Insights · Marketing and Sales
Selling more is not a strategy in itself
A company can increase its turnover for months without a deliberate commercial strategy: salespeople respond to enquiries, contact familiar customers and accept orders, but priorities change with the most urgent request. A strategy makes choices about target customers, problems worth solving, the reasons buyers should choose the offer and opportunities the company should decline. An SME needs a plan it can explain, execute weekly and revise using results, not necessarily a lengthy report.
A commercial strategy should answer whom the business intends to serve, why those customers should choose it, how the offer will reach them and how success will be measured. “Sell more” is a desired outcome, not a commercial method. A plan should connect customer understanding, margins, available resources and sales execution.
1. Conduct an evidence-based sales assessment
Review the previous twelve months by customer, product, channel and salesperson. Compare revenue, contribution margin, order frequency, discounts and payment terms. Trace opportunities from referrals, the website, partners and prospecting through proposals to wins or losses. Record why business was lost and finish with three evidence-based findings and three hypotheses to test, rather than treating assumptions as facts.
Start with a diagnosis of customer and product profitability, retention, lead sources, proposal conversion, payment times and the sales team's actual capacity. Look for constraints along the whole process. An increase in calls is rarely the correct remedy if many leads do not qualify or if the business loses money on completed orders.
2. Select target segments and ideal customers
'The entire SME market' is seldom a useful target. Define groups with comparable needs and buying processes. For each ideal customer profile, specify sector, size, location, purchasing authority, problem, budget, urgency and potential for repeat business. Include exclusion criteria for customers requiring capabilities or payment terms that the firm cannot support. Allocate prospecting effort to segments whose economics and needs justify the investment.
Choose segments using problem relevance, potential spending, ease of access, cost to serve and strategic fit. A small firm cannot efficiently approach every sector with the same message. Describe the ideal customer with buying circumstances and needs, not just demographic labels. Verify those assumptions in conversations and in sales data.
3. Define a value proposition customers recognise
Words such as 'quality' and 'excellence' are not enough to explain a buying decision. Each priority segment should understand the problem addressed, what changes after delivery, why the solution fits and what evidence supports the claim. Price and positioning must be consistent: a promise of reliable ongoing support is undermined when everything is sold exclusively on the lowest price.
Write a proposition that connects a clear customer problem to a benefit the company can actually deliver. Discuss value before offering discounts and document how price affects contribution margin. Different buying situations may justify different levels of service, response time or implementation support, with transparent boundaries.
4. Choose channels and design the sales process
Direct sales, partners, distributors, e-commerce and recommendations have different costs and requirements. Select channels the business can manage consistently. Document stages from qualification and needs assessment to proposal, negotiation, closing and after-sales follow-up. Even a simple CRM spreadsheet should record the owner, next action and date, so qualified opportunities do not disappear between stages.
Create an agreed commercial process from prospecting to qualification, discovery, proposal, negotiation, closing and retention. Define what advances an opportunity and who is accountable for each step. A CRM supports visibility only when definitions are shared and the recorded information is accurate enough to guide decisions.
Compare each sales channel by acquisition cost, time to first sale, contribution margin and delivery capacity. Record a clear criterion for advancing an opportunity: a proposal is not nearly won simply because the prospect is friendly. A basic CRM should make the person responsible and the next follow-up date explicit.
5. Convert objectives into coherent targets
Convert targets into funnel requirements. For €240,000 in new annual sales at an average of €4,000 per deal, about 60 deals are needed. If 30% of proposals close, approximately 200 proposals are required; if half of qualified opportunities reach proposal stage, roughly 400 qualified opportunities are needed. These are assumptions to validate, not forecasts. Check the resulting demand on staffing, contribution margin and working capital.
Suppose an SME targets €240,000 of new annual sales at an average contract value of €4,000. It needs about 60 won contracts. If 30% of proposals turn into sales, approximately 200 proposals are required; if only half the qualified opportunities reach proposal stage, around 400 qualified opportunities are needed. These illustrative calculations expose prospecting effort and capacity requirements; they do not guarantee success. Where demand is seasonal, the monthly allocation should not be uniform.
6. Build a 90-day action plan
A 90-day plan turns strategy into delivery. Month one can focus on reviewing the customer base, defining segments and clarifying the pipeline. Month two can test a focused offer in two segments. Month three should review conversion, margin and workload before extending the approach. Give every initiative an owner, date, target and indicator, and reserve a short regular meeting to remove obstacles rather than micromanage activity.
A coherent plan includes named owners, realistic resources, milestones and a small set of KPIs: qualified opportunities, conversion by stage, average deal value, contribution margin, retention and customer payment periods where relevant. Review performance regularly and adjust actions based on evidence, not just on the latest total invoiced.
7. Track a small set of meaningful KPIs
A concise dashboard may track qualified opportunities, proposals, conversion, sales-cycle length, revenue and contribution margin by segment, and overdue receivables when significant. Separate leading indicators from achieved results. If proposals rise while conversion falls, improve qualification or value communication; if revenue rises while margin falls, investigate pricing and sales mix before pushing for more volume.
Test the plan with a limited segment or campaign before scaling expenditure. Compare actual demand, cost to acquire customers, operational delivery and cash requirements with the initial assumptions. Strategy becomes useful when it guides what the team does—and decides not to do—each week.
References
Define each measure consistently, together with its source, owner and update frequency. A useful strategy explains why the company prioritises a customer, product or channel over alternatives and is sufficiently flexible to incorporate evidence from the market.