What do we mean by Sales Strategy?
- Greg Meehan
- May 2
- 5 min read
We'll be look at strategy through the lens of Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.
If you haven't read it... read it. It's a solid, no BS take on strategy which is easy to execute.
In the increasingly noisy world of B2B sales, strategy often becomes a buzzword filled with fluff and empty statements which amount to just about zero. Teams confuse ambition with direction, and goals with actions. As a result, they end up “going to market” without really knowing why, where, or how.
If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Are we targeting the right market?” or “Why aren’t our words landing?”, then it’s time to go back to fundamentals. Few frameworks cut through the crap like Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy.
Just before dive into that, if you're in the process of creating, reviewing, or refining your current GTM, the first step is to get yourself back to basics... What is the real problem your truly solve, and for whom.
If you'd like an easier way to think about this head over to the resources page and download the customer foundation sheet. This is a great exercise to do with your team.
AND YOU YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT IS HERE:
On with the show...
Rumelt’s work breaks down strategy into something powerful and actually meaningful. It is not a vision board, but rather a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent actions. In this post, we’ll break down how to apply his framework directly to your B2B sales go-to-market (GTM) strategy, specifically how to select the right market and the right words to win.
The Problem with Most B2B GTM Strategies
Too many sales strategies sound like this:
“We’re going after mid-market manufacturing companies in APAC who want to digitally transform. We offer an AI-powered, cloud-native solution that optimises workflows and increases operational efficiency.”
That is not a strategy. It is a description of what you do, sprinkled with industry clichés. It is vague, undifferentiated, and could apply to a dozen other companies.
What’s missing? A real strategy starts with a real problem, and a real problem definition starts with really knowing who you want to serve.
Rumelt’s Core Framework: The Kernel of Good Strategy
Rumelt argues that good strategy has three components and, whilst I'm not one to continuously hop on the bandwagon, I tend to agree.
Diagnosis: What is the challenge we are really trying to solve?
Guiding Policy: What is our approach to overcoming this challenge?
Coherent Actions: What specific steps will we take to carry it out?
Its worth mentioning here that you should be spending a disproportionately large amount of time on the diagnosis, otherwise you'll end up solving for the wrong thing, for the wrong people.
Let’s put this into action with a hypothetical B2B company.
Example: Applying the Framework to a Go-To-Market Strategy
Company: You sell an industrial IoT platform that helps mid-sized factories reduce downtime through predictive maintenance.
Scenario: Growth has plateaued. The sales team is chasing every lead they can find, but conversion rates are dropping and deals are taking longer to close. Marketing is generating “MQLs,” but sales say none of them are qualified. Leadership wants to know why the message is not landing.
Let’s fix it.
Step 1: Diagnosis – What is the real challenge?
A bad diagnosis would say: “We need more leads.”
A good diagnosis digs deeper:
“Our sales team is spending time on prospects who don’t have the authority, urgency, or capability to buy. Meanwhile, our messaging focuses on generic benefits like ‘efficiency’ and ‘automation’ instead of speaking directly to what our best customers care about: reducing unplanned downtime that costs them thousands per hour in lost productivity and, more importantly, very unhappy customers leading to churn and a declining reputation”
This diagnosis is valuable because it frames the real issue as a misalignment between messaging and real customer pain. It is not a lead problem. It is a clarity problem.
Step 2: Guiding Policy – What is our approach to solve this?
A bad guiding policy might say: “Target more verticals and run more campaigns.”
A good guiding policy would say:
“Double down on the sub-segment of manufacturers, specifically food and beverage processors, who experience frequent machine downtime, are regulated by strict health compliance standards, and whose plant managers feel the financial pain daily. Tailor our messaging to speak directly to the operational costs of unplanned downtime using language they understand, not technical jargon.”
This guiding policy creates focus on both where to win and how to communicate effectively.
Step 3: Coherent Actions – What will we do?
This is where you make it real. Here is what coherent actions might look like:
Segment narrowly: Stop chasing all manufacturing firms. Focus on food and beverage plants with more than 200 employees and at least three production lines.
Update messaging: Replace broad claims like “optimise efficiency” with pain-driven language such as:
“Every minute your line is down is revenue lost. We help you predict and prevent downtime before it hits your bottom line.”
Sales training: Equip AEs with a discovery framework centred around cost-of-downtime questions and ROI justification.
Reinforcement learning: Consistent, weekly coaching on new training over a period of 3 months.
Customer proof: Collect case studies with actual metrics. For example:
“Reduced unplanned downtime by 47% in six months for a Tier-2 food manufacturer.”
Tactical focus: Prioritise site visits and product demos instead of cold outbound until the narrative is refined and repeatable.
Why This Go-To-Market Strategy Works
Great sales strategies don’t come from trying harder, they come from thinking smarter. By clearly diagnosing the root problem, aligning your message with customer pain, and taking focused, coherent action, you create alignment across sales, marketing, and leadership.
Rumelt’s framework reminds us that good strategy isn’t complex: it’s clear. The best go-to-market strategies help your sales team prioritise who to talk to, what to say, and how to close.
A Final Warning: Avoid Fluff, Platitudes, and Corporate Nonsense.
Nothing weakens a go-to-market strategy faster than vague, feel-good statements that sound like they came from a generic brand deck, with zero action steps. “We strive to innovate through excellence” or “We empower our customers to succeed in the digital age” might look impressive in a presentation, but they mean nothing in practice. If your strategy sounds like it could apply to any company in any industry, it’s probably a bad strategy. Cut the fluff. Use real words. Solve real problems. That’s how you earn attention and trust in B2B.
Final Thoughts: Is Your Go-To-Market Strategy Focused Enough?
Before launching your next GTM motion, ask yourself:
Are we solving the right problem?
Are we targeting a clearly defined segment?
Are our words aligned with the buyer’s pain?
Are our actions coordinated across the business?
And to save you scrolling back up to the top: To kickstart, you can fill up the super-simple Customer Foundation with a focus on the PROBLEM first
When you can confidently say “yes” to all of the above, you’re no longer guessing.
If you'd like some help kicking off the strategy conversation you can get me at:
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