technology.

Feel like talking about this opportunity more? Book a demo with us today, and our digital ecosystem experts will be right there with you.