Prioritizing the top 2-3 in sales

B2B, ideal customer, Methodologies, prioritizing, Sales

The 80/20 rule works even in sales. As I have said before the best thing about this rule is that its fractal, which means there’s always an 80/20 within the 80/20 also.

So within all your customers 80% of the complaints about you or your product or your service would come from 20% of the customers. However you could go one step further and identify 4% of the customers who are actually responsible for 64% of the problems. If you eliminated these 4% your life would be much more easier.

Similarly there will be few customers who would be responsible for more than 64% of your business. You need to ensure that you are constantly doing everything possible to not only keep these customers happy but to also ensure that you are growing your business with them.

As a sales person you also need to analyze which 20% of the products get you 80% of your incentives or commissions and then analyze which 20% of your customers account for 80% of the sales of those products. That will give you a clear indication of where you have to spend your time and prioritize your day.

While you’re supposed to sell all the products that are assigned to you, by following this mechanism to prioritize your day, you will also hit your financial goals faster. The only constraint for a sales person is time. If you can focus 80%of your time on these 20% customers you would get a massive boost to your achievements.

Its always how you can leverage your time for the most productive use. After all small hinges move big doors.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The exciting life of a B2B salesperson

B2B, Sales

Today’s post is about the see-saw situation in the life of a sales person. I am speaking from a B2B perspective. I don’t know if this is true in consumer sales or in other professions also.

I used to be a sales person in my initial years, moved into different roles and today have responsibilities for both marketing and sales.

For over the last 30 odd years its so happened that when you start your day with some very positive news from a customer – like a customer whom you had been following up for months for an order, suddenly calling you and telling you they want to give you an order for a million dollars.

You are elated with the fact that you have been able to beat your competitors. The customer has found value in what you’re offering, they believe your company can deliver the goods and they have found you to be a genuine and resourceful person.

As you move through the day trying to close on this customer’s order and feel elated, towards the end of the day you will receive a crisis call from another customer.

This customer will then be firing you on all the things that are wrong with your product or service etc. So you end the day feeling very low. What started on a high ends on a low.

On the other hand I have also observed the reverse when the day starts with firing on all sides and ends on a happy note.

But this is what makes the life of a B2B salesperson exciting. All customers are nice. They are also people and they have problems. They call out and fire you because they have expectations that you will solve their problems. If you solve their problems they will stick to you for a long long time. You will build deep relationships, that will keep giving you business for multiple years.

Till next time then, enjoy the sales role.

Carpe Diem!!!

Thi

Calling out the elephant in the room – Assumptions – 2

arrogance, Assumptions, B2B, Business, ego, Marketing

For a background to this post, I would suggest you have a look at the fist part of the topic here

Not many know that the digital camera was first created by a team in Kodak. Whether you call it arrogance on the part of the managers at Kodak, who assumed that no one would want to buy such an expensive camera. What was assumed was that the technology would make it unviable for most folks to afford the camera.

No one thought that technology was following Moore’s law, where the power of the chip was roughly doubling every 18 odd months. A similar thing happened at Xerox who actually had designed the “mouse” long before it became a standard accessory. But they never moved forward on it.

It is said , the Swiss already knew about battery powered watches, much before the Japanese, but because they prided themselves on their engineering and movement, they never bothered taking a patent. Suddenly the Japanese were all over the place with watches leaving the Swiss, gasping for breadth. Again technology assumptions can go wrong very badly.

Brainstorming on the assumptions you are making and listing them, gets you grounded to think better. Also its a better idea to ask an outsider to check out your assumptions.

In marketing, because you are dealing with human perceptions, understanding and accounting for the assumptions can help you avoid expensive mistakes. In B2B scenarios where there are multiple people involved in a decision and there’s general inertia, not accounting for these assumptions can be fatal.. Its a good idea to keep asking ‘what else are we assuming”.

Like assuming that the person on the production line will easily adopt the new technology you are bringing in via the CIO and /or the CFO. More IT projects have failed because of these faulty assumptions than the problem with the technology itself.

Especially when you are making the marketing or sales plan at the beginning of the year, if you don’t account for these assumptions, very soon when you hit the road, all your plans will fall flat.

Don’t make the mistakes that I have done. Whenever you make a plan list out all the assumptions and make everyone aware about them so that collective wisdom can find a better solution.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Personal Differentiation- Part II

B2B, differentiation, Marketing, Product Management, Sales

I look at marketing and sales being part of the same activity group. While sales is done face to face or via phone, in person, marketing is done without being in person.

That being the case, while there has to be differentiation with respect to your products and services, when marketing, when selling the customer should be able to clearly see a value in interacting with you as a person.

In my last post on this topic I listed some points to make yourself more endearing to customers.

If you can be remarkable in your ability to deliver value to the customer, the customer will remember and refer you also.

But the key is that you need to be very good.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!