My fractional clients pay me $7k a month for me to help them build a scalable, repeatable sales engine as a fractional sales leader. For almost all of my fractional clients (who are mostly startups and early stage high growth companies), my sales and GTM (Go To Market) work often involves honing the basics rather than implementing cutting-edge or hyper-specialized strategies. My engagements usually involve a 3-month sprint to get the fundamentals in place, and I'm about to give you the blueprint, worth $21k (plus GST) at no cost.
You just need to like this post, follow me, follow the person who comments next after you, repost (twice), add me on LinkedIn, Twitter, OnlyFans, send me a selfie holding a printed-out version…
OK, OK just kidding.
Here is the GTM blueprint. 100% Free:
- Value Proposition: articulates the unique benefits your product or service provides, how it solves customers' problems or improves their situation. The more specific your value proposition is, the better. This is the fundamental piece that everything else is built upon. I wrote a little more about that here.
- Ideal Customer Profile: the characteristics of the customer who would get the most value out of your product. This profile guides your sales and marketing efforts, enabling you to target and engage the right people. While many claim to have an ICP in reality it's often not well-defined.
- Market Segmentation: dividing a market of potential customers into groups, or segments, based on different characteristics. The segments created are composed of consumers who will respond similarly to marketing strategies.
- Target Channels: Determining the best channels to reach your ideal customers involves understanding where your target audience spends their time and how they prefer to interact with businesses. This could range from social media platforms, email, events, content marketing, or even cold outreach. I work in B2B, so this is quite often email and LinkedIn, but when selling to Radiologists, for example, it turned out to be...faxes. Yep. Ask me about the time i built automated fax marketing capability some time, in the year of our lord 2022 no less.
- Outbound Messaging: Crafting compelling messages that resonate with your target audience is key to capturing their attention and getting them to take action. This messaging should be consistent across all touchpoints and clearly communicate your value proposition.
- Structured Sales Process: a repeatable set of steps a salesperson takes to move a prospect from an early-stage lead to a closed customer. Note that this is particularly true for B2B enterprise sales where I focus (B2C is a whole other beast). Each stage of the process should be clearly defined and include a set of related tasks and actions. This can be based on popular methodologies include SPIN Selling, Challenger Sales, and Solution Selling, among others. Sales process automation is becoming increasingly powerful and yes, you should be using LLMs on a daily basis - I like ChatGPT but you do you.
- Sales Data Tracking and Reporting: establishing the tech stack and systems to track, analyze, and report on key sales metrics. Data-driven sales strategies can lead to increased efficiency and improved outcomes.
- Sales Playbook: documenting your sales process, including best practices, techniques, and scripts that your sales team can use. It serves as a guide for new hires and a reference point for all members of the team. Essential for getting information out of the founder/early team’s head and onto paper and is fundamental to any kind of scale.
- Team Training and Structure: the organization of your sales team, the roles and responsibilities of each member, and the training and resources provided to them. Regular training helps ensure that your team is skilled, knowledgeable, and aligned with your sales strategy. Your incentive plan structuring is key - my advice at the beginning is to keep it simple. You can complicate things later, but if the sales team can’t easily figure out their commission it’s too hard.
So that's it. Nothing that isn't included in every sales manual and guidebook. No rocket science. But if you follow this blueprint you will be well on the way to building a scalable, repeatable sales engine for your company.
Alright, enough with the guidebook stuff. If you're nodding along and thinking, 'This is what I need,' let's chat. No fluff, just straight talk about getting your sales on track. Hit me up, and let's see how a Fractional VP Sales can kick your sales into high gear.