Do you have the need for speed? Strap in for sales acceleration. I’m offering the first chapter of my latest ebook, Step on It! SMB & Mid-Market Sales Acceleration here in its entirety, no form submission necessary!

I poured over lots of best practice research and listened to hours of podcast to bring you the best advice I could find on sales acceleration in mid-market and SMB distribution channels. Check out the first chapter below. If you like it, cruise on over to the full ebook.

Chapter 1: Understand Your Sales Channel

In the bustling realm of B2B sales within the trades industry, mid-market companies occupy a unique space. This middle ground is fertile with opportunity but fraught with challenges that are as complex as they are varied. Understanding the nuanced dynamics
of your market isn’t just beneficial—it’s your biggest competitive advantage.

To navigate the mid-market landscape effectively, in-depth knowledge about your specific sector and audience is crucial. Understanding your channel is like knowing the track you’re racing on. When you know the challenging twists and hairpin turns by heart, you can start achieving consistent sales acceleration. Here’s how you can start building this foundation:

Customer Feedback: Sales Acceleration Fuel

Regular interaction with your customers can provide invaluable insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. Tools that can help you here include surveys, feedback forms, and good, old-fashioned one-on-one conversation.

The key is to request feedback in the right way, at the right time. Try these approaches:

Offer incentives for feedback.

When you ask someone for something, it makes sense to give them something in return. A study published on BioMed Central found that a $10 incentive increased the likelihood of survey response by 30%.

Automate post-purchase feedback requests.

Email marketing tools such as Mailer Lite and Mailchimp can help you set up emails triggered instantly when a customer makes a purchase.

Ask during positive moments.

Extu’s studies have shown that emails related to incentives and rewards have higher-than-average open and click rates. It’s a great idea to ask for feedback at a time like this, when you have a customer’s attention in a positive, exciting context.

Competitor Analysis

Keeping an eye on your competitors is not about copying their maneuvers; it’s about understanding your own position in the market. By monitoring your competitors’ successes
and failures, you can glean insights into what may or may not work for your company. Techniques to employ include:

Conduct regular SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.

This is a structured process that helps you to evaluate where you stand in relation to your competitors. It helps you identify gaps in your own strategy, competitive advantages, and opportunities for market share expansion.

Analyze competitors’ search engine optimization (SEO).

Companies like Semrush and Ahrefs provide a host of SEO tools that help you improve your search engine rankings. You can even find free tools, such as SEMrush’s free Website Traffic Checker can tell you how much monthly traffic your competitors’ websites
get, how much traffic they get from paid advertising, and what keywords their sites are showing up for.

Engage in social listening.

Social media can be hard to keep track of if you don’t have dedicated marketers or social media managers. Platforms like Hootsuite can help here. This will help you understand and track public conversation around your market, your brand, and your competitors. It’s a
strategic way to stay informed about industry trends and customer expectations.

Employing a comprehensive competitor analysis strategy, from conducting SWOT analysis to engaging in social listening, is fundamental in maintaining a competitive edge and adapting in a fast-paced market. By learning from the environment around you, you can craft strategies that are not only responsive but also proactive. Remember, the goal is to understand your competitors to outperform them, not to imitate them.

Market Trend Analysis

Understanding market trends is crucial for staying relevant and making informed decisions. Market trend analysis can help predict where your industry is headed, which innovations are gaining traction, and how customer behavior is evolving. Here’s how to stay ahead:

Utilize industry reports and market research.

Companies like Dun & Bradstreet, Gartner, and Forrester regularly conduct research across all industries to make predictions and observe trends. These reports are typically
priced in the $1,000-$7,000 range, but can provide invaluable, authoritative data that helps you make proactive decisions.

Attend industry conferences, webinars, and workshops.

These events are goldmines for current information, networking, and gaining a fresh perspective on your market.

Implement Google Trends and Google Alerts.

These are free tools you can use to track the amount of searches for certain keywords over time, and receive alerts on news, press releases, and articles related to keywords you track. This helps you stay on top of the Utilize industry reports and market research.

Sales Data

Your own sales data is a goldmine of insights to help you with sales acceleration. Analyze patterns related to successful deals, customer lifecycle, and repeat business to understand what works and what doesn’t in your sales approach.

Track and analyze customer purchase patterns.

Use customer relationship management (CRM) platforms like Salesforce or HubSpot to monitor customer interactions, purchase history, and service requests. This can help you identify trends, such as the most popular products or common reasons for churn.

Evaluate deal closure rates.

Look into your sales funnel analytics to understand what to communicate to buyers and when. Google Analytics is free and can tell you where leads to your website come from, and which pages cause them to exit. Strategic reports and visuals created in your
CRM can help you visualize at what stages you lose potential buyers.

Collect unique data.

The more unique your data is to your specific customer base and sales channel, the more you can glean useful insights and create hard-to-imitate strategies. This could include information from sales claim submissions for incentives, warranty registrations, and customer feedback.

Leveraging sales data analysis effectively empowers you to make informed decisions, tailor your approaches, and ultimately drive your sales forward. By deeply understanding
your customers’ journey, identifying bottlenecks in your sales process, and gathering unique insights, you’re setting a solid foundation for sustainable growth and success.

By marrying the art of customer feedback with the science of data analysis, and by keeping a diligent eye on both market trends and competitor strategies, you’re equipping yourself with the tools for sustained success. Remember, in this dynamic landscape, knowledge is not just power—it’s profit. Let’s turn these insights into action and set the stage for a chapter of growth and innovation.