What Does Sales Strategy Mean?

We hear sales managers and execs talk all the time about the importance of sales strategy. “Strategy” is one of the words that gets used a lot. In fact, Webster’s Dictionary says it’s in the top 1% of most popular words. After all, who gets heat for talking strategy?

The problem is that most sales “strategies” are not really strategies at all. If you look at that definition of strategy, you see, “a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal, usually over a long period of time.” That means a strategy doesn’t change (or if it does, it’s not very often), is long-term, and describes a set of consistent behaviors.

Many sales strategies are more like tactics — making more calls in a defined period of time, approaching a new group of prospects, or introducing new offers to move the market forward. These things are bad, but they’re tactics, not strategies. Tactics are helpful IF they support a strategy.