Now is the time for business owners and executives to close out the sales year with a bang and turn their attention to developing strategies to generate revenue in the upcoming year. There's plenty of evidence that points to a new way of thinking about growing your company. Most notably, the way businesses buy is changing. Buyers are in control of the sales process. According to the Corporate Executive Board, business buyers complete 57% of their sales process before ever contacting a salesperson. They conduct research on purchase options via the internet and by talking to friends and colleagues. Business owners and executives should embrace this new reality as they develop next year's growth strategy. Here are 5 strategies and tactics to consider as you work on your growth planning.

1. Develop ideal customer profiles and focus your sales process on them

In order to optimize your sales process, it's best to focus on the types of prospects that are likely to result in long-term profitable customers for your company. Start by defining your ideal customer profile. Identify characteristics of your ideal customer such as:

• Industry
• Size of Company
• Location
• Internal characteristics (e.g. - companies that have 5 or more salespeople.)
• Role in the buying process

Embed your ideal customer profile into your sales process.

1. Define your target markets based on your ideal customer profile. Identify potential buyers in your market and use SMART goals to define your growth objectives.
2. Target your content marketing towards your ideal buyers. Your content should help them move down your sales funnel on their terms.   
3. Network where they network. This goes for both social networking and face-to-face networking.
4. Develop an analytics dashboard that measures your progress against objectives. Set up your marketing analytics to capture data on your ideal customers.

2. Use inbound marketing to match your sales process to the modern buying process

Inbound markeing is a series of tactics designed to attract buyers to your sales process by providing them with the right information as the move through their buying process. Here is a graphical description of the process courtesy of HubSpot.

Rather than push your sales message out via telemarketing and unsolicited spam email, inbound marketing pulls interested buyers into your sales process by providing content relevant to their purchase decision via your website and social media channels. Simply put, it sells the way buyers buy. Here are the ingredients for a successful inbound marketing program.

• An interactive website that focuses on your target audience. Ditch the brochureware website that focuses on you. No one cares how "innovative", "agile" and "customer-focuses" you are. These are gobbledygook words that mean nothing to your buyers. Focus your website on helping your ideal customers - it will engage them in your sales process. 
• Inbound marketing software like HubSpot. To effectively coordinate all of the tactics shown in the graphic above, you need software that integrates your sales and marketing process and measures everything. It's a must-have.
• A stream of content like blog articles, eBooks, videos and webinars. Look for people internally who can create content and re-purpose the content you already have for inbound marketing. If you don't have the resources internally to keep good content flowing, consider an outsourced inbound marketing solution.
• An analytics process that measures your progress. By watching key metrics, you can adjust tactics to do more of what's working for you.

It takes time to develop the website domain authority and social media reach to generate revenue from your inbound marketing. The longer you wait to get started, the further your competition moves ahead of you.

3. Strategically embed social media in your sales process

Social media has become a part of how we do business. Buyers use social media to follow companies and to interact in groups that share information on their pain points. Use social media throughout your sales process to help you grow.

• Follow your top propsects on social media. Learn what's important to them by monitoring their social networks and participating in groups they frequent.
• Promote your content with social media. Promote your blog articles, content offers and thought leadership. Promote your prospects content - they will appreciate it.
• Use social share and follow buttons to make it easier for buyers to connect with you. Use them on your website, email marketing and landing pages.

Social media also helps you with SEO. Google views a share of your content as a positive sign for search engine ranking. If you'd like to learn more, download our social media planning guide.

4. Use a referral process 

Referrals are a great way to grow your business. Make referrals a goal of your customer service process.

• Ask for referrals across your customer service process. Use service reviews with happy customers as an opportunity to ask,"Is there anyone you know who we could help?"
• Reward referrals. Whether through a formal commission structure or taking someone out for a nice lunch, take care of the people that give you referrals. For customers, consider giving them a discount or free service offer.

The most important thing to remember is that you have to give to get. Make sure you give customers a great experience so that they're happy to refer you to their friends.

5. Measure and Optimize

With inbound marketing and CRM software, you can measure and monitor almost everything you do. If you have an analytics dashboard that measures what's important to you, you can continually improve your sales process and results. Watch key metrics and do more of what's moving the needle and look for ways to improve underperforming processes. For most of us, the key metrics include website visits, leads and customers.

Summary

Now's the time to figure out how you're going to hit next year's growth targets. The best way to grow is to sell the way your buyers want to buy. Use these 5 strategies to optimize your sales process to beat your growth goals.