Five Reasons you Need a New Plan

Posted by Rsnyder on Dec 20th, 2011 | no comments home title

Here are the top 5 reasons you need a new territory/strategic account plan for the New Year. Without it, you will:
1. Miss important opportunities
2. Lose sales you could have won
3. Take longer to win business opportunities
4. Be forced to sell at a lower selling price and reduced profit margin
5. Waste time and resources

Why create a new plan? Things change! You need to take into account:
• Changes in the economy and regulatory environment
• Changes in your industry/geography/vertical market
• New products/new technology
• How to improve your approach
• Incorporating new skills and tools

Good planning enables you to maximize the results from your territory/strategic account. By adopting and implementing good planning and selling methods, one of my clients:
• Increased Bookings by 43%
• Boosted Margins by 10%
• Improved Market Share by 53%
• Increased Productivity per Salesperson by 50%
• Grew Win/Loss Ratio by 131%

Having a plan enables you to manage a great deal of complexity. This includes understanding the market, focusing on the customer problems you can solve, selecting your best solution, and managing the internal and partner resources necessary to meet your objectives. It enables you to make the best use of your time and resources by connecting strategy to key tasks.

Using the plan, you make sure the tasks get implemented the time frame required to win. Through it, you give appropriate attention to the critical path – the steps that have the most impact on producing the result on time. Without a plan, it is easy to omit a key element and dramatically compromise your results. Further, it enables you to respond effectively to quick changes in your territory and accounts.

The bottom line is that you need a good plan backed with persistent effort to maximize your results in your territory and win competitive business opportunities.

Plan2Win Sales Nominated Software Productivity Tool of the Year

Posted by Rsnyder on Nov 21st, 2011 | no comments home title

We are very excited that Plan2Win Software has been nominated for the Sales Productivity Tool of the Year award!

It is exciting to be considered with a group including:

Salesforce.com’s Data.com (formerly Jigsaw)
InsideView
Xobni

Check it out at www.topsalesawards.com and, if you feel so inclined, please vote.

Thanks and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Selecting the Right Software; Five Sources

Posted by Rsnyder on Nov 20th, 2011 | no comments home title

Results are not where you need them to be. You know your approach can be improved. You decide you’ve got to do something about this.

You search the web and discover potential solutions to your problem.

You ask colleagues and post a question on your social media groups.

However, there are so many tools out there; it is hard to know which one will be best for you.

Don’t despair, there is help!

This help comes from five types of sources;

Industry analysts
Industry and technology sites and newsletters
Platform and tool vendor sites
Third party reviews
User reviews, forums and social platforms

Industry analysts, such as Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. have long been helpful in analyzing and positioning product offerings by segment. They provide a very helpful big picture view and help you shape your thinking re what to look for in a tool in a category.

Industry and technology review sites and newsletters provide valuable perspective, including overview and in-depth product reviews. These include Techcrunch, Cnet, PC and software magazine sites and industry newsletters, such as the one from Sandhill.com.

Platform vendors often provide marketplaces of tools that run in on their platform by category. Two examples of this are CRM vendors (i.e. Salesforce.com’s AppExchange) and the Apple Store. This makes it easy to find tools that do what you’re looking for. Most of them also provide user ratings. Tool vendors themselves often provide product positioning and comparisons as well as testimonials and case studies.

Another very helpful resource is third-party reviews. There are sites that review software tools in specific categories and sum up each tool’s strengths and where they best fit. A good example of this is SmartSellingTools.com .

Finally, there are user reviews, forums and user perspectives posted on social sites. Naturally these are very helpful, provided the user’s perspective is representative of your needs. It is often hard to know the person’s perspective and what issues they were trying to resolve.

As you go through this process, these resources help you deepen your understanding of what is out there and what criteria will enable you to make the best selection and produce the results you need. They make it much easier to make a good decision in a world of increasing choices.

Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference Take-Aways

Posted by Rsnyder on Oct 21st, 2011 | no comments home title

As I reflect on the conference, I see that organizations need to:

Connect with buyers- respond quickly, engage them via video (live, on-line, in email).
Ensure sales and marketing align to identify, target and touch empowered buyers.
Engage users. Make it easy for the to get full value from the tool/method.
Identify and implement the critical few strategies and metrics that drive results.
Integrate in one place your tools and methods that drive results (i.e. your CRM).
Communicate across boundaries (internal functions, organizations).

In order to stay on top of these trends, I need to:

Use video more (prerecorded and live) because it brings back the person-to-person connection that is getting lost in today’s selling environment.
Build support connections that are easy to generate (i.e. through networking, acquaintances) and expand my reach and impact- by being more active in LinkedIn, twitter… and facebook.
Participate in and help develop the value of online communities by delivering valuable content, asking questions that illuminate and sharing my experience.
Manage the conflicting priorities in a world that is moving at the “speed of thought.”

Engage buyers- once they want to talk with you, respond quickly, engage via video (live, on-line, email… Brainshark, imeet)

How to Write a Strategic Account Plan

Posted by Rsnyder on Oct 14th, 2011 | no comments home title

How can you write a Plan to Penetrate and Grow a Strategic Account?

In order to gain the insights you need to create a winning plan, you must ask the right questions. Use this checklist as a guide. Use your plan in your strategic account reviews and to manage your account team.

1. Analyze your Target Account’s Business

Start with what is going on in your account’s business.

What are the key trends in their industry?
Who are their top prospects and customers?
What are the top issues facing their customers?
What are the critical trends in the geography?
What is reflected in their financial reports and news about them?

2. Understand what is Driving the Account

You must understand their objectives and challenges.

What are their strategic initiatives?
What are the characteristics of their high-payoff customers/prospects?
Are there verticals that they are winning in more than others? Why?
What “pain” or business issues do they solve?
What is their competitive position?
What is their purchase history and decision-making process?

3. Clarify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

Conduct a SWOT analysis that examines how you can help this account.

What Strengths can they benefit from? For example, a unique business model or capabilities.
Which Weaknesses do you need to respond to? This includes the strengths of competitive and alternative solutions.
Which Opportunities in the marketplace will you take advantage of… and help them take advantage of? How do you uniquely meet their compelling needs?
What Threats in your selling environment will you defend against? Consider competitive moves, changes in technology, industry and regulatory standards.

4. Determine your Selling Approach

Consolidate the above insights the critical strategies and actions necessary to succeed.

How do you help them accomplish their strategic objectives?
What is your unique selling (value) proposition?
Based on your SWOT, what are the critical few strategies to win in the account?
What type of opportunities will you concentrate on?
How can you leverage your differentiators? (Sales approach can be a differentiator.)
What is your strategy to leverage current successes?

5. Engage the Resources you Need

Enroll the people and gather the knowledge you need.

Which internal resources have the skills/connections you need?
Who inside the account can help you win?
Are there external resources that can support you (partners, people “in the know”)?
What additional product/industry information do you need? What sources can provide it?
How could you improve your selling and account management skills?

6. Create and Work your Plan

Use your plan as a guide to proactively produce your intended results.

What are the high-leverage actions?
Which resources are needed for each task?
What are the due dates and key milestones?
Do you take action and update the plan on a regular basis?
Are you engaging your management, internal and partner resources?

If you don’t plan your work, you can’t work your plan. Winging it is the best way to lose a big opportunity you could have won!

Good luck and Good Selling!

How to Write a Sales Territory Plan

Posted by Rsnyder on Oct 6th, 2011 | no comments home title

As published in Selling Power Blog, August 18, 2011

What are the critical steps in writing a successful Sales Territory Plan?

You may be wondering, “Where do I start?” The key is asking the right questions to harness the insights you need to create a winning plan. Use this checklist as a guide.

1. Analyze your Territory/Business

Start with what is going on in your territory/vertical market.

What are the key trends in your geography/ market?
Who are your top prospects and customers?
What are customers buying?
Based on your conversion rates, how much business do you need in your funnel?
What is the gap between what you need in your funnel and what you have now?

2. Understand what Drives Customers to Buy

You must understand why they are buying or not buying your products.

What are the characteristics of your high-payoff customers/prospects?
Are there verticals that you are winning in more than others? Why?
What “pain” or business issues do you solve?
What compelling events drive the purchase?
Are there specific products/services that you are selling more than others? Why?
Why do they not buy your products/services?

3. Clarify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

Conduct a SWOT analysis that examines:

What Strengths will you build upon? For example, a unique business model or capabilities.
Which Weaknesses do you need to respond to? This includes the strengths of competitive and alternative solutions.
Which Opportunities in your marketplace will you take advantage of? How do you uniquely meet your buyers’ compelling needs?
What Threats in your selling environment will you defend against? Consider competitive moves, changes in technology, industry and regulatory standards.
What is your unique selling (value) proposition?

4. Determine your Objectives

Consolidate the above trends into a few powerful objectives. Write specific, measurable goals (i.e. ‘I will add 5 new accounts in this vertical market’).

Which vertical markets or geographies will you focus on?
Based on the characteristics of your high-payoff customers/prospects, which accounts/opportunities will you concentrate on?
What products/services/capabilities do you need to highlight in your plan?
At your average selling price, how many opportunities do you need to add to your funnel?

5. Develop Strategies to Accomplish your Goals

Generate the top strategies to succeed.

How will you further penetrate current accounts?
What is your strategy to leverage current successes?
What will you do to generate new leads?
How will you improve your conversion rates?
Where do you need to improve your selling process?

6. Engage the Resources you Need

Enroll the people and gather the knowledge you need.

Which internal resources have the skills/connections you need?
Who inside the account can help you win?
Are there external resources that can support you (partners, people “in the know”)?
What additional product/industry information do you need? What sources can provide it?
How could you improve your selling and territory/account management skills?

7. Create and Work your Plan

Use your plan as a guide to proactively produce your intended results.

What are the high-leverage actions?
Which resources are needed for each task?
What are the due dates and key milestones?
Do you take action and fine-tune the plan on a regular basis?
Are you engaging your management, internal and partner teams?

“It’s not the will to win that matters…everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

- Paul “Bear” Bryant

Creating and implementing a well thought-out plan greatly improves your probability of success!

Dreamforce 2011 Takeaways

Posted by Rsnyder on Sep 7th, 2011 | no comments home title

Takeaways

1. The Cloud is here to stay.

“The network is the computer” was Sun’s slogan of the 1980s- as Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman, reminded us. The underlying concept of cloud computing is not new. However, the exponential growth in technology and the fact that it meets real needs is propelling it forward.

2. The need for speed.

Even in the 90’s, Cisco could close its books in 2 days while other corporations of comparable size took weeks. Speed is a competitive necessity. You must use the appropriate technologies to accelerate your internal processes, respond to buyer expectations and delight customers.

3. Geography no longer matters.

We can communicate with anyone, anywhere, any time.

4. Technology is breaking down walls.

Prospects, customers, suppliers, partners and even competitors all participate in forums and social media; making access to information and opinions ubiquitous.

5. “The Web is being built around people” according to Tom Campos, Facebook CIO.

It used to be built around companies and web locations. Facebook has led the way and this has driven their success.

6. Business is becoming “social.”

Actually, man has always been a social animal, however, the technology has made it easier to communicate. The “social enterprise” is happening- as Salesforce’s Benioff asserts. Businesses need a way to collaborate in real time with people inside and outside their organization. Chatter now has group capabilities and can include people (i.e. customers, partners, suppliers) outside the organization. Will it be the “facebook of business?” Obviously, Linked In has the lead, however, will there be a collaboration between Chatter and Linked In?

Challenges

1. As we rush toward “social,” we need to maintain the right balance! For example, we must:

Maintain some level of privacy in a world in which everything is becoming public.
Preserve the ability and opportunity to connect face-to-face in the “social world.”
Balance the need to act instantaneously with the importance of delivering the best work product and making considered decisions.
Find a way to stay on top of all this information and not get overwhelmed. We need better filters for all information sources.

2. If we were to truly embrace the “social” mindset (i.e. “we are the world” – really!), could we help the US and the world to get out of our current morass?

Web collaboration certainly helped in the response to hurricane Katrina and has made a huge difference elsewhere in the world (i.e. Egypt, Tunisia, etc.). However, we must recognize it has its challenges; for example, where do you draw the line between enabling this vehicle of free speech and having it enable anti-social behavior- i.e. the riots in London?

Five Reasons you Need a Plan… to Win

Posted by Rsnyder on Aug 11th, 2011 | no comments home title

Here are the top 5 reasons you need a good territory/strategic account plan. Without it, you will:
1. Miss important opportunities
2. Lose sales you could have won
3. Take longer to win business opportunities
4. Unnecessarily lower your selling price and reduce your profit margins
5. Waste time and resources

Good planning enables you to optimize the results from your territory/strategic account. By adopting and implementing good planning and selling methods, one of my clients:
• increased Bookings by 43%
• boosted Margins by 10%
• improved Market Share by 53%
• increased Productivity per Salesperson by 50%
• grew Win/Loss Ratio by 131%

Success Story: Account Management
I managed a $20M opportunity for HP, selling to another Fortune 100 company. The sale took 18 months and involved a wide range of internal resources and customer representatives. My detailed strategic account plan enabled me to:
1. Identify our competitive advantages.
2. Articulate our value proposition and clearly describe how it met their needs.
3. Make sure our sales, division people, and executive sponsor were on the same page.
4. Manage meetings between a wide range of people from the customer’s and our organization.
5. Respond effectively to competitive threats.
6. Keep the sale on track.

I could never have managed the effort, kept everyone engaged and won the business without a clear plan that I updated on a regular basis. The bottom line is that you need a good plan backed with persistent effort to win a complex, competitive business opportunity.

Self-Assessment

Consider companies you regard as successful, well-managed, high-performing organizations. Can you imagine how they would have performed without a solid business plan?
Reflect on times when you did not have a plan and/or did not work your plan. What did you miss? What were the consequences?
Are you a skilled planner? If not, how could you improve your planning abilities?
Think of the best planner you know. Ask them how they do territory and account planning.

As the famous football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant, said “It’s not the will to win that matters…everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

To learn more about territory and account planning software applications that work within Salesforce.com, visit www.territoryplan.com or see us on the Salesforce.com AppExchange at http://bit.ly/hPTdDT and http://bit.ly/eCZcFR.

Good Luck and Good Selling!

Guerilla Sales: 3 Key Account Research Steps Your Competitor Is Not Doing

Posted by Rsnyder on Jul 12th, 2011 | no comments home title

So, your hard work in prospecting has paid off and you’ve landed an appointment with a big, publicly traded company.

To prepare, you’ve scanned through the latest press releases and the annual report, but you want to go one level deeper to make sure you stand well ahead any competitors.

Your extra effort will be well worth it. If you close this account, it could mean becoming the next sales superstar at your company!

That’s why we wrote this article. By following these three non-conventional steps, you’re going to show your prospect that you’ve done your homework and you merit their business.

Step 1: Study the Latest Investor Presentations

Public companies are required to present to shareholders and analysts at least every quarter. Many do it more than once a quarter.

These presentations are usually available to the general public for free. To access them, simply go to the company’s website and click on the Investors tab (or equivalent). Presentations to investors can be found on the “Presentations” tab (or similar).

Read one or two of their latest presentations (usually in PDF format). While these presentations highlight financial information, they will also be great resources for information on strategies and goals.

See an example of McKesson Corporation’s recent investor presentation by clicking here (PDF document).

Step 2: Read the Company’s Latest Earnings Call Transcript

Second, read the company’s latest one (or two) earnings call transcripts. These written transcripts can be a BIG eye-opener.

That’s because during the call, CEO’s typically share their latest strategies as well as their biggest challenges and pains. This information can be like digging up gold for a savvy salesperson, so make sure you do this step. It can pay off in a huge way.

Earnings call transcripts can be found for free at Seeking Alpha. Simply type the company name in the search box on the top right. As an example, here is the last earnings call transcript for McKesson’s Q4 2011 Results.

Step 3: Read The wikinvest Profile

Lastly, you can read the company profile on wikivest. This is a gem of a website that provides you with a good snapshot of a company’s basic information, strategies and challenges – for free! Simply type the company name in the search box on the upper left.

As an example, take a look at the wikinvest profile for McKesson Corp.

Conclusion:

These steps may take a little bit more work on your part, but it can pay off exponentially. Think about it: just one intelligent question on your part can make the difference between getting blown off and taking the opportunity to the next level.

The extra digging will also put you head and shoulders above any competitor going after the same deal (who did zero or minimal research).

Thanks for reading and we wish you happy hunting!

This was written by Silvia Quintanilla; this month’s guest author.

About Silvia Quintanilla

Silvia Quintanilla is President and Chief Sales Detective of Industry Gems, a custom sales intelligence company dedicated to helping salespeople win large deals with Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies. Learn more about us at www.industrygems.com.

If you sell solutions to the Fortune 1000, Silvia invites you to sign up for our Sales Gems Triggered Events newsletter at www.industrygems.com (subscription box on top left hand corner). In each report, we highlight the best “door opening” news that can help you get your foot in the door at a big account.