Need to sell more? Follow these six simple steps to develop a strategy that works

You're winning clients through word-of-mouth and your network is keeping you busy. But what happens when referrals slow down or you want to grow?

Accelerate Consulting founder Sean Beirne, who supports small businesses with their growth, says:

“A lot of owner-managed small businesses don’t have a sales strategy. They’re getting business and don’t even think about where it’s coming from.”

Here are the six steps you need to take to go from an informal approach to having a sales strategy that brings in work consistently.

1. Understand your ideal customer persona

When you’re winning work based on referrals, you end up doing lots of different things for different people.

When you’re developing a sales strategy, you need to be specific about the value you offer and who you’re targeting, advises Sean:

“What is it about what you do that’s different and has made people buy from you? That’s your secret sauce. That’s what you want to exploit.”

The goal is to understand your ideal customer persona.

That starts with thinking about successful projects, who they were for and what outcomes they achieved for your clients.

2. Organise your leads

A lead is an expression of interest in what you sell. It’s likely you respond to these emails and phone calls quickly, but how do you record that information?

Understanding how you won work makes it easier to replicate that success. It’s the next step to building out your ideal customer persona.

If you don’t already have a list of leads you’ve received, go through the last few months and write down the following details for each enquiry:

1. name and contact details

2. job title of the key contact

3. source of the lead (event, referral etc.)

Find me the Leads founder Leisa Pickles says it’s okay to store that information in a spreadsheet to begin with:

“Name of business, name of person, position – that’s important to understand who the key decision makers are. Are you dealing with the sales director, the owner?”

Speak to your existing customers

Sean recommends speaking with your existing customers to better understand why they buy from you too.

“It’s really important to understand what it is about your company that makes them buy. Is it the speed of communication or some other part of the value you provide?”

He suggests getting a third party to complete these calls to reduce the bias where possible.

If you can’t afford to pay for the research, you can try using interns or work on a reciprocal basis with another business owner.

3. Develop a hypothesis

We want you to shift from reacting to opportunities to being proactive about the type of business you win.

The information you’ve gathered on leads and successful projects will help you develop your ideas of who you want to target, says Leisa.

“There will be patterns. They are in an industry, have a certain number of employees or are based in a certain area, for example. You have to lean into that.”

Sean advocates using the Magic Quadrant, which maps companies against two key criteria, to further understand your position in the market.

Your positioning statement

The hypothesis you’ve developed – what you sell, to whom and how they benefit – should be reflected in the way you talk about your company.

This statement from popular Enterprise Nation adviser Tara Elzingre shows how you can turn a hypothesis into a positioning statement:

“I’m Tara Elzingre, an independent consultant who’s passionate about helping business owners take control of their digital strategies without the overwhelm.”

4. Start researching target companies

You know who you want to target and why. Now it’s time to develop a list of target companies, says Leisa.

“That’s a desk-based piece of research. You can start to use the intel you gathered to see if there’s a good match. Once you have that name, check them out and do your due diligence before you reach out to them.”

Here are a number of sources for researching potential target companies:

1. generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini

2. LinkedIn groups

3. your LinkedIn connections

4. professional organisations

Leisa adds that it’s a numbers game, suggesting a list of 200 targets is a good place to start. However, she stresses that quality in means quality out.

Sean says the size of your target list depends on who you’re targeting, the average order size and other factors.

“That might mean 50 to start with if you’re a company with five to ten people and the MD is doing the selling.”

5. Get them into your world

Once you have your target list, it’s time to start doing outreach. The channel you use to do that depends where your audience is, says Sean:

“That's the really important part. If they do most of their communications on Instagram that’s where you should be.”

Leisa’s preference is to start by calling people:

“We’re massive advocates of the telephone. I know that scares the shit out of people, pardon my French, but it allows you to find the decision makers.”

Whether you think cold calling is right for your business or not, you need to find a way to build rapport with potential customers.

That will likely span multiple channels and include activities like:

1. sending personalised email

2. turning up at events

3. connecting with them on social media

One other trick that Sean recommends is starting the outreach process with the less important opportunities, so that you can practice and improve your approach.

6. Systemise your sales process

Sales isn’t easy. There’s going to be a decent amount of rejection when you start approaching people who haven't heard of your business.

Systemising your approach will reduce the pressure. It allows you to know what activity you need to carry out and the results you expect:

1. Block out your time: Set regular reminders to work on your sales outreach. Leads take time to convert, so keep doing the work even when you’re busy.

2. Set simple targets: Measure the volume of activity that’s happening in your sales process, so you can understand the impact it’s having.

3. Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software: Easily track your prospects’ journeys through the sales funnel.

4. Hold regular review meetings: Use a simple template to talk through the deals in your pipeline and the actions required.

Related resources about sales

Do you want to continue your learning journey? These articles will help you learn more on the subject.

• How to create a sales strategy for your small business: A deep-dive article that goes into every element of the process.

• How your small business can do sales outreach successfully: Norma O'Kelly’s blog on sales outreach.

• How to start selling services using cold email outreach: An article that explains how to develop an email campaign.

You can also book discovery calls with the Enterprise Nation advisers mentioned in this article:

• Sean Beirne: “Seasoned business consultant and mentor with over 25 years of experience as Managing Director, CEO, and in Sales & Marketing across SME, semi-state, and multinational corporations.”

• Leisa Pickles: “Founder and Chief Go Getter at Find me the Leads®, an independent sales consultancy supporting SMEs with Sales Outreach.”