What is Sales Strategy?
The foundation of capital efficient revenue growth
Strategy Is Power
At its core, strategy is about power. The power to influence outcomes, shape decisions, and achieve your objectives.
Yet strategy is one of the most misunderstood concepts in business but especially in sales, where strategy gets confused with tactics, reduced to buzzwords, or used to justify random activities with no direction.
What Strategy Is NOT
Strategy is not your sales model, sales processes, or methodologies. It is not your tactics which is how you sell. Strategy and tactics are two sides of the same coin. You need to be good at both.
Here's the key difference:
Tactics = How you sell
Strategy = Who, what, when, where, and why you sell
Most of the existing sales systems focus on sales tactics. The experts talk about "how" to sell better. Strategy has been poorly defined. Neglected. Until now.
Why Get Good at Strategy?
An interesting thing happens when you get good at strategy. Sales professionals consistently earn 3-5x more commissions than tactical executors. And they find themselves getting "tapped on the shoulder" to take on leadership roles. Companies that support sales strategy development consistently exceed their revenue targets and have stronger customer relationships.
Strategy is timeless. Tactics change with the times.
The Power Framework
Here is my definition of strategy:
Strategy is the discipline of creating power to navigate uncertainty and achieve your objectives in competitive, rapidly shifting, and AI-powered markets.
Let's break this down:
Discipline: Strategy is not something you do occasionally and excel at it. It is the systematic process of creating and applying power.
Creating Power: You generate power by managing three elements—time, velocity, and position. That's it.
Navigating Uncertainty: When outcomes are predictable, you don't need strategy. Just execute. But when they're uncertain, you need strategy to manage risk and create successful outcomes.
Achieving Objectives: Everything aligns toward defined goals, whether closing critical deals or hitting revenue targets.
Competitive: You're always competing in business, so it's essential to have competitive strategies in place. Your competition can be external—direct competitors to your offering—or internal with the buyer as competitors for budget.
Rapidly Shifting: You need to adapt your deal strategies to the constant shifting of power and priorities in your deals.
AI-Powered: AI is now part of every business process. It needs to be treated as a distinct persona as it operates and processes information differently than humans.
A Simple Story
When I was 8, I started pitching little league baseball. My first time on the mound, I was terrified. Hit the batter with my first pitch, the umpire with my second.
My strategy became simple: Don't hurt anyone.
Over time, it evolved to "get the ball over the plate." I focused on tactics—grip, windup, follow-through. This worked through high school.
Major league pitchers are different. They master 4-5 pitches and constantly work on tactics. But they also develop game strategy daily by studying opponents, analyzing situations and working with coaches and teammates on best practice.
What pitch they throw depends on the batter, inning, runners on base, pitch count, and field position. They have 5-10 seconds to decide. That's strategy. How they throw it is tactics.
The Question
Are you still playing little league ball?
Most sales teams are. They're focused on "getting the ball over the plate" (hitting activity metrics) without developing the strategic thinking that separates professionals from amateurs.
The Elephant
We're entering an era where AI handles most of the tactical execution, making strategy skill in humans more valuable than ever.
There is an opportunity here for sales professionals and business leaders. Those that master strategy will create unprecedented competitive advantages. Those focused only on tactics will find themselves at a growing disadvantage.
This isn't about replacing humans. It's about augmenting human strategic thinking with intelligent systems.
The future belongs to those who combine strategic mastery with intelligent tools.
Imagine
Sellers that think strategically and execute intelligently, creating power through better decisions, faster adaptation, and stronger positioning.
This is about what's possible in today’s market. Not fixing what's broken in the old one.
Navigation
I train sales professionals, business leaders, and their AI agents on Sales and Deal strategies using the Compass AI Sales Strategy system. This training acts as a force multiplier, empowering you and your AI agents to work in alignment to win business and exceed your number in competitive environments. Feel free to reach out if I can help you with strategy. It will have a significant impact. Learn more at www.northstar8.com
This was written while listening to Goose.
