The Flaw in Your Go-to-Market Sales Strategy
Becca Eddleman
After months of financial hardship for many sales organizations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most companies are thinking of or already preparing to ramp up their business.
Whether the focus is scaling back up to previous levels of sales or reapproaching clients in a whole new way, sales leaders and their teams are re-evaluating their position in the market.
But in our current environment when there are probably hundreds of solutions similar to yours, you need to stand out to consumers with limited resources. Your go-to-market sales strategy, then, is just as important as the product or service you’re bringing to market.
So today, we’ll be sharing what you need to re-engage your industry with energy. In particular, we’ll explain the benefits of on-demand leadership and how such experts are best positioned to set your company on a path to sustainable growth.
Defining Go-to-Market Sales Strategy
First, let’s establish what we mean when we say go-to-market sales strategy.
A go-to-market strategy is a plan of action detailing how you’re going to take your product to market for the first time, relaunch, or launch into a new market. It should define your unique selling proposition, how you’re going to reach buyers, and how you’re going to achieve a competitive advantage.
It’s a critical aspect of any business strategy and takes a lot of time and resources to get right. It is also absolutely devastating when done incorrectly. Above all, experienced and innovative sales leadership is needed to build these go-to-market sales strategies.
But the problem is…
One potential problem is, you don’t have an experienced leader to take your product to market. Or, if you’ve already introduced your product, you don’t have a leader that can help you relaunch more successfully. Another problem is cost. Are you able to afford the experience you need? Are you able to afford the time it will take to find the right leader?
There is also the misconception that if you don’t hire a full-time leader, you won’t have someone wholly invested in your business. More often than not, this misunderstanding is responsible for holding you back from considering part-time leadership. But you can rest easy knowing that this IS a misconception.
In many scenarios, on-demand sales leadership is, in fact, a better solution. Here’s why. Full-time and on-demand leaders essentially work toward the same cause and have the same goals but with one huge difference. A full-time leader will focus on the long-term while an on-demand leader focuses on a short-term goal.
Whether your problem is a product launch or achieving a specific milestone in growth, such stages have a finite beginning and end. And on-demand partners will set the foundation and create a smooth transition for that long-term leader when the time is right.
The role is meant to be temporary and for specific use cases. For example, when a VP or CRO position needs to be filled quickly until you find a full-time hire, for specific initiatives like go-to-market strategy, or when in a limited capacity during growth. An excellent on-demand leader will strategize and execute on shorter-term needs while also identifying what needs to happen to solidify the foundation for the permanent hire — also increasing the probability that your VP or CRO will stay longer.
The Marketing Template
And yet, everything we’ve discussed is not unheard of in the business world. Marketing organizations already have on-demand talent figured out. If you look at the Marketing department and how they function, you’ll notice that they outsource a few different specialties and projects. It could be website development and design, digital marketing, PR and events, or content, to name a few.
This concept is unheard of in Sales for some reason. If you’re a company that’s in rapid growth mode and building up your sales team, you may assume you need to go out and hire an in-house, full-time VP, double your SDR bench, and hire a full Sales Operations team.
To put the financial cost of this hiring spree into context:
The average salary of a Sales VP in the U.S. according to Glassdoor is $163,000 (base). The average salary of a Sales Development Representative is $48,000. And the average salary of a Sales Operations Specialist is $68,000.
Think about these numbers when analyzing if it’s the right time to hire to implement your go-to-market sales strategy. It may actually be too early, and you first need a growth stage expert to set the foundation, create a formal sales process, an onboarding process, and even help you build your hiring criteria.
That’s where an on-demand partner comes in instead. Such individuals can stay on top of trends better than your full-time employees focused on day-to-day tasks, who don’t have the benefit of working with tens to hundreds of clients and gaining that expertise.
It may also be difficult to find someone full-time who is versed in sales enablement that can speak the language of the customer, engineer compelling sales materials, or listen to sales calls. This equally applies to leadership positions that are needed as you develop your go-to-market sales strategy and your organization grows.
In all instances, it’s about bringing in experts for your sales team and scaling appropriately with the expert you need right now verus a traditional full-time leader who is a great leader with a lot of experience, but most likely the wrong experience.
Are You Ready to Hire On-Demand Leaders?
The consequence of hiring a full-time senior leader like a VP of Sales when you’re not ready is churn. When organizations are ready to scale or rebuild their sales teams, they look to hiring a VP as their silver bullet for building a go-to-market sales strategy. But it often comes with unrealistic expectations and without the resources the VP needs to go to market successfully.
The average tenure of a VP of Sales is about 18 months. That’s from the first hire date to when they transition out. First, it takes 3-6 months to hire, then 3-6 months for your VP to get up to speed, so you’re only getting max 12 months of productivity for all the time and effort, and stress on your organization.
With how specialized and complex the sales process and buyer journey are becoming, outsourcing help for specific growth stages to get you to the next stage is paramount.
After all, there are thousands of people out there who have experience in a position you need filled. It’s about bringing in the right people at the right time. It’s about bringing in a partner that’s an expert at the one-two top areas you and your company needs right now. The goal isn’t to outsource your entire sales organization forever. The goal is to bring in on-demand experts to help you set up your future sales organization for success, go to market faster, and prevent excessive churn of top talent.
The Case for a Modern Go-to-Market Sales Strategy
We’ve defined the proper use of a go-to-market sales strategy and how best to hire on-demand sales leaders to see it to fruition. We’ve shown how this process is not new, but in fact proven effective in the world of marketing. Should sales organizations take these considerations into account, they will be in a prime position to erupt in the B2B Sales industry.
Interested in learning more how these frameworks can help your sales organization with a go-to-market sales strategy? Feel free to reach out to our team of sales experts for more information!