Issue #121

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VECTOR: Sales Strategy That Survives Reality

Sales strategy should be more than a few pretty slides for the annual kick off. It needs to be a working system that helps the team make good decisions across the year.

I built VECTOR, from two unique sources, for this very reason.

The first was the planning discipline I learned working with former US intelligence professionals. They taught me the value of creating plans that adapt rather than collapse.

The second was forty years of selling, leading teams and advising companies who needed strategy that was practical rather than ceremonial.

VECTOR is the result.

To illustrate it, I will use a live example. One of my clients is a UK logistics company that serves nutraceutical and health food brands. They operate in a tight niche where speed, accuracy and compliance determine whether a brand stays on the shelves.

They needed a strategy that gave them direction, helped them stand out and made the work clear for everyone involved.

Vision and Intent

The first job is to write a single sentence that explains exactly what you want to achieve, who you will win and why this direction matters for the business. You are not writing marketing copy. You are giving the team a “North Star” statement.

The template is simple: We will grow from X to Y in this timeframe by winning this customer group BECAUSE this outcome strengthens the business in a meaningful way.

Don’t miss out the because, a major cause of strategy failure is the team who get to do all the hard work simply can’t see the point of it.

The logistics company wrote this: We will grow from £3 million to £5 million in revenue within 18 months by winning nutraceutical and health food brands that supply national retailers because this focus lets us standardise operations and lift margins.

Everyone understands it, everyone can repeat it and every decision can be checked against it.

Evaluate Reality

Now is the moment you look at what you’ve got to work with.

A “Sales Capability Audit” is a structured review of how well the team can:

• Prospect,
• Run discovery,
• Explain value,
• Negotiate and
• Grow accounts.

Check their available time as well as their skills.

Here's a sales skills test they can do so you get a consistent and reliable view of their capabilities: click here.​

You also test product market fit with evidence, not guesses.

• Do customers buy repeatedly.
• Do they stay at healthy margins.
• Do they speak well about the service.

If the answers are vague, your offer needs work.

Instead of a SWOT chart that belongs in a school folder, VECTOR uses the “Value Equation” on a representative customer segment.

See more about the Value equation here.

For my logistics client, this meant quantifying how they reduce write offs, prevent stock outs on high value SKUs, protect margins and avoid compliance trouble with retailers.

You back this with real customer comments. One client said, since moving to you we have not had a single panicked call from a retailer depot. That tells you where the value sits.

You also review your team honestly. Where they excel. Where they need support. Where the bottlenecks are. No drama. Just clarity.

Create Positioning

This is where you decide how you want the market to see you. Start by mapping the competitive landscape:

• Who else could these buyers choose?
• What do those providers promise?
• What do they avoid talking about?

You are looking for the space they have left open.

Then you identify value innovation. This means understanding what you do that creates new value, removes friction or reduces risk and collapses cost or time.

You find this by analysing what your happiest customers say surprised them and where you win even when you are not cheapest.

Next you define a tight ICP sub segment you can dominate.

For the logistics firm it was UK nutraceutical and health food brands supplying national retailers with no professional logistics team.

Then you build messaging for the key personas you sell to. You use buyer language taken from calls, emails, Slack messages and reviews.

Speak their language, not marketing guff.

• For founders it might be, “We get your product into retailers without you having to learn logistics”.
• For ops leads it might be, “One point of contact who knows every pallet and SKU”.
• For retailer account managers it might be, “No more embarrassing depot calls about late or missing stock”.

Finally you choose one differentiator that genuinely matters to these buyers and can be proven.

I covered how to create a brand story last week, click here to remind yourself.

For this client it was specialist logistics built for health food brands who need retailer grade compliance without enterprise level volume.

Tactics and Plays

Now you need to generate several possible routes to the goal. VECTOR never assumes there is only one good plan.

You develop three credible options, sketch out how they work and then test them. You look for weak points, dependencies, risks and signs of early success.

You compare them and choose the play with the highest chance of delivering the goal with the team you actually have, not the team you wish you had.

Operational Plan

The chosen play becomes a plan people can run. You assign roles, responsibilities and define the resources needed.

You detail the steps and set triggers for when you need to change course.

You build contingency routes for predictable problems such as capacity spikes, supply chain delays, seasonality and annual events.

Most importantly, you design the operating rhythm:

• Weekly meetings for activity and progress.
• Monthly meetings for coaching and learning.
• Quarterly reviews for strategic adjustments.

This puts the team in a position to execute with confidence and without interruptions.

Review and Refine

Change is constant. VECTOR integrates regular reviews so you can adjust the strategy without blowing it up.

You run short win loss reviews after key deals and longer scheduled reviews that look at what is working, what is slowing you down and what needs rethinking.

You treat this as maintenance, not repair. The goal is to keep the strategy matched to reality so the team never drifts into guesswork.

Conclusion

VECTOR gives you a way to build a living sales strategy backed by best practice from people who understand it because their lives depend on it and decades of commercial experience from someone who's livelihood depends on it.

This is how I work with clients to build strategies they can actually run. Look out for the full VECTOR ebook coming early in the new year.

My Udemy course takes you through the first three, foundational elements of the House of Sales.

​Watch a sample video here, all about how procurement try to ruin your life.

Or you can get ahead of your competitors for that Sales VP job by reading this: easy to read and full of simple rules that will get you promoted.

And, of course, you can email or DM me if you want to discuss coaching, consultancy or training. First call is free.