How to Run a Constructive and Helpful Sales Account Plan Review – Part 2

In the last post, I promised to cover the broad Account Planning categories one might cover and the type of questions one might ask. A sales coach, like a good salesman, learns more and teaches better by asking well planned, insightful questions and letting the team do most of the talking.

ACCOUNT OVERVIEW
Start here - even if YOU know the state of the account. You want the team to be able to articulate it and challenge their thinking.

• Where are we with this account and where should this planning session focus?
• Describe the customer's business model. What are the customer’s longer term goals (24 to 36 months)? Growth strategies? Productivity Initiatives? New product launches?
• How is their financial health? Drill into the balance sheet and income statement. Spending patterns/trends? Financial Ratios? Cash position?
• Where is the customer’s “pain”? How bad is it? Do we understand it? Can we solve it?
• What does their vendor/service provider portfolio look like? Who are the outside “trusted advisers”?
• What would this customer say about us?

INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
• Describe the macro sector trends and economic factors most impacting the customer.
• What significant events have taken place on the customer's competitive landscape (recent loss of market share to a new competitor or disruptive emergent technology)?
• How is the customer doing in the eyes of its end customers and its suppliers?

RELATIONSHIP OVERVIEW
• Who are the key contacts in the relationship?
• Who are our main executive sponsors? What are our goals with each?
• What key relationships have not yet been established? What actions are being taken to close those gaps?
• How are you leveraging alliances/partners to introduce us to new decision makers and influencers in the account?
• Who are the competition’s champions in the account and how do we convert or neutralize them?
• Are we considered a trusted advisor/partner? If yes, how are we leveraging this? What must be done?

COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
• Who are our chief competitors?
• What are the competitor’s goals in the account? What are their key messages?
• What is our competitive strategy? What are our key competitive messages? How are you going to fight them off?

OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS
• (For the top three opportunities) who is the customer executive sponsor? Rate your relationship with him/her. What should it be?
• What other long term opportunities may exist that have not been identified?
• Is this customer aware of our complete portfolio of products and services?
• Describe your strategy to create new opportunities.

PAST PERFORMANCE
• For each key current project, how would the customer assess our performance? What actions are needed?
• Describe what value we have created for the customer in the last 6 months. Can we “dollarize” it? Is the customer aware of it?

TEAM ALIGNMENT
• How often does the sales team get together and work the account issues? Is our whole company supporting you (shipping, pricing, customer support, call center, billing, etc)? What alignment issues need to be resolved with other parts of our company?
• What can I do (as a sales leader) to support you?
• What investments and resources are required for the priority opportunities? Any special needs? Exceptions? How can I help?

FINANCIAL/REVENUE PLAN
• What are the expected revenues for the next month 12 months?
• What has changed with respect to the Financial Plan since our last review?
• What is the financial risk and exposure in this account?

NEXT STEPS
• What are the team’s top actions resulting from this review (let them tell you and write them down)?

To be effective, these reviews should take place every six to nine months for a top account. Getting Account Planning to stick as a sales discipline is hard work but the pay-offs are potentially huge.

Good Selling!

How to Run a Constructive and Helpful Sales Account Plan Review – Part 1

I like to think of an account plan review this way: Imagine you are giving your customer a chest X-ray. Imagine you are in there diagnosing what's working, not working, and where you can help.

Last week, I promised to layout the steps and the methods for running an effective Sales Account Plan Review. So, here we go by the numbers:

1) Purpose:
Be clear on your purpose with the sales team - are you reviewing the strategy, reviewing execution, or trying to help the sales team solve a particular problem? Could be all three. Be clear at the outset about the difference between an opportunity review (near term focus) and an account plan review (long team focus).

2) Preparation:
Consider sending some questions to the sales team in advance. That sends a powerful signal about your sincerity and your commitment to the discipline of account planning. The goal is collaboration. The output is creation and evolution of a better plan. You don’t want to simply poke holes in the plan of a team that is unprepared. That is a culture killer.

3) Elevate:
Keep the team focused on the long term view of the account. Poor account plan reviews focus on the near term sales opportunities. This is wrong. Don’t get the team drawn into deals in the pipeline and tactics. It may be appropriate to cover some major deals but only to determine if you need to schedule a deeper opportunity review later. Account strategy is more than a string of individual opportunity strategies.

4) Meeting Length:
For a key account, one should typically schedule 90 minutes. Give it the time it deserves. Give the sales team YOUR time.

5) Time Allocation/Approach
Allocate time to different parts of the plan depending on the planning needs of the account. For example, if we are weak on our relationship strategy, spend a lot of time on that. Account strategy also changes depending on if we are penetrating, growing share, or fighting off a competitor.

Next week, I will cover the broad account planning categories and the type of questions you might ask.

Good selling!

The “No-Quick-Fix” Approach to Delivering Results in Sales - Account Planning

Most companies can’t get Account Planning to stick as a sales discipline. They try. They hire consultants. They have big kick-off meetings and for a few weeks, everyone is excited. Soon, the excitment gives way to the daily pressures of phone calls, meetings, e-mails, travel (make your own list) and the enthusiasm fades like a cheap shoeshine. Worse, everyone gets cynical and realizes it was another management flavor-of-the-month initiative (cynicism is a huge culture-killer). Salesmen watch the leaders and the leaders are usually the first to drop the ball.

What goes wrong here? Leaders failed to lead. Leaders failed to make Account Planning important. Leaders, seeking a quick-fix, hired consultants to do what they themselves should be doing. As a result, they failed to connect the team to the rewards and benefits of a measure-twice-cut-once sales culture.

Salesmen are by nature, hard working and always on the run. A commonly heard objection to account planning is “I am too busy to bother with making charts for other people to inspect”.

Too busy?

Habit #7 in Steve Covey’s The 7 Habits is called “Sharpen the Saw.” Covey uses the analogy of a woodcutter who is sawing for several days straight without getting the tree down.
A passerby says, “What are you doing?”
The woodcutter snorts, “Don’t bother me, can’t you see I am busy cutting this tree down”.
The passerby shrugs, “Why don’t you try sharpening the saw?”
The woodcutter screams “I’m too damn busy to sharpen the saw!”

Rule #1: Don’t confuse being busy with being effective in the marketplace. What you are after is effectiveness.

Effectiveness. That’s a good word. Let’s look at it-

ef·fec tive·ness, n. The ability of a program, project or task to produce a specific desired effect or result that can be qualitatively measured.


Making it Stick - Three Simple Disciplines: Learn it. Teach it. Coach it.

If you want Account Planning to stick and you want to reap the reward of lower selling cost, higher revenue, better margins, stronger customer loyalty, and a more motivated and energized sales force, you must deeply embed Account Planning into your company culture.

Learn it: The sales leaders need to become students of the Account Planning discipline. They must agree on a vision for Account Planning and be aligned on its purpose and benefits. Then, and this is really important, they have to teach it.

Teach it: That’s right. The sales leaders, NOT THE CONSULTANTS, must teach. Why? Think of the message this sends to the organization about sincerity and commitment. “The boss is taking this seriously. I better pay attention.” Also, no one learns more than the teacher so it this is a powerful way to embed the discipline. Finally, and this is the hard one...coach it.

Coach it: Spending major time here pays off 10x the effort invested. Regular coaching around the account plan with the team and with the salesman is the best way a sales leader can help move the needle, not only on sales results, but on customer loyalty and employee engagement.

A good Account Planning process focuses on helping the team deliver results and to continually elevate their game. In my next post, I will lay out the steps and the methods for running an effective account plan review.

Good selling!

Consultative Selling-What Is It All About?

When a customer buys a product, especially a major capital expense B2B product or service, that customer is really buying a 10 to 20 year relationship with you and your company. Product support, service, and life cycle cost management insight become really valuable to the customer. It’s important to dramatically increase your focus here to better serve the customers and differentiate your offering.
To do this, you must understand your customer's business environment better than ever before. The low hanging fruit of operational cost saving and efficiency has already been picked. You need to engage your customers on a level that is much deeper than that required to simply sell a product. You have to climb inside the heads of the customer’s key executives/managers/users in multiple departments and even up and down their supply chain. It’s hard work!
The consultative salesperson resists the temptation to "pitch" a product or solution until he has laid a solid foundation for selling. This means you have had sufficient dialogue with the customer, and even the customer's customer, to understand their operating environment, critical business drivers, and existing high priority business initiatives. You have to really validate that your solution is sustainable in the customer’s unique business environment.
Consultative selling is way beyond the “thing” you are offering. Consultative selling creates preference for you and your insight… and that creates preference for your product/service and your company.
Consultative selling, from a sales leader's perspective, is the outright transformation of your customer facing teams (sales teams) into service oriented teams that provide operational and business insight to the customers. That becomes your unique identifying characteristic when products alone get harder to differentiate due to price cutting and misinformation.
Ask yourself, are we creating value on every sales call? Ask this question...did we bring so much value/insight to that company’s CEO in today's 1 hour engagement that she would be willing to write us a check for the time we spent together? A consultative sales call provides value to the customer far beyond the features, advantages and benefits of a product:
· Provide access to deep subject matter expertise that doesn’t exist within the customer’s organization.
· Surface tough issues or business realities that would be difficult or dangerous for the customer’s CEO to surface on her own.
· Provide access to an independent outside perspective and the chance to look at a business problem in a different way.
· Shine a light on unrecognized problems.
· Provide knowledge of unanticipated solutions.
· Clear away the fog of competition and markets to revel previously unseen business opportunity.

And if you and your company can't solve the customer’s problem, then you can still add value by becoming a knowledge broker and finding someone that can provide the solution. Don’t worry; they will love you for that too.

Good selling!

Coaching performance - Charting the Course for 2009

It's getting close to the end of the year. Time to start planning for next year. Sitting down with your salesman now produces a much better result than waiting until Jan 5th. Here are some thoughts about coaching around the 2009 sales plan.

Things to ask in any Sales Plan review
1. Are major trends and changes in our business environment affecting your sales plan? Specifically, what potential developments in customer demand, competition, disruptive technology, or the regulatory environment could have enough impact on the industry to change the game and the rules?
2. How and why is this sales plan different from previous plans?
3. What were your forecasts for market growth, and sales last year, two years ago, and three years ago? Where you right? What did you learn?
4. What would it take to double your sales and increase your margin by 25% (deal quality)? Where will growth come from: expansion (bigger pie) or gains in market share (take-a-ways), other?
5. If your plan is to take market share from competitors, how will you do it, and how will they respond? Are you counting on a clear product advantage, new value levers, better account management or superior sales execution?
6. What are your distinctive competitive strengths, and how does the plan build on them? How do you communicate your value story?
7. How different is the sales plan and strategy from your competitor’s? Why?
8. What are you going to do to hone your skills and strengthen your team’s skills?

Good selling!

21 Life Tips To Boost Your Sales (from Anthony Robbins)

What is the difference between a hole in one and a birdie? It's not luck. It's skill. Like Gary Player said, "The more you practice, the luckier you get". These are 21 good things to practice and they will boost your sales and enrich your life. Print them out and carry them in your wallet. Read them daily along with your other goals. I am going to reflect on them and I hope you will too.

Good Selling!

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.

FIVE. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much. NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. I skipped it...not that good a tip.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN... Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

TWENTY- ONE. Spend some time alone.

The Lost Art of Validating Value – Getting the Customer to tell you why he loves your product

Validating value doesn’t always happen after the customer buys. In fact, value validation is a great selling discipline to employ late in the decision process, especially when the customer is in the angst of resolving those final concerns. I went on the road for a week coaching sales calls with some of our sales people. On one call, we had a service deal on the table with an important customer who was growing dissatisfied with their current provider. Earlier in the year, our salesman had uncovered that pain and developed it into an strong need for change. They invited us to bid against the incumbent!

On this sales call, we were closing and we knew the customer was really agonizing over the decision. The board was meeting the next day to decide and “our man” had to make the recommendation. We were more expensive but we had a better offering and the client knew it. Change is hard but justifying a higher price to your boss is harder!

Planning the Sales Call
In the pre-call session, we developed questions designed to get “our man” talking about why our offer was superior and why now was the time to change.

Here are the questions:
-What are the main reasons that you have decided change the business model?
-Why is that important to you?
-What savings does that produce? Any other savings?
-How else will it help you?

-I know our program costs a little more, but how is it different from your current provider’s program?
-Are there other differences?
-Are those differences important enough to justify the higher price?
-What do you see as the three main benefits of our service vs. your current provider?
-Does that make a big difference? Why?
-Anything else we may be missing?

You get the idea…

Professional salespeople get the client talking and describing the benefits in the client’s own words. Pros rehearse clients by asking them well planned questions. Average salespeople don’t. Average salespeople show and tell and talk, talk, talk. Average salespeople try to fill the client’s head up with what’s in the brochure, on the PowerPoint, and in the proposal. It just flat does not work and that is why they will always be average salespeople. As Jeffery Fox says, be a seller, not a teller. Ask great questions. Stop talking and take notes. Let the customer tell you what they value about your offer.