If you haven’t done so already, you might think about getting your strategic plan out of the bottom drawer (where it shouldn’t have been in the first place), dusting it off and reviewing it.

Things to look for:

Vision

Is your vision still relevant and realistic? Or have you embarked in a different direction that will need you to review your strategic plan?

Mission

Are the purpose and activities of your business accurately reflected in your mission statement? Take some time to walk around your organisation and ask a few people what the mission of the company is. you might be surprised by the answers.

Values

Is your business being run in accordance with your values?

Goals

Have you achieved your goals – is it time to set new ones?

Objectives

Do your objectives support your goals?

Strategies

How are your strategies contributing to achieving your objectives?

That’s only the start. Now you need to vet yout business plans to make sure you’re heading in the right direction!

Good luck with all that.

Miller-Heiman’s Strategic Selling Workshop (Blue sheet)is a fantastic process for organising your information about your sales opportunity, leading to an action plan to close the business.

Last week I delivered a program to group of technical people who had to convince customers to use their services. They were impressed with the strategic selling process because:

• the process was logical and sequential,
• it was not not just a series of opinions and inferences about the target account,
• although the information gathering requirement was much more complex than they were used to, the time saved overall was significant,
• they hadn’t realised that there were four types of buying influence, and this new understanding would help them close the sale.

The Strategic Selling process has been around for thirty years. Competitors and detractors might say that it’s “old hat”, but compare it to the automobile which has been around since 1769. The principles are still the same, but refinements are continuous. The same with Strategic Selling.

Strategic Selling works because it’s based on the continual analysis of the real life experience of successful sales professionals. What made them successful 30 years ago  makes them successful today; commitment, hard work, persistence, and above all, a superior constantly refined process!

For more information on strategic selling click here.