strategic sales

Stop Guessing. Start Assessing: The First Step Toward Sales Growth

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

Are you feeling stuck in your sales organization? You’re not alone. Many founders, CEOs, and sales leaders eventually hit an invisible wall—a growth plateau. Key deals slip away. Your top salesperson, who carries far too much weight, starts to burn out.

In these moments, the instinct is often to push harder. But what’s needed isn’t more hustle. It’s clarity. And clarity starts with a strategic sales assessment.

What a Sales Assessment Means

Too often, leaders see assessments as formalities—checklists that confirm what they already believe. That’s a mistake. An accurate sales assessment is diagnostic. It reveals what’s working, what’s broken, and what’s missing.

Revenue growth doesn’t always mean you’re on the right path. Many companies are growing despite misalignment, not because of strategic execution. Are your sales activities aligned with your market opportunity? Are you pursuing the right prospects with the right message? Or are you just getting lucky?

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Stop Guessing, Start Growing: How Strategic Sales Assessments Drive Real Revenue

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

You’ll eventually hit a wall if you’re running a sales organization—or wearing multiple hats as founder, CEO, and sales manager. That wall is often invisible until growth stalls, key deals slip through the cracks, or your top salesperson burns out. So, what’s the next move? It’s not more hustle. It’s assessment.

A sales assessment isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about understanding where you are, how you operate, and what’s holding you back. Too many small business leaders assume they’re doing fine because revenue is growing or the team is hitting their quotas. But are you growing at the rate your market allows? Are your sales activities aligned with your long-term goals? Are you building a repeatable system, or are you just getting lucky?

Let’s get tactical. A sales plan isn’t just a revenue target. It’s your go-to-market strategy. It defines your audience, your message, and your motion. It answers why you’re talking to those prospects and what value you’re bringing to them. Without a plan, you’re reacting instead of executing. You’re chasing leads instead of building a pipeline.

If you’re a small company—perhaps under $30 million in revenue—and selling into a national market, chances are your market potential is hundreds of millions, maybe billions. That means your market share is a rounding error, which means there’s room to grow. The question is: Are you operating in a way that allows you to capture that growth?

Even if you’re running lean, you should benchmark your performance against top-tier organizations. Not because you’re competing with them directly, but because they set the standard. What are they doing that you’re not? Where are they more efficient? How do they structure their teams? You’re leaving money on the table if you’re not asking those questions.

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Roadblocks, Detours, and Destinations: The Intricate Art of Sales Strategy

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

There’s an ongoing conversation about the importance of strategy, process, and anticipating potential challenges in B2B sales. There’s an analogy that encapsulates this perfectly – imagine you’re on a road trip. You have a destination in mind but are unfamiliar with the route. This is where tools like Waze, Google Maps, or Apple Maps come into play. They direct you to your destination and alert you about potential roadblocks, construction, traffic, or other unexpected events that might delay your journey.

This is precisely how a sales strategy should work. It’s not just about getting from point A to point B but also about understanding the complexities of the journey and preparing for potential roadblocks. For salespeople, managers, and CEOs, understanding the strategy is critical to increasing revenue and improving productivity.

Understanding that a strategy involves more than just the turns along the way is vital. It also involves how to navigate through different areas, understand the speed limit, and anticipate any warnings that might come up. Many salespeople don’t fully grasp these challenges and tend to take them as they come rather than anticipating them and planning accordingly.

Like Waze uses real-time data to adapt to changes on the road, a sales strategy should adjust to new information and circumstances. For example, if there’s construction up ahead or a detour is required, Waze will adapt and provide a new route. Similarly, salespeople should be able to adjust their strategies based on new information or unexpected challenges.

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The Right Person in the Right Seat: Unleashing Company Growth through Strategic Sales Leadership

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

A recurring issue for small companies has emerged; the company’s owner or CEO often leads the sales department. This might be because they believe no one else can sell their product or service better than they can. However, this mindset might be hampering the company’s growth potential.

If you’re a company owner or CEO who leads sales, it’s crucial to consider the risk of this approach. When the person leading the company also heads sales, the business is constrained by the amount of time that leader has. If your salespeople consistently wait for your input or response, you might face a growth opportunity and a challenge simultaneously.

The solution lies in de-risking your organization’s growth potential by getting a sales leader in the sales leadership seat separate from you. This concept resonates with the theory of constraints, a principle often applied in the manufacturing industry but equally applicable in sales. The theory of constraints focuses on identifying the factors that limit your success.

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Focused Marketing Strategies: Driving Revenue with Account-Based Marketing

By Sean O'Shaughnessey

One strategy that stands out for its targeted approach and efficacy in business-to-business sales is account-based marketing (ABM). This approach aligns marketing and sales teams to concentrate on specific, high-value accounts, ensuring tailored interactions that increase the likelihood of conversion. For salespeople, sales managers, and CEOs of small companies, understanding and implementing ABM can be pivotal in driving revenue and achieving substantial business growth.

ABM centers on the identification and engagement of key accounts that are strategic to a business. Unlike broad-spectrum marketing strategies, ABM requires a deep understanding of the target company’s industry, structure, and business needs. This insight allows for a highly personalized approach in communications and offerings, fostering a closer relationship and higher engagement levels.

Effective implementation of ABM involves collaboration between sales and marketing teams to map out key information about an account, such as company size, industry specifics, and geographic locations. This collaborative effort ensures that both teams are aligned in their approach and objectives, enhancing the effectiveness of the marketing efforts.

Moreover, understanding the triggers and events within the target industry can provide opportunities for timely and relevant engagements. Customizing presentations and marketing materials to reflect the current industry landscape or the account’s specific challenges can significantly increase relevance and impact.

An interesting application of ABM is the development of dedicated landing pages or portals for major clients. This creates a personalized experience for key accounts, providing them with content tailored to their specific needs and interests, often resulting in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Leadership involvement in ABM is also critical, often requiring significant investment and strategic focus. Deciding which accounts to target and ensuring that resources are appropriately allocated can distinguish between a successful ABM strategy and a costly misstep.

Moreover, ABM’s technology and tools must be carefully chosen and effectively utilized to reach and engage key accounts. This might include creating customized content such as videos, detailed case studies, and specially designed presentations that feature the prospective client’s logo and tailored messages.

For small companies, the challenge often lies in resource allocation. However, even limited resources can effectively create impactful ABM strategies. For instance, small-scale, personalized video messages can make a significant impression on potential clients, offering a personalized touch that can set a company apart from its competitors.

While ABM can be resource-intensive, its focused approach can yield significantly higher returns than traditional marketing strategies. For companies aiming to scale their operations and increase their market share, especially in competitive industries, ABM provides a strategic method to effectively target and win over key accounts. CEOs and sales leaders should consider how ABM can be integrated into their sales strategies to enhance their marketing efforts and drive business growth.

Here are several immediate actions that a sales leader can take today to implement Account Based Marketing effectively:

Identify Key Accounts: Review your current client list and select a handful of high-value accounts with the potential for deeper engagement and increased revenue. Use criteria such as current revenue, growth potential, strategic importance, and alignment with your business capabilities.
Align Sales and Marketing Teams: Organize a meeting with your sales and marketing teams to discuss the selected key accounts. Ensure everyone understands the importance of a unified approach and collaborates to map out each account’s specific needs and business landscape.
Develop Customized Content: Start creating tailored content that addresses each key account’s specific needs and challenges. This could include personalized emails, custom landing pages, and targeted case studies that speak directly to the account’s industry and objectives.
Set Clear Metrics and Goals: Define clear metrics and goals for tracking the success of your ABM efforts. This may include engagement rates, conversion rates, and, ultimately, revenue growth from key accounts. Regularly review these metrics to adjust strategies as needed for optimal performance.