Essay: Why develop a business strategy? Tips for defining an effective commercial strategy

Why develop a business strategy?
Creating a business without objectives and without developing a business strategy is like going on a trip without reservations and without a fixed destination: you will not arrive anywhere.
It is thanks to your commercial strategy that you obtain a long-term vision on your activity: do not neglect it. Know that it is a guarantee of seriousness if you have to include your commercial strategy in a business plan , in particular to obtain financing.
A well-defined business strategy is useful for:
• build an effective sales organization ,
• build a successful sales team ,
• develop relevant sales techniques ,
• equip your sales teams with the right sales support and communication tools .
How to define an effective commercial strategy? 8 steps to follow
Step 1: set goals
Why is this step essential to maximize your growth results?
Because implementing a strategy without a goal to achieve is counterproductive:
• to define “how to get there” (commercial strategy),
• you must already know “where you want to go” (objective).
It is the objective that will dictate what actions to put in place, and not the other way around!
If you dream of growth, set specific and measurable goals . Your goals should be SMART :
• simple or specific,
• measurable,
• reachable,
• realistic,
• temporally limited.
You can be ambitious, it’s all a matter of dosage and meeting the SMART criteria.
They can be quantitative (turnover, percentage of growth, number of customers, etc.) or qualitative (customer satisfaction, type of customer, etc.).
Here are some examples of SMART goals :
• reach 2 million euros in turnover within 3 years,
• increase customer satisfaction by 50% by the end of the year,
• maintain double-digit growth over the next 10 months, etc.
Our advice 👉 define a main objective and complementary sub-objectives to stake it, and avoid accumulating too many objectives unnecessarily.
Step 2: analyze your market
Market research is a fundamental step: any business strategy must be based on this analysis. It goes without saying (but it’s always good to remember it) that successful companies are those who know their market best.
Conduct research and note:
• your competitors : their profile, the details of their commercial offers, the market shares they occupy;
• the geographical area you are targeting : its specificities, the importance of your spatial proximity, depending on what you offer;
• trends : the viability of the market (growing, stagnating, etc.) and your scope of intervention, in the medium and long term, depending on this observation.
By collecting as much information as possible about your market , you will be able to delimit it, draw it, and see it as it is in order to position yourself in the most effective way possible.
Step 3: identify your target and your ideal client
The actions of your commercial strategy must adapt to your target . Because the risk when you want to reach as many people as possible, well, is precisely not to touch any of them.
Attracting attention in a competitive environment is not easy, so you might as well put the odds in your favor by addressing your most promising target directly:
• talking to him about her,
• of its problems,
• with his vocabulary,
• on the communication channels where it is present,
to maximize your chances that the message gets through and appeals.
But do you know who your ideal client  was beforehand ?
You know, the one who is generally more receptive to your messages, with whom the business relationship is smooth and for whom your product or service is great?
💡 Our advice: try to determine the commonalities among your existing customers to draw up a typical profile called buyer persona . If you are starting out and you don’t yet have a customer base to rely on, imagine the kind of customer you dream of having!
Step 4: define a suitable commercial offer
Build one based on:
• the segmentation of your targets or potential customers,
• the choice of your product or service corresponding to this segment of prospects;
• your pricing policy , to be determined according to the rates charged on the market;
• your axes of differentiation , in the face of the competition.
To build a coherent commercial offer , your value proposition must both meet the needs of your target and allow you to stand out from your competitors. Continue the work of studying your targets and their behavior in relation to your product or service offer and their means of accessing it. Study the demand and the existing supply to identify your business prospects in this specific context.
💡 How do you stand out?
• superior product or service quality,
• a competitive price,
• extensive expertise,
• an innovative product or service,
• a neat brand image,
• embodied values (environmental, social, etc.).
These differentiating assets will be the cornerstones of your sales pitch .
Step 5: Develop your action plan
Your objectives are clear: all you have to do is create an action plan . We also speak of roadmap or roadmap . This step is the concrete translation of your strategy.
Examples :
• 📈 You decide how many sales are needed to reach the revenue goal.
• 🤑 You decide to increase your prices to change your positioning: you make fewer sales, but for a higher average basket.
Your action plan does not only depend on the objectives: the available resources also come into play. These two data converge in the schedule :
• you know what action to take,
• on what date or over what period,
• to achieve your goals.
Your business strategy will materialize in the marketing mix . This is the basis of your marketing plan. His analysis indicates how and where to hit your target ( McCarthy’s 4 Ps matrix ) according to:
• the exact nature of your Product ,
• at what price do you sell it,
• the Places or distribution networks you are targeting,
• the means of communication or promotion that you prefer.
Define your angles of attack and think about how to evolve your marketing mix to stick to your strategy . The variables available to you are:
• the characteristics of your offer : range, positioning, etc.,
• pricing : freemium, premium, modular offer, etc. ,
• means of promotion : inbound or outbound marketing actions, etc.,
• the distribution channels : direct or indirect circuit, for example,
• sales processes : methodology, sales cycle by segment, sales typology, etc.
Our advice 👉 Also think about working on your brand image to establish your positioning, strengthen your notoriety and affirm your presence on the market.
Step 6: organize your sales forces
You must now entrust the responsibilities of the various actions to be implemented to the members of your commercial team , or to the various partners who support you in the management of your commercial plan.
Think about the human resources at your disposal to carry out your actions:
• their number,
• their degree of commitment,
• their autonomy,
• their motivation,
• their need for training, if any.
The most important thing is to assign each task to the right person .
Our advice 👉 If you value the development of your business and its turnover, always surround yourself with the most qualified and relevant people with the vocation and identity of your business.
Step 7: start prospecting and manage leads
This step consists of identifying the leads interested in your solution, in order to qualify them as prospects . To do this, you have to go through three steps.
• Analyze the behavior of leads : on your website, during a physical meeting or behavior in the face of an email campaign (opening rate, click rate, etc.) to collect information on their profiles .
• Segment leads : you will be better able to communicate in a personalized way to generate interest:
• send the right message,
• to the right person,
• at the right time,
• and through the right channel.
• Prioritize with lead scoring : by assigning a score to each prospect, you:
• identify the most likely to convert into customers ,
• contact them first ,
• focus efforts where the chances of conversion are highest.
🛠️ To help you:
• Axonaut is an ERP with various CRM functionalities, allowing the scoring of prospects and strategic decision-making.
• datadrive gives you access to 50 million BtoB and BtoC prospect data, combined with advanced geolocation capabilities, to find qualified prospects.
• Decidento is a B2B commercial prospecting tool which, thanks to filters, automatically detects qualified leads for your business.
Step 8: Measure the performance of your business strategy
Conducting a commercial strategy without monitoring commercial indicators  ? Unthinkable!
These allow you to measure your business strategy , to see if it works. It is indeed useless to maintain a strategy that will not make you achieve the expected objectives.
You can thus rectify the situation by:
• stopping or modifying what is not working,
• by allocating more resources to actions that work,
• draw lessons and new areas to exploit in order to gain in efficiency.
Here are some examples of indicators available to you:
• number of registrations on a landing page,
• number of incoming and/or outgoing calls,
• average basket amount,
• customer retention rate, etc.
Our advice 👉 Record them in a dashboard to measure the achievement of your actions. You note the success of the objectives, or, conversely, are alerted in case of delay.
As you move forward with your business action plan, do not hesitate to revise your strategy and refine your objectives so that they reflect the reality on the ground. It is better to have up-to-date but achievable objectives : the motivation of your sales team is also at stake!
Examples of business str