The Art of Selling Professional Sales Planning Fosters Accidents By Art Waskey 2008.03 Recently I reviewed my regular two-week cycle of daily call reports from ten account managers. These reports covered activities for early December, the end of another business tax year for most customers. To my delight, several of the managers received unanticipated large orders, but equally to my concern, there were several comments on how "fortunate they were" to have "just happened to stop by at the right time." Do you effectively communicate on a regular basis with your key accounts, your best clients? Be honest with yourself. Do your best clients feel as important as they should?
Here are some suggestions to help ensure that your clients KNOW they are appreciated:
1. Know your Top 25 Accounts. Create a 12-month rolling spreadsheet that profiles your top sales and margin customers.
2. Set a Call Frequency. Apply the Pareto, Principle: 20 percent of your customers will generate 80 percent of your sales results. Divide your clients into three groups; then set a call frequency for each group.
3. Create a Monthly Planner. Before the beginning of each month, plan the next 30 days of call activities. Software such as Microsoft Outlook is an excellent tool for recording and interacting with your monthly planner.
4. Record Daily Call History. At the end of each call, set appointments with your customer according to your established call frequency; place new appointments on your calendar. At the end of each day, log your call results. If unexpected events prevented face-to-face contact, re-call your customers.
5. Maintain Decision-Maker Profiles. Ask, listen, and learn all you can about the decision-maker's family, job responsibilities, and recreational activities. Log the information in client relationship management software. During each contact, acknowledge important events that are happening in their lives.
Ponder how much more potential business could have been closed this past year IF your focus had been on maximizing call implementation. In his book, Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play, Mahan Khalsa advises, "A client at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. If all we do is wait for customers to come to us, we are reactive rather than proactive agents of success. We need to be the outside force that gets them moving."
Implementing regular call frequency and using appropriately acquired information fosters trust and rapport with your best clients and prospects. How you treat existing customers has everything to do with how many new referrals are willingly forwarded to you. Sales success doesn't JUST happen; professional planning ensures that it WILL happen!
Art Waskey is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for General Air Services and Supply Company in Denver, Colorado, and author of The Art of Sales in One Month. He can be reached via e-mail at awaskey@generalair.com.
