Alternatives to if in Sales Strategy

• When discussing complex sales models and scaling strategies in professional environments, we often use conditional alternatives instead of standard if-clauses to sound more formal, persuasive, or concise.
• Alternative
• Meaning / Usage
• Example in Sales
• Otherwise / Or else
• If not; in other circumstances
• We must accelerate onboarding in London; otherwise, we will miss our targets.
• Supposing / Assuming (that)
• If it is true that; in the event that
• Assuming that our Austin branch hits its quota, we will expand.
• But for / If it weren't / hadn't been for
• Except for; without the help of
• Had it not been for our regional director in Chicago, we would have lost the key account.
• Remember
• Use 'otherwise' and 'or else' to show the negative consequence of not doing the first action.
• Use 'assuming that' or 'supposing' to introduce a hypothesis or a condition for a business plan.
• Use 'but for' or 'if it hadn't been for' to express how someone or something prevented a disaster in the past.
• Ensure verb tenses match appropriately in hypothetical scenarios, especially when discussing past staffing or revenue mistakes.
• Examples
• Assuming that our headcount model is correct, we will hire five more account executives.
• We need to reduce our attrition rate, otherwise our sales capacity will drop significantly.
• If it hadn't been for the new enablement programme, our time to productivity would have been much longer.
• Supposing we scale too fast in Boston, the cost of a bad hire will destroy our quarterly budget.
• Common mistakes
• We must hire a backfill, or else we miss our quarterly quota.
• We must hire a backfill, or else we will miss our quarterly quota.
• Assuming that our Boston team met their target, we expand the region.
• Assuming that our Boston team met their target, we will expand the region.

Complete the sentences

• We must improve our onboarding bootcamp immediately; (otherwise) ____ our new reps will leave the company.
• (assuming) ____ that our sales hiring plan is approved, we will open an office in Seattle.
• If (it hadn't been for) ____ our team lead in Manchester, our sales capacity would have dropped.
• We need to stagger our hiring in Bristol, (or else) ____ we will face severe cash flow issues.
• (supposing) ____ that the cost of a bad hire increases, how will we adjust our budget?
• But (for) ____ the new enablement programme, our time to productivity would be much worse.

Sources: photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels