Building a Territory Plan

If you find yourself with some extra time at this very slow time of the year, think about what you can do to position yourself going in to the New Year. Take this time to build your plans for next year – independently. Don’t rely on your manager to tell you what needs to be done. Make a plan yourself. A well though-out territory plan will help you build momentum early in the year.

All good plans start by asking three basic questions: Where are we now? Where are we going? How are we going to get there? A territory plan is no different. _____________________________________________________________________________

Pardon the interruption, but I wanted you to know that my new book, Common Sense Sales, is now available at Amazon.com.  You can click HERE to find it.  There is more information on the right hand side of the screen regarding it and my first book, Click “Send” and Sell.  Be sure to check them out.
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To answer the first question, “Where are we now?”, take a look at your territory and understand what companies are buying from you - or have bought from you. What kind of companies were they? Retailers? Manufacturers? Service companies? Banks? How large are they? How many employees, locations, or square footage? This kind of work is indispensible when creating a territory plan. Leveraging prior success in specific industries and company sizes can make your work much easier in the coming year.

Next, apply some metrics against the data that you have accumulated. Are there consistencies around them? Maybe you generated 80% of your sales from 20% of your customers. What do those 20% all have in common? Go back to the figures above and do some further digging. Is there a revenue-per-employee number that is consistent across your top customers? Do they export more goods, occupy more or less square footage or treat fewer high-risk patients? Try to find some commonality in the data so that you can hone your upcoming efforts.

Your work here should culminate in understanding who buys from you by industry, location, company size and the like.

Next question, “Where are we going?”. Once you have identified your top few industries or company types, take stock of how many of those same kinds of companies are in your territory. What kind of penetration have you been able to achieve? How many similar companies are still available to call on? Where are they located? Are there clusters? Work to identify them and begin to create a mental map of how you plan to spend your time in the year ahead. If your territory includes large, publicly traded companies, use their filings to determine if there are high growth divisions located in your territory.

Your job now is to create a list of target prospects. This kind of work can be particularly challenging if you call on small to mid-sized companies. Sources for this information will be largely web-based, with Hoovers containing some great summary reports that you can use to start your research. Another source of information is your shoes! Go in to large office buildings and jot down the names of companies on their welcome signage located in the lobby. A sales rep and I once spent an entire day walking in to large office complexes writing down company names and he had enough data to keep him selling for several weeks. Do you keep driving by a building with an unknown company name on the outside? Look them up on the web!

This part of the planning process should yield a list of prospects that will keep you busy in the coming months. And by busy, I mean prospecting and closing business, not just research.

The last question, “How are we going to get there?”. This is a great time to determine what it took to close new business in the prior year. If you use your CRM to log every call, email and such, you have a great repository of information. One study that I conducted after about six months of selling was that it took about eight touches to close a deal. That was helpful information for me as I looked towards building my plan. I also had data on how many touches it took to have a meaningful conversation; how many conversations to set an appointment; how many appointments to get a demo; how many demos to close a sale; and so on.

If you don’t have that level of data, you are bound to have some high level information about what it takes to close business. I would suggest that you take a look at an article that I posted called,”How Much Pipeline is Enough?”. In it you will learn how much pipeline and activity you will need to hit your numbers.

This part of the plan will give you insight in to the number of accounts that you will need to penetrate in order to achieve your sales goals. And, make sure that you have three to five times the number of accounts needed. You won’t hit a sale with every company.

Creating a territory plan can be a daunting task, but it is worth the time. In an earlier blog, I wrote about the best rep I ever worked with (HERE). He spent his entire Thanksgiving weekend planning his territory. That’s commitment.

If you take the time to plan create a territory plan, you’ll have a roadmap for success. Otherwise you’re allowing chance and fate to drive your success. Very risky.

A Good Start to a Productive Day

Years ago I was working for a very successful entrepreneur. I was his general manager, running the day-to-day business. A new role for me, but something he had been doing for several years. One day, feeling overwhelmed, I asked him how he managed to get everything done. He said that he started every day with his to-do list. Then, and most importantly, he knocked out the things that he disliked the most. Once those were out of the way he felt more productive and in a much better mood.

All of our jobs require us to do things that we don’t like to do. I don’t care if you’re the top executive, a sales manager, sales rep, receptionist, or business owner. We all have them. And nothing makes the day grind along slower than procrastinating on those things that we just don’t want to deal with.

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If you are a seller, you probably hate reports and paperwork more than anything else. And, your internal brand may be suffering as a result. Instead of putting it off, take care of that paperwork FIRST THING. You’ll feel better for it, your boss and colleagues will appreciate it, and it will remove that dark cloud of procrastination from over your head.

So here is your to-do from this article: make a list of things that you need to do tomorrow. Now put a big start next to the things you really don’t want to do. Then tomorrow morning get to work a few minutes early and knock those things out. You’ll feel that cloud lift and energized to sell.

Try some sound advice from my old boss - a person who sold his company for $30m in cash.

You Know More Than You Think

Several years ago I agreed to coach my son’s 7^th grade basketball team. I had not played basketball since 8^th grade and can’t say that I was a huge fan of the sport. But I agreed to coach nonetheless. As the day before the first practice approached, I grew more and more apprehensive about coaching. Finally the day for the first practice arrived and I was speaking with a colleague at work about my nervousness. He told me, “Sam, no matter what, you know more about basketball than a 7^th grader.” That completely calmed my nerves. In the same way I think many sellers get rattled when speaking with a large prospect or demanding customer. You need to remind yourself that you are an expert at what your company does, and no matter what, you know more about your product than they do.

This issue came to a head for me just recently. A customer and I had several conversations over a several week period. But something wasn’t working – we weren’t on the same page. He was growing ever more frustrated with me. Somehow the follow up to his questions wasn’t satisfying to him. While I was getting him what he asked for, it wasn’t fulfilling his needs. Not seeing revenue associated with all of this work was beginning to frustrate me as well. Finally he said exasperated, “We don’t know what questions to ask you!” Then that basketball coaching memory flooded back – I know way more than this customer about our products and should be giving direction instead of taking direction. At that point I changed my selling style and we started making some real progress.

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Have you ever had a prospect “go dark”? If you’ve been in sales for any length of time it has surely happened. The LinkedIn groups that I participate in are full of posts asking for help with this very topic. Well I have the answer and it works nearly every time. It’s called the “Are You?” email and it is described in detail in my book, Click “Send” and Sell. Three Unconventional Emails with Extraordinary Sales Results. At only $3.99 the book is a bargain and the results you see will be amazing. Don’t take my word for it, read the reviews yourself! Some of them can be found on the right hand side of my blog page.

The book is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

What happened in my scenario happens frequently in sales – we give our prospect too much credit for knowing things that they don’t. In my case the prospect was constantly asking for information that I was happy to provide, but it wasn’t helping him. Once I realized that he didn’t really know why he was asking for the information, we had a level-set conversation and I was able to guide him down a different path. It was a very difficult but necessary conversation.

Sellers typically assume that prospects know how to solve their problems, ask all the right questions, and determine next steps. But your prospects have full time jobs with varying responsibilities. Thinking about you and how you can solve their problems is a tiny fraction of what they spend time on throughout the day. You probably know way more than they do about how your solution can help them and they are relying on you more than you know.

Try this. On your next sales call, instead of asking the classic “What are the next steps in your process?” say “Here’s what I would like to suggest as a next step.” Take ownership of the sales process instead of asking your prospect to. Show some leadership and value-add. They may not know the next step or questions that they should be asking. Remember that first house you bought? You were totally lost without the realtor guiding you through the process. What if the realtor had said, “So now that we have a signed offer, what next?” Would you have known to order an inspection, survey, pick a title company, etc.? Not likely.

You are probably giving your prospect too much credit for what they know. If you suspect that is the case take a different approach. You’ll like the results.

It Takes a Village to Close a Big Deal

I’ve always told my reps that if you win a big deal on your own – you’re a hero. If you lose a big deal on your own - you’re in big trouble. Organizations will galvanize around large opportunities and provide resources to help you win. Take advantage of them or ignore them at your own peril.

This can apply to third parties as well. Often times there are consultants working with your customer or prospect that have become trusted advisors. Don’t ignore them. Sell to them. Befriend them. Gain their trust and confidence. Their willingness to recommend you or at least not sell against you can also make a huge difference in your success or failure.

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Check out this latest review: "How often do you get to sit next the author of a book on a plane ride. Well I did. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Sam Lorimer. Not sure how we got on the subject of Click, Send and Sell but we did. And am I glad we did. Out of curiosity I bought Sam's book the next morning and tried out his email strategy. Within 5 minutes of sending the emails I received responses from 2 customers that I have been trying desperately hard to reach. I could not believe it. I was so taken aback I sent Sam and email and shared the story. In all my years of reading business stuff, these are 22 pages of frankly the most powerful sales help I have ever received. For what it’s worth, I sell airplanes to really, really wealthy folks. These people are typically very hard to reach. I'm not sure if its coincidence, but I don't believe in luck. Thanks for sharing such a simple piece of insight Sam."

The book is available at just about every electronic outlet, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Kobo. It’s also available for your iPad at the iTunes store.

No eReader? No problem! Click HERE to download and print the book in any format you want.

Working with others in your company on a large deal requires a great deal of leadership from you. Typically, you will be directing the efforts of people outside of your immediate organization and often times folks in senior management positions. How you lead the effort not only affects whether or not you win the business, but how you brand yourself internally and position yourself for greater responsibility. Typically, people who are helping you genuinely want to see you win the business. You may not be the only person with a financial incentive to win! They are looking for you to provide direction on how to attack the opportunity. Own that. Run with it. Provide the leadership. They’ll be happy to follow.

When you execute leadership in this kind of scenario, organizational barriers can be lifted and things can get done quickly that otherwise can be selling challenges. Special pricing, delivery, presentation materials, travel expenses, all can be approved and provided, all dependent upon your ability to lead and sell internally.

No organization wants to lose. Your ability to shed the ego and get help can and will make a difference when closing a large opportunity. Get the help, provide the leadership, and see your large deals come to life. Not only will you stand a better chance of winning and get the recognition that you deserve, you may also set yourself up for more responsibility.