21 Sales Methodologies To Gain Traction For Your Business

Business Development

Business development comprises a set of strategies and actions to grow a business via a mixture of sales, marketing, and distribution. While marketing usually relies on automation to reach a wider audience, and sales typically leverage a one-to-one approach. The business development’s role is that of generating distribution.

Sales vs. Marketing

The more you move from consumers to enterprise clients, the more you’ll need a sales force able to manage complex sales. As a rule of thumb, a more expensive product, in B2B or Enterprise, will require an organizational structure around sales. An inexpensive product to be offered to consumers will leverage on marketing.

Sales Cycle

A sales cycle is the process that your company takes to sell your services and products. In simple words, it’s a series of steps that your sales reps need to go through with prospects that lead up to a closed sale.

RevOps

RevOps – short for Revenue Operations – is a framework that aims to maximize the revenue potential of an organization. RevOps seeks to align these departments by giving them access to the same data and tools. With shared information, each then understands their role in the sales funnel and can work collaboratively to increase revenue.

Revenue Modeling

Revenue modeling is a process of incorporating a sustainable financial model for revenue generation within a business model design. Revenue modeling can help to understand what options make more sense in creating a digital business from scratch; alternatively, it can help in analyzing existing digital businesses and reverse engineer them.

Customer Experience Map

Customer experience maps are visual representations of every encounter a customer has with a brand. On a customer experience map, interactions called touchpoints visually denote each interaction that a business has with its consumers. Typically, these include every interaction from the first contact to marketing, branding, sales, and customer support.

AIDA Model

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. That is a model that is used in marketing to describe the potential journey a customer might go through before purchasing a product or service. The AIDA model helps organizations focus their efforts when optimizing their marketing activities based on the customers’ journeys.

Social Selling

Social selling is a process of developing trust, rapport, and a relationship with a prospect to enhance the sales cycle. It usually happens through tech platforms (like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and more), which enable salespeople to engage with potential prospects before closing the sale, thus becoming more effective.

CHAMP Methodology

The CHAMP methodology is an iteration of the BANT sales process for modern B2B applications. While budget, authority, need, and timing are important aspects of qualifying sales leads, the CHAMP methodology was developed after sales reps questioned the order in which the BANT process is followed.

BANT Sales Process

The BANT process was conceived at IBM in the 1950s as a way to quickly identify prospects most likely to make a purchase. Despite its introduction around 70 years ago, the BANT process remains relevant today and was formally adopted into IBM’s Business Agility Solution Identification Guide.

MEDDIC Sales Process

The MEDDIC sales process was developed in 1996 by Dick Dunkel at software company Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC). The MEDDIC sales process is a framework used by B2B sales teams to foster predictable and efficient growth.

STP Marketing

STP marketing simplifies the market segmentation process and is one of the most commonly used approaches in modern marketing. The core focus of STP marketing is commercial effectiveness. Marketers use the approach to select the most valuable segments from a target audience and develop a product positioning strategy and marketing mix for each.

Sales Funnels vs. Flywheels

The sales funnel is a model used in marketing to represent an ideal, potential journey that potential customers go through before becoming actual customers. As a representation, it is also often an approximation, that helps marketing and sales teams structure their processes at scale, thus building repeatable sales and marketing tactics to convert customers.

Pirate Metrics

Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.

Bootstrapping

The general concept of Bootstrapping connects to “a self-starting process that is supposed to proceed without external input.” In business, Bootstrapping means financing the growth of the company from the available cash flows produced by a viable business model. Bootstrapping requires the mastery of the key customers driving growth.

Virtuous Cycles

The virtuous cycle is a positive loop or a set of positive loops that trigger a non-linear growth. Indeed, in the context of digital platforms, virtuous cycles – also defined as flywheel models – help companies capture more market shares by accelerating growth. The classic example is Amazon’s lower prices driving more consumers, driving more sellers, thus improving variety and convenience, thus accelerating growth.

Sales Storytelling

Sales storytelling is the art of telling effective stories during a sales pitch. The intention of this practice is to point out the benefits of a product or service as opposed to discussing the price or various features, models, or uses.

Enterprise Sales

Enterprise sales describes the procurement of large contracts that tend to be characterized by multiple decision-makers, complicated implementation, higher risk levels, or longer sales cycles.

Outside Sales

Outside sales occur when a salesperson meets with prospects or customers in the field. This sort of sales function is critical to acquire larger accounts, like enterprise customers, for which the acquisition process is usually longer, more complex and it requires the understanding of the target organization. Thus the outside sales will cut through the noise to acquire a large enterprise account for the organization.

Sales Distribution Framework

Zero to One is a book by Peter Thiel. But it also represents a business mindset, more typical of tech, where building something wholly new is the default mode, rather than building something incrementally better. The core premise of Zero to One then is that it’s much more valuable to create a whole new market/product rather than starting from existing markets.

Palantir Acquire, Expand, Scale Framework

Palantir is a software company offering intelligence services from governments and institutions to large commercial organizations. The company’s two main platforms Gotham and Foundry, are integrated at enterprise-level. Its business model follows three phases: Acquire, Expand, and Scale. The company bears the pilot costs in the acquire and expand phases, and it runs at a loss. Where in the scale phase, the customers’ contribution margins become positive.

Concept	Description	How to Use	When to Use	Benefits
Business Development	Strategies and actions for business growth via sales, marketing, and distribution.	Develop a growth plan.	When seeking business expansion.	Increased revenue and market presence.
Sales vs. Marketing	Distinguishes between sales and marketing approaches based on product cost and target audience.	Align strategies with product type.	When planning sales and marketing efforts.	Efficient resource allocation.
Sales Cycle	Represents the steps taken by sales reps to close deals and sell products/services.	Map out the customer journey.	Throughout the sales process.	Improved sales team efficiency.
RevOps (Revenue Operations)	Aligns sales, marketing, and customer success departments by sharing data and tools to maximize revenue potential.	Implement RevOps framework.	To streamline revenue-generating processes.	Increased revenue and collaboration.
Revenue Modeling	Develops a financial model for revenue generation within a business model.	Use financial analysis and modeling.	During business planning and analysis.	Improved revenue strategy and sustainability.
Customer Experience Map	Visualizes customer interactions with a brand, including touchpoints from marketing to support.	Create a visual map of customer journey.	When improving customer experience.	Enhanced customer understanding and loyalty.
AIDA Model	Attention, Interest, Desire, Action model for marketing, outlining the customer’s journey toward a purchase.	Tailor marketing strategies accordingly.	When optimizing marketing campaigns.	Improved customer conversion rates.
Social Selling	Building trust and rapport with prospects through social media platforms to enhance the sales cycle.	Engage with prospects on social media.	In B2B and long sales cycles.	More effective and personalized sales.
CHAMP Methodology	A modern B2B sales qualification framework focusing on challenges, authority, money, and prioritization.	Implement CHAMP criteria in sales.	In complex B2B sales situations.	Better-qualified leads and sales.
BANT Sales Process	Qualification process focusing on Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing for identifying potential buyers.	Use BANT criteria for lead qualification.	For quick prospect assessment.	Efficient sales lead identification.
MEDDIC Sales Process	A B2B sales framework that emphasizes Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain.	Implement MEDDIC in sales processes.	In complex B2B sales situations.	Improved sales efficiency and predictability.
STP Marketing	Segment, Target, Position marketing approach to select valuable segments and tailor marketing strategies.	Identify and target market segments.	When refining marketing strategies.	Increased marketing effectiveness.
Sales Funnels vs. Flywheels	Models representing the customer journey (funnel) and building ongoing relationships (flywheels) in sales/marketing.	Choose the appropriate model for the business.	For structuring sales and marketing tactics.	Scalable and repeatable sales processes.
Pirate Metrics (AARRR)	A simplified model to understand user paths toward becoming customers and brand referrers.	Analyze metrics at each stage (AARRR).	When assessing user conversion paths.	Effective user acquisition and retention.
Bootstrapping	Financing business growth from cash flows without external funding, focusing on customer-driven growth.	Focus on sustainable revenue streams.	During early stages of business growth.	Financial independence and control.
Virtuous Cycles	Positive loops driving non-linear growth, often seen in digital platforms, accelerating market capture.	Identify and create virtuous cycles.	When seeking rapid market expansion.	Accelerated growth and market dominance.
Sales Storytelling	Utilizing storytelling techniques to highlight product/service benefits and solutions during sales pitches.	Craft compelling stories in sales pitches.	In sales presentations and pitches.	Enhanced engagement and persuasion.
Enterprise Sales	Procurement of large contracts with complex decision-making, implementation, and longer sales cycles.	Develop strategies for enterprise sales.	When targeting large-scale clients.	High-value deals and revenue.
Outside Sales	Sales conducted in-person with prospects in the field, typically for acquiring larger enterprise customers.	Deploy outside sales teams strategically.	When dealing with complex, large accounts.	Effective acquisition of enterprise clients.
Sales Distribution Framework	Reflects the mindset of creating new markets/products rather than incremental improvements.	Apply a zero-to-one approach in business.	When aiming for disruptive innovation.	Potential for groundbreaking success.
Palantir Acquire, Expand, Scale Framework	Follows the three phases of Acquire, Expand, and Scale in software services business growth.	Implement phases in enterprise software sales.	For software service providers.	Sustainable growth and profitability.

About The Author

Gennaro Cuofano

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Gennaro Cuofano

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