The Money Plan On examining your territory and your past selling results and you decide, for instance, "OK last year I sold 2.7 million and this year I want to sell 3 million." There are some questions you are going to have to ask to determine how you will increase your sales and maintain margins. The first thing is to: Maintain Existing Accounts, those that are threatened as well as those that don't appear to be threatened. Let's face it most of the time it's a whole lot easier to keep an account that knows you, than it is to get a new account that doesn't know you. So,Cheap Chuck Howley Jerseys, our first priority is to keep what we already have. The next thing we can look at is: Growing Existing Accounts. Again, it is a lot easier to get more business from an account that is already buying from you than it is to get that business from a competitive account. Once you and your manager have decided on your territory plan, you will need to break the plan down by individual accounts. That is called Account Analysis and we will deal with it in our next article. The second step,Cheap David Garrard Jersey, Account Analysis, breaks the Territory Plan down into the individual strategies you have for each account. This Account Analysis process is used to look into the past and present buying activity and potential of each of our accounts. We then use the Account Analysis to set goals for our customers and prospects and ultimately to help us make our Territory Plan successful. We need to be able to have a realistic view of our accounts. We need to come up with a territory assessment by accounts that says, for example: "here are the accounts I feel will continue to buy the way they are buying or increase their revenue. They add up to just over 2.2 million dollars. Now, here are the accounts that are in flux, these accounts over here could represent some losses this year they represent about $500 thousand. And these over here are the most vulnerable accounts they represent about $300 thousand." I spent a lot of time in the Boy Scouts as a kid but their motto "Be Prepared" never really sank in until I met my first sales manager. Charlie Walls taught me about Territory Planning, Account Analysis and Pre-Call Planning. Quite frankly, it took him a while to teach me those things because at the time I felt I knew everything and could be a success in sales through persistence and my "gift of gab." It was only after I had been properly humiliated and learned what failure felt like that, I was ready to learn about the most basic lessons of selling. An area that might even need to be discussed before you begin to develop your Territory Plan is the issue of money. Many sales reps will determine how much money they want to make in a particular year and then develop a territory plan based on their revenue goals. So let's examine the issue of money. If you are to maintain and grow existing accounts while obtaining new accounts you will have to budget your time. Your Territory Action Plan must include a time management plan. You will have to decide how to parcel your time and make some hard decision based on account size and potential,Cheap Jonathan Stewart Jersey, spending more time with the most valuable accounts and less time with others. In other words, we have a target or set of targets in mind for each account and our Pre-Call Planning helps us to consistently take steps to achieve our overall account objective on each call. You will also need to develop a prospecting plan built around the time you plan to make available, the potential of new business accounts and the amount of new business you to attract. If it is not a part of your daily and weekly selling plan, it will simply not get done. Finally, when we know what our Territory Plan is and we have a plan for each of our accounts, we can plan each of our calls. We call this Pre-Call Planning. And the key is that once we understand our Account Analysis we can make each of our individual sales calls with a selling strategy in mind. Territory Planning As you look at the example territory $2.7 million, you can see that, worst case, the territory could drop in revenue to $1.9 million. That's the real world. And you have to realistically examine your own territory and decide what kind of losses you can expect and what kind of competitive inroads you might possibly be able to make. The Real Plan is in the Details What kind of income do you want to make for the rest of the year or next year? If we take a look at our example again, you need to be able to define what the desired 20% increase in sales will mean to you and your family. Let's face it, the Territory Plan you are about to develop will mean a lot of work...It will mean that you will be away from you family a lot. It will mean that even when you are at home you may be working on projects for customers. Building Territory Strategies So,Cheap Adrian Peterson Jersey, Territory Planning should start with recognizing that each existing account is usually a two-sided issue. Some represent potential loss and others represent potential gain. Now let's take a closer look at Territory Planning, the first of the three parts of planning. If we are going to move from 2.7 to 3 million that means that you will have to find an additional $300,000 in sales revenue, while insuring that you maintain your existing sales. So that is the key question, what kind of money will you make or do you want to make and what will you do with that extra income? The second half or your territory plan should include a clear strategy to accomplish three things; Finally, we can look at: Obtaining New Accounts from the competition. While this is the most time consuming strategy, this is also potentially the most rewarding strategy. There are prospects out there that need the services,Cheap Brodie Croyle Jersey, programs and professionalism that you and your organization offer. Penetrating these accounts may take some time but they represent a potentially significant boost in revenue. (This material was originally written for food service sales professionals,Cheap James Jones Jersey, but the principles apply across many business-to-business applications.) Charlie helped me see that I needed a three prong planning system for sales success. The planning system he was talking about starts with Territory Planning, an overall view of the territory, it looks at the big picture. Typically, you would do territory planning once a year. It is a long term planning process that incorporates your income goals, corporate strategies, territory history and probable territory potential. The first thing that we have to recognize is that we cannot guarantee that all of our accounts will stay with us at the same level of buying. Some will go out of business, some will slow down, some will move to the competition while some will probably grow and buy more. Territory Planning is usually long term planning and it helps you to maximize the use of your time and ensure that you are consistently building territory revenue by calling on a good mix of new prospects and regular customers. So, will the rewards be worth the effort? What you will do with the extra money? Will you plan a special vacation? Will you put a percentage of the money into savings for the children's education or a new home? I have a feeling that you will come closer to meeting or exceeding your Territory Plan if you have the support and encouragement of your family. There is nothing quite as encouraging as a couple of kids asking, "Hey Dad, How is that Disney world trip coming along?" Or "Are we going to make it to the mountains again this year?"