This Sales Management Association webcast examines key aspects of sales territory optimization and planning, including best practices in supporting effective selling.

Topics:

Setting up Territories for Maximum Efficiency

• Optimally sizing the sales force
• Optimizing your sales force’s target account touches
• Designing territories to address more opportunity

Creating and Implementing High Impact Territory Plans

• Key ingredients of a successful sales plan
• Best practices for turning strategy into action
• Empowering execution

April 17, 2013 at 11:00 AM – 12 noon Pacific Time

Presented by Ken Kramer, Executive Director, Sales and Marketing, TerrAlign; and Ron Snyder, President of Breakthrough, Inc. and Plan2Win Software.

For more information, contact us at info@Plan2WinSoftware.com or 650-508-0622.

Topics:
High-Impact Territory and Account Plans

• Key ingredients of a successful plan
• Turning strategy into action
• Territory/ account management best practices

Connecting with Key Players in the Account

• Test lists and leads
• Optimize your offers
• Climb the Trust Ladder

April 4, 2013 at 11:00 AM – 12 noon Pacific Time

and receive a complimentary copy of:

• 31 Inside Sales ‘Must Haves’ for Driving Appointments, Leads & Sales by inside sales expert Ken Krogue
• White Papers: “Managing Territories to Maximize Results” and “Managing Key Accounts to Maximize Results” by territory and account planning expert Ron Snyder

This webinar is hosted by Insidesales.com and Plan2Win Software, presented by:

Ron Snyder: “High-Impact Territory and Account Plans”
Ron Snyder, President of Breakthrough, Inc. and Plan2Win Software, consults with sales executives, managers and sales teams; helping them significantly improve their sales effectiveness. Plan2Win Software provides territory and account planning apps within Salesforce.com, enabling sales teams to create/ manage sales plans to drive exceptional sales results.

Todd Grierson: “Connecting with Key Players in the Account”
Todd Grierson joined InsideSales.com as the second person on the marketing team and his demand generation expertise fuels InsideSales.com’s annual growth of over 100%. Join us for this webinar to hear how his lead generation secrets can fill your organization’s sales pipeline!

For more information, contact us at info@Plan2WinSoftware.com or 650-508-0622.

Here are our top 25 Account Management best practices…. your results will soar!

1. Anticipate needs as they evolve in the account- based on new technology and product capability, needs and their marketplace. This makes you a true business advisor vs. a vendor.
2. Touch base regularly with the key people in the account. This way you can “feel their pain,” and help them produce the key business results they are responsible for.
3. Understand top management’s strategic initiatives and create aligned goals. Get input and agreement from key people in the account and jointly pursue those objectives.
4. Always look for opportunities to expand your presence in the account, for example upsell or cross sell products, penetrate into new business units and influence new key people.
5. Create a strategic account plan based on trends in the customer’s industry and your product/ service technology. Include your goals, strategies, target opportunities and action plan.
6. Do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Leverage your competitive advantages. Respond to threats from competitors, new regulations, technology…
7. Have a clear value proposition that describes how your solution meets their needs. You must understand their needs and the criteria upon which they will judge what meets those needs.
8. Have a relationship strategy for how you will leverage each of the key people in the account. Focus on helping them achieve their business results and personal agenda.
9. Identify the key members of your account team (internal and partner resources) and what they will do to help you win each target opportunity.
10. Share information across your team quickly so you can identify issues and opportunities and course-correct promptly.
11. Use your network to generate introductions from credible sources; enabling you to connect with people who would otherwise be unreachable.
12. Track the activities of key opinion leaders, industry journals, etc. Sharing the ideas of people with real insights is the easiest way to sound smart and add value.
13. Help them justify the investment via ROI analysis, testimonials, references and case studies. Although they may want to go with your product/service, they need to justify it to themselves and then to their management. Your job is to help them do this.
14. Make your strategies broad enough to have a significant effect over time, yet focused enough to produce measurable results in the account.
15. Make your tactical plan specific; who, what, when, how. The tactics must be clear to anyone who is implementing them.
16. You must have clear metrics so you can measure how you are progressing toward your goals… and if you need to course-correct.
17. Use your plan to engage the critical people needed to implement the plan, for example your management, other internal functions, partners and customer sponsors.
18. When managing meetings between the customer’s and your organization, use your plan to identify your meeting goals, an agenda to meet those goals, who needs to attend and what each person will contribute… including from customer and partner organizations.
19. Track progress against your goals, strategies and action plan. Fine-tune as needed. Focus on the high impact tasks and avoid getting overwhelmed by the many low impact tasks.
20. Perform strategic account reviews, including win/loss analysis, identifying common errors across the team, sharing best practices and enabling learning to improve sales effectiveness.
21. Have your plan readily available in your system of record, i.e. your CRM. This makes it much easier to access it, implement and fine tune.
22. Conduct quarterly customer business review meetings. Review the value/results you have delivered in that quarter, half year and year. Review progress toward joint goals. Get agreement on a joint tactical plan. This results-orientation attracts attendance of higher-level management.
23. Actively create and utilize success stories, case studies and testimonials to demonstrate your impact on results. Use videos – so people can sense the enthusiasm and sincerity.
24. Measure your team’s use of their account plans by including it as a measure in their performance reviews.
25. Encourage the use of account plans and account management by sharing success stories and best practices across the team.

Your mantra must be: Gather Insight, Create Strategy and Execute Tactics!

Here are 25 ways having sales plans will help you predictably achieve your results in 2013.

1. Increase your team’s sales effectiveness and efficiency.
2. Having a plan improves your probability of success.
3. Maintain better visibility into your pipeline and changes in opportunity status.
4. Focus on both short-term and medium-term objectives.
5. Have early warning signals to course correct quickly.
6. Avert unnecessary stalls in the sales process.
7. Leverage the new insights and plans across the entire year.
8. Address new challenges in your territories, vertical markets and industry.
9. Take advantage of new opportunities.
10. Take a fresh look and implement new strategies.
11. Proactively create new opportunities/ change the game.
12. Make sure each strategy is turned into action.
13. Identify new key players in your territories and strategic accounts.
14. Leverage new partners; or current partners in a new way.
15. Effectively respond to new events and opportunities in strategic accounts.
16. Keep your finger on the pulse of important decisions in your accounts.
17. Implement new ways of adding substantial value to your customers.
18. Build new skills and develop your people in important new ways.
19. Recognize and fill gaps in product knowledge.
20. Generate strategies to beat specific competitors.
21. Use a wider range of resources to accomplish your goals.
22. Create/learn new tools and methods.
23. Manage time and territories more effectively.
24. Create new processes that help the team be more effective and efficient.
25. Coach people even more effectively using their plans.

Won’t you and your team be much better off having these factors in your favor?

• An inefficient sales process that increases sales cycle length.
• Creating unnecessary stalls in the sales process.
• Losing business you could have won.
• Selling at a greater discount than necessary.

Here are 6 ways to simplify sales planning and, thereby, avoid these undesirable outcomes and dramatically improve your sales results. Read more.

1. Clarify your sales planning needs- based on the type of selling that you do. In strictly reactive selling, focus the team on how to respond to customer questions. In proactive selling, a sales plan is necessary. The more complex the sale, the more detail required in the plan. Create a sales planning template accordingly.
2. Plan at the appropriate level; opportunity, account, territory, vertical market. Make sure your plan addresses strategy at the appropriate level. Further, it should provide strategy appropriate for the type of partnership activity you engage in.
3. Have a simple template that is easy to use. You must make sure the template covers the key elements of a good plan, yet does not require more detail than is appropriate for the selling situation.
4. Ensure the template is readily available in your CRM system or whatever system you use for managing sales. Without this, it will not be used on a regular basis. Further having it in your CRM, enables you to create reports and dashboards to track progress- at the sales rep and management levels.
5. Use the plan on a regular basis. It is important that management reviews and uses the plans on a regular basis. Make it part of the weekly routine to review the sales plan and fine tune sales campaigns. Without this reinforcement, the team will resist making a plan.
6. Show the impact on results that sales planning is having. Have team members share their successes and discuss how the plan helped them win. This reinforces the use of the plan. Gather feedback and fine tune how you use your sales plans.

Our apps can help you simplify your sales planning process and dramatically improve sales results.

There comes a time in many sales cycles when an opportunity stalls and doesn’t proceed to the next step in the sales funnel.  Calling an opportunity “stalled” implies that after a necessary pause it will again start moving through the sales cycle to closure.

When sales opportunities “stall” at a stage in the sales cycle someone needs to decide if this opportunity requires some action and if it is one that is still winnable.  We all know it is possible “the stall” in the opportunity is not temporary.  It might be an indicator of a deal that could be lost or is already dead.

Important decisions need to be made by the sales team as to whether or how to pursue the stalled opportunity.  Is it temporarily stalled or is it lost or dead? Who decides what the real status of this opportunity is?

The two primary players in the sales process who can make the clearest call on this “stalled” opportunity is the:  (1) customer/buyer and (2) account executive/salesperson.  Yet, neither has the incentive to call it anything other than “stalled.”  Both of them have good reason to “keep the door open” even when a seemingly solid opportunity or business engagement falters.  Calling it “stalled” is beneficial to both.

If the two people closest to the understanding of the stall are convinced this is the status, who else is in a position to evaluate what is going on?    It is the sales manager who must pass judgment on the opportunity and determine a course of action.  In a long sales cycle s/he may have to intervene, arbitrate, or make judgments on this matter multiple times.

On what basis will the sales manager make decisions on what to do about the opportunity labeled as “stalled?”

Reviewing the sales plan template provides visibility into the pipeline of each account and territory manager.  Regular account and opportunity reviews utilizing CRM data will be essential.   However, another vantage point on the stalled opportunity could also provide valuable perspective.  Is this opportunity in a strategic account where maintaining or extending vendor position is crucial?  Is this opportunity critical to a territory realignment that is being implemented?  CRM data alone does not allow for good decision making in these situations.

Complementing CRM account and opportunity activity with account and territory sales plans may provide the best basis for determination. The sales manager must review previously created account and territory plans to bring strategy and goals into the determination process.

The sales manager decides on whether the opportunity is stalled, lost, or dead and what to do about it.  Only s/he can make the call.  To do so, a sales manager needs visibility on the situation provided by reviewing sales plans and progress.

One was an Arab and one was a Jew. He asked them each what was most important to them. Their answers were virtually the same. They wanted good health, to be able to support themselves and their families and to enjoy life. Pointing this out calmed the crowd and enabled him to go forward with his seminar.

The reason I bring this up, as we approach Thanksgiving, is that it is so easy to take these basic things for granted.

As I write this, I am reminded to be thankful for the important people in my life, including my wife, family, friends, colleagues and customers… for my health, that I have time and money to enjoy myself… and, of course, for my dog, Jester. He reminds me to be happy!

It is good that we have Thanksgiving every year to remind us of this. Beware; don’t let this become “corny.” Make a point to look back on each day and recount what you are thankful for.

A good way to do this is to keep a Gratitude/Victory List. Take note of what you are thankful for and what victories you have had. This will put things in perspective and provide motivation to get up the next day and go for it again.

Good luck in this coming year!

You are not alone!

Having an effective sales planning process, sharing insight across the internal team and enabling great demos, greatly improves sales productivity and use of resources. Learn how to make this happen and greatly improve your sales results…

• Reduce “no decisions”
• Avoid going back two steps
• Eliminate sales process inefficiencies
• Focus on better opportunities
• Use your resources more effectively

In this webinar, Averting Stalled Sales Opportunities, Ron Snyder and Peter Cohan show you the key steps to forestall a stalled sales process via better planning and sales process management.

Sign up for the webinar here:

December 10 at 12:00 – 1:00 PM Pacific

And receive copies of the White Papers: “Managing Territories to Maximize Results” and “Managing Key Accounts to Maximize Results.”

Topics covered:

• The Challenge causing stalled sales
• Elements of a Successful Plan
• Guiding the Sales Process- using the Plan
• Coordinating Activities, including Demos
• A Sample Sales Plan

Ron Snyder, of Breakthrough, Inc. and Plan 2 Win Software, has trained thousands of salespeople and managers on sales effectiveness, territory and account planning. Prior to that, he was a top ranked sales salesperson at Hewlett-Packard and a manager in the field sales force and a marketing manager.

Peter Cohan is the founder and principal of The Second Derivative, focused on helping software organizations improve their sales and marketing results – primarily through improving organizations’ demonstrations.

Sean Murphy, our Moderator, is CEO of SKMurphy providing customer development services for high-tech companies. SKMurphy focus is on early customers and early revenue.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss how this can help you achieve your objectives.

Ron Snyder

Plan2Win Software

rsnyder@Plan2WinSoftware.com

As published in the Selling Power Blog (October 1, 2012)

As you prepare for success in 2013, here are six common planning mistakes to avoid to ensure you achieve your goals. Those sales managers engaged in complex, value-based selling should be especially vigilant to avoid these fatal mistakes. You need a plan to win!
1. No Plan
Many salespeople feel that they don’t need a plan; that they understand their market and how to sell to their customers. However, in a complex selling environment there is so much to consider and keep track of that a plan is essential to success. Otherwise, the salesperson is strictly in reactive mode and is going to miss opportunities and spend more time on opportunities that will be unproductive.
2. No Analysis
Simply working through a list of target accounts, opportunities and contact information is not sufficient to achieve sales goals in proactive, value-based selling. An analysis of your target market and customer profiles will determine the best sales approach. Without this analysis, the sales rep is likely to pursue accounts in a very opportunistic fashion; often creating the selling proposition on the fly. This leads to a very inconsistent approach and results. Your team must have clear criteria of the target prospect, their needs and your value proposition. They must prioritize accounts and opportunities so they spend their time and limited resources wisely.
3. Not Connecting Strategy to Action
Territory and account plans must be based on the trends in the industry, geography and/or vertical market. From here, strategies are generated to optimize results and form the framework for the action plan. Each strategy must be linked to a set of tactics and actions to make sure that the right things get done that will yield the results you intended. The plan must include plans for each critical sales call (i.e. call objectives, participants and their roles, issues to be prepared to address, and the intended next step) – focusing on having sales actions drive the strategy.
4. Not Responding to Change
Every plan must be a living document; enabling the salesperson to adjust to changes in the environment. In order to do this, the plan must live in your CRM and be readily available to use and fine-tune as needed. To support this, there should be reports and dashboards that highlight progress on critical success factors and regular plan reviews that provide input from sales management and others on the team.
5. Not Using All Available Resources
In today’s selling environment, no one person can know everything that is going on in any account or territory. Effective and efficient use of all resources and tools will enable the sales team to compete and win. Confirm that your sales reps know what resources are available and how to use them most effectively in each stage of the sales cycle. These resources include extended team members, (i.e. from technical, marketing, support) and partners. Using the most effective sales collateral available without having to create them from scratch will provide more selling time. Finally, there should be a coordinated effort to leverage references across the organization.
6. Not Making It Easy
It is important that the manager make it as easy as possible for the sales team to create and implement their plans. Provide training to make certain the team understands the key ingredients of a successful plan and is capable of creating one. Using a readily-available template (i.e. in your CRM system) can guide and shape the thinking that goes into creating an effective plan. Finally, there must be coaching, especially in the initial phases, to help people as soon as they get stuck.

Sales people must see how the planning process improves their results. The manager must socialize how specific plans have contributed to sales results; having the successful sales rep share their experience with the team. This is critical to ensure the planning process is adopted by the team.
Creating an environment in which sales people generate plans that are consistently implemented and produce desired results, is one of the key jobs of management. Avoid these mistakes and win in 2013.

By the way, Plan2Win Territory and Account Planning apps enable people to avoid making these critical mistakes and optimize sales from their territory, accounts and vertical markets.

How do you ensure that strategy will turn into appropriate action to produce the desired results?

1. Create a process by which plans and strategies are generated and reviewed. Without this, many sales people will “wing it” and get caught by surprise. Hold regular (monthly or quarterly) territory or account reviews. These are very helpful; forcing sales people to reflect and create a thoughtful plan. Except in rare cases, the one with the best plan and execution wins!

2. Do good analysis. It is critical to assess emerging trends in this dynamic environment. This is the only way to generate strategies that will be effective and respond to new opportunities before the competition. The plan format must enable a logical flow from:

• Trend analysis to
• Goals to respond to the trend to
• Strategies and tactics to
• Action plan and resources required.

3. Regularly review plans and progress. Reviewing the action plan often identifies other actions that need to be taken additional resources necessary to move the action forward. This often makes the difference between being stalled and winning.

4. Leverage the team. I have seen account reviews in which the account manager was stuck. There was no obvious way to proceed. However, using the collective wisdom of everyone in the room, we came up with a great solution that enabled us to won an opportunity we would have lost.

5. Make it easy to generate and access the plan. The biggest challenge is getting sales people to use the tools. Your planning template must be easy to use and readily available in your CRM/sales force automation system (i.e. Salesforce.com) so it can be quickly reviewed and updated.

Though it may be obvious that you must focus on both strategy and action, I have found that most organizations favor one or the other. This is insufficient to win consistently in today’s challenging selling environment. Focusing only on strategy is likely to create great ideas that bear no fruit. On the other hand, too much emphasis on action without thought just creates a lot of busyness and insufficient results.

Creating the environment in which strategy consistently translates to productive action is one of the key jobs of management. How is your organization doing?

By the way, the new versions of our territory and account planning apps have the ability to connect strategies to activities in SalesForce.com.