By now you should have begun your program of progressive engagement, timed by your recurring reminders and/or appropriate opportunities, with your classified contacts. A few things to keep in mind …
- You are in this for the long-haul and breaking into any new account takes time. Maintaining existing accounts requires your consistent effort.
- Your goal with any account is to be viewed as an integral member of their team, a trusted advisor. Trusted advisors are awarded jobs. They don’t bid on them.
Of course, you are still expecting to see results! Earlier on you established some benchmarks for comparison. Yes? If not, please go back now and do so now as, without them, it is only going to be your best guess as to if this program is working for you or not. Without expectations, you will never know if they have been met or exceeded.[Tweet “Managing your selling program requires your due diligence!”]
Inevitably, as you manage and refine your program, certain questions are sure to arise. Your ability to answer these questions correctly will be contingent on your ability to first ask more questions, of yourself …
How often do I need to reassess my contacts and their classifications?
When do I reclassify my contact or contacts? In a perfect world, C contacts will move up to B, B to A, and A’s will stay where they are. However, since no world is perfect, some will move up rather than down while others might be reclassified as being D (delete).
Before you make any of these shifts, you should first take a closer look at what, and why, is going on ….
You will need to evaluate your own efforts. Look at your number of touches, their quality, frequency, type, and have they been progressive? Have you given them a fair opportunity?
Are you making this decision based on hard facts or are you going with your gut? Let me give you two examples. I used to be a partner in an electric sign company.
- Shortly after I came on board, we had a major opportunity with a local developer. My partners told me that there was literally no chance in hell that we could ever get this deal, or even compete for it fairly, as they worked with a competitor and had done so consistently for years. When I asked the client why we had not done business with them in years. his response was “You never call on us”. We got the job and a ton more to follow. Enough said.
- We had a project go sideways on us with our number one account and we barely made any money on it all (we may have even lost money). My partners went nuts and wanted to discontinue the relationship! After looking at the close-outs on all of the projects we had completed, including this one, this job was an anomaly and the final figures were bad due to our own mistakes. Overall, we were cutting a fat hog on this account. Numbers do tell the story and we continued to work with them for years to come.
This all being said, I do think that you need to take a closer look at all of your contacts, and their classifications, every six months. Certainly no later than an annual review. Apply both your buyer persona and scoring matrix to each. Your goal is to optimize the health of the herd and,if you need to send a few to the slaughterhouse, that opens up important slots for new, and performing, contacts.
My classification mix is off-balance.
In a previous article we talked about a potential mix of 15% A accounts, 30% B, and 55% C. Now you find yourself with a database that is more like 5%, 25%, and 70%. Why? Have all of your A’s and B’s been moved down to C? Did you never find enough A’s or B’s? Is it convenient to leave people at C with the hope that someday they will be worth something? Someday rarely comes.
I have said this before but, you are going to have to be ruthless in weeding out the underperformers (providing that they really are so) and aggressive in finding new contacts that will improve the quality of your herd! If it makes you feel any better, I would anticipate this to be a fairly common occurrence which should minimize itself as your program matures.
I’m having trouble moving people forward toward a business relationship.
Are your taps and touches being conducted on schedule and are they progressive? Progressive engagements are designed to move people either forward or backward or out. What have you done to move this relationship forward?
What do I do with new opportunities or contacts that are not now on my list?
As we have chosen to max out our contact list size, you are going to have to bump somebody(s) off of your list. But, before you do that, is this somebody who looks pretty at first glance or is it somebody with a quantifiable substance on paper? Apply your buyer persona before proceeding, Now me, I would say that your A accounts are your proven producers. Therefore, you might add these to your B or C lists and then work toward developing them up.
I can’t keep up with my schedule!
Well, maybe you need a smaller total list. Maybe you have too many A accounts who don’t really qualify as such and who take too much of your time based on the recurring taps and touches that are required. Then maybe you need to become more efficient or work harder. I really can’t answer that for you but, I do know from experience that there is something called selling time (when we can be in front of customers) and non-selling time (typically evenings and weekends). Top salespeople have always recognized that successful selling does not mean 9 to 5 Monday through Friday only.
I can handle more accounts!
The first question is … are you at your agreed to total number (300 or whatever you chose) and how does your mix look? Then … are you making the taps and touches according to your specified schedules? Here’s the deal. A accounts are to be contacted more than B or C accounts. If you have no A accounts, you will probably have time on your hands and one of the things that we had suggested is that you evaluate your anticipated workload prior to deciding on your number and on your mix. Therefore, if you can answer yes to both questions, feel free to increase your numbers. If not, get your program in balance.
Well, we have wrapped up this series at least for now (there will likely be additional articles as we refine our approach). For those of you who have followed, or are perhaps implementing, this program beginning with our first article, thank you and I would love to hear about how it is going for you! I would also love to hear your feedback and questions so please feel free to reach out to me at craig@adaptive-business.com . For those of you who have just happened on this one post, please read below …
Please note – All posts in this series will be tagged FocusedSelling. You will be able to click on that tag at the bottom of any post in the series and all posts in the series, most recent first, will be listed for you. So, if jump in the middle and you want to get started, work from the bottom up. Cutting in line and skipping steps would definitely be ill-advised. #FocusedSelling.
Craig M. Jamieson
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