Divide and conquer: A winning strategy in sales

Maxwell Ocloo Business News Jun - 03 - 2015 , 09:36

There are several parallels between sales and the military. The military and sales organisations wage campaigns.

Salespeople are the “boots” on the ground to ensure that customers, territories and markets are taken and defended.

Similarly, salespeople (soldiers) come in different shapes and dimensions – as Regulars, Special Forces salespeople and many others. In terms of strategies, sales organisations have a lot to learn from military strategies to become very successful.

Divide and conquer

I’m certain that many sales professionals have heard the expression “divide and conquer” and have wondered what it is? The divide and conquer strategy is studied in leading military academies throughout the world from the books On War and the Art of War written by Karl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu respectively.

According to Wikipedia, “divide and conquer is an approach to a problem or task, attempting to achieve an objective by breaking it into smaller parts.

Often it is used to separate a force that would be stronger if united, or to cause confusion amongst rival factions. It has applications in many areas, from political science to economic and military strategy.

In contemporary times and throughout history, politicians and the military have used the divide and conquer strategy to overhaul rival nations and win political office by attacking efficiently.

Entrepreneurs and business leaders have also used the divide and conquer strategy – dividing a business into manageable business units to enable them focus on their core expertise and markets with agility and purpose.

Applying the same concept to sales

Sales professionals identify new customers, new ways of penetrating existing markets, develop new markets, promote new products as well as retain existing customers.

However, in an environment where revenue goals must be achieved at the lowest cost possible, it has become imperative for them to become cost-efficient and effective in their business development activities.

The implication for sales professionals is to think strategically - how to improve their sales efficiency and effectiveness at every stage of the sales process in order to grow sales and market share for their organisations.

In military terms, “divide and conquer opens up the battlefield, offering more room and spacing for a variety of tactical maneuvers.” Sales professionals can adopt selected principles embedded in it and apply it tactically to become successful in the market place.

Here are 2 divide and conquer principles:

Principle #1: Isolate portions of an enemy force, hopefully making them easier to defeat

As an alternative to attacking the whole spectrum of potential customers when prospecting, salespeople must “isolate portions of the market by splitting it down into smaller and manageable segments, making it easier to win.”

This requires sales professionals to focus all their energies on a well defined segment of prospects by either size, industry, location etc. This will allow salespeople concentrate their prospecting activities effectively instead of spreading thinly trying to develop business everywhere.

It also allows salespeople to prioritise leads and prospects, objectives, as well as identify which segments to invest the time and resources to achieve the necessary sales results.

Principle #2: Divide your forces and attack on multiple fronts

Quite often, I’m cold-called by salespeople wanting to sell me one solution or the other. On one of such occasions, I had 4 relationship managers from a financial institution calling.

These guys spent 45 minutes interacting with me, during which time only one of them did the talking and the rest looked on as observers. The irony is that there were six other offices in the block to which each of the remaining three could have gone to cold-call. Their excuse for not doing so was that they were team selling. What a costly mistake!

Another source of such costly mistakes is the decision of some sales organisations to assign a car to three or four salespeople hoping that each of them will achieve at least five (5) face-to-face meetings with prospects in a day.

That’s wishful thinking! It doesn’t happen and won’t happen. Such a unified sales force whether by design or mistake won’t be effective in reaching several customers and prospects.

Calculation 1 – Sales potential of a unified sales force attacking on one front

Now let’s work out the math using the above example: 4 salespeople jointly calling on 8 prospects daily = 8 prospects daily. With a sales force closing ratio of 4:1 and an average order value at GH¢1,000, the total sales per day will be GH¢2,000 for the organisation.

On the other hand, use the divide and conquer strategy to “divide your sales force and attack on multiple fronts” in order to effectively reach a wide prospects and customer base.

Sales organisations must define geographical territories as well as accounts in areas and from sources which are probably going to contain their ideal customers.

Each sales professional should then be assigned a territory and/or an account list that they will focus on as part of their sales responsibilities.

This strategy of deploying the salespeople on multiple fronts if well managed and resourced will yield better sales results for sales organisations.

Calculation 2 – Sales potential of a divided sales force attacking on multiple fronts

In contrast to the calculation in the example above: Each of 4 salespeople individually calling on 8 prospects/day = 32 prospects/day. With the same sales force closing ratio of 4:1 and average order value at GH¢1,000, the total sales per day will be GH¢8,000 for the organisation.

Based on the two calculations above, as a sales professional, decide for yourself which strategy to adopt.

Conclusions

Sales professionals must begin to have a strategic mindset to become successful. The advice to sales organisations and professionals is found in what Sun Tzu said: "Whether to concentrate or to divide its troops, must be decided by circumstances."

Until Next Time, Happy Selling!

The writer is the CEO of Salesmark Services,

A Sales Management & Training Firm.

He is also a Sales Consultant, Trainer & Coach

For a FREE Consultation, you can reach him at

E-mail: mocloo@salesmarkservices.com

Whatsapp: 0244279368