Since sales is all about assessing, prioritizing and focusing on the best next actions that earn the customer’s business, the best sales plans identify and specify immediate actions that move us forward. An obvious statement but a practice that isn’t consistently followed by even the most seasoned sales leaders.
I’ve seen many sales plans full of great financial, market and customer analysis. Many are works of art with charts, pictures and verbiage that might be suitable for publishing on Amazon if it were not for the confidential information. I’ve also seen these works of art praised by executives, including myself, as great information that resulted from a lot of hard work.
In the end, my own self-critique is that when I saw these beautiful works of art, I often was so impressed I forgot to ask the key questions: What can you do today to move the sale forward? What will you do differently starting tomorrow?
What can you do today?
Unless you’re in the enviable situation where you have all the business you and your company wants, sales plans need to identify and specify things you can do today that will help get you closer to a sales win. These are simple things like:
- Sending an email to target customers to maintain or enhance your VISABILITY and CREDABILITY.
- Scheduling time with a customer to have a Same-Side-of-the-Table discussion to determine the definition of VIABILITY for their specific situation.
- Schedule a demonstration with potential customer to prove your company’s CAPABILITY.
- Contact that unhappy customer to start the process of earning back the RELIABILITY you need to be assured of repeat business.
- Ask a currently satisfied customer to talk about their buying experiences with a prospective customer to further enhance CREDABILITY, CAPABILITY and RELIABILITY.
What will you do differently starting tomorrow?
My dad used to say “We’re never as good today as we can be tomorrow.” When he said this to me and my brother, he was touting the value of practice in both school and sports. He advised us to employ practice to develop different routines that lead to better schoolwork and athletic performance. The sales profession, like all professions, is a process of continuous improvement. This is why the best sales plans lead us to what we can do differently starting tomorrow. Again these are simple things like:
- Being more disciplined about responding to customer complaints in less than 24 hours to maintain or earn back RELIABILITY.
- Designing a more regular cadence of appropriate communication to earn or maintain VISABILITY and CREDABILITY.
- Revising presentation and proposal processes to ensure customer feedback guides us in proving VIABILITY.
- Involving internal and third party experts to engage with their customer peers to further enhance perceptions of CREDABILITY and CAPABILITY.
- Setting aside an hour each week to consider and discuss various sales challenges with peer mentors or customer mentors with the goal of improving in all the areas of The Five Abilities®
The time and creativity you put into any sales plan should identify things you can get done today and things you do differently starting tomorrow. This is the minimal acceptable outcome of the time you put into sales planning. Creating the best sales plans should be one of the things you do differently starting tomorrow and your sales efforts will be more productive.
©2014 Rick Wong – The Five Abilities® LLC
