Plan for Success

“No Plan, stay in the car”.  These were the words of my manager several years ago when I was starting out in my sales career.  At first, I was surprised by what he was saying….How could I make a sale by staying in the car?  I thought about what he said and it was true.  It is not what you say that counts but how you say it.  Did you take time to practice what you were going to present? Do you care about the person you are selling to?  Does this person have potential to use my product? Do you know what his/her needs are?  Have your formulated a plan?  What were the results from the last call?  What are you planning to do this call? Those six words “No Plan, stay in the car” has been a theme that I have carried through my career in sales and sales management.  It is one of my core beliefs for success.

 

How do we go about building a plan?  There are many algorithms and formulas that I researched prior to putting this blog together.  First and foremost, the plan comes from analysis of the business.  By definition, Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it.  Hopefully, our goal of analysis will help us to create solutions, improve efficiency, reduce waste and advance the business one step at a time.

With gasoline hovering at $4.00 a gallon. How important is it for each of us to make sure that we have good planning in place? 

The President’s Council Award trip.  Is this a goal of yours and if so…Each call puts you closer to winning…are you spending your time in the right place?

Your children’s tuition bill is due. What is your bonus check looking like right now?  How many extra sales do we need to get to pay in cash?

The new car, boat, vacation home. How can we make these dreams come true?

 If we want these things and change those dreams into goals (by writing them down) the next step is planning for success.  By definition, Business analysis is the discipline^[1] of identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions often include a systems development component, but may also consist of process improvement, organizational change or strategic planning and policy development.

One way to assess these goals is to measure the return on investment (ROI) for all projects. The general rule of thumb is that 80% of our business will come from 20% of our customers.  My personal thinking on this rule is closer to 95%-5%.  If either of these ratios is valid, how do we make the most of our time in growing our business?

My goal is to focus more on the responsibilities of first line management for this blog but also note that there are various formulas that executive management needs to perform prior to entering various markets.  One such analysis is Heptalysis Analysis  -This is used to perform an in-depth analysis of early stage businesses/ventures on seven important categories:^[3] 

Market Opportunity    Financial Engine         Product/Solution

Execution Plan            Human Capital            Margin of Safety         Potential Return

We get the green light to move into the market.  It is now the obligation of first and second line management in ensuring that we are all “rowing” in the same direction.  The analysis that field management will take is based on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that we face in competing successfully this market.

Focus activities into areas of strength and where the greatest opportunities lie as well as identifying the dangers that take the form of weaknesses and both internal and external threats.
The four attributes of SWOT:

Strengths - What are the advantages? What is currently done well? (e.g. key area of best-performing activities of your company)

Weaknesses - What could be improved? What is done badly? (e.g. key area where you are performing poorly)

Opportunities - What good opportunities face the organization? (e.g. key area where your competitors are performing poorly)

Threats - What obstacles does the organization face? (e.g. key area where your competitor will perform well)

Once SWOT is completed, the 95-5 rule takes place.  Each of the field representatives needs to analyze their territory to make sure that they are spending their time wisely with key opinion leaders and key producers.  The data that we have in virtually all industries today is significant and if used properly can have a profound impact on results.

It is imperative that our field personnel are spending their time with targeted focus.  Many companies today utilize an A,B, C target plan which is similar to my blog a while back on priorities.  The “must do, should do, and like to do” lists as it relates to administrative responsibilities.  Our representative’s time needs to be laser-focused on the “Must do’s” and occasional “Should do’s” as it relates to targeted customers.  The “like to do’s” have no justification on being called on.  They are “feel good” calls that generate little if any ROI.

The time spent on analysis upfront can have a weighty impact on the end result.  In today’s computerized market with sales operations providing tomes of data, it is essential  that we digest this data without being overwhelmed.  An important threshold is reached where the “rule of diminishing returns” sets in.  We can get paralyzed with data.  Always keep in mind that action is required to make something happen.  Analysis without action does not help you have any kind of positive impact.