Targeting Accounts - A Specialist’s Role

I attended a day long distributor planning session, a sales meeting that ended with a “round-robin” planning session.  Vendor salespeople and Distributor Specialists were assigned

tables around the perimeter of the meeting room.  Salespeople spent a few minutes at each table talking about existing opportunities and future targets.  After eavesdropping, I noticed salespeople discussing accounts where they felt additional actions could push the selling process forward. 

Soon after the meeting, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Salespeople knew their assigned accounts but didn’t fully understand the targeting process.  At the end of the day, nearly every salesperson listed the same three or four accounts as their targets – the same accounts and contacts were given for a diverse group of products and technologies.  Later, I asked a couple of salespeople and their managers to define “target” – the results were interesting:
·         “A target account is a new account”
·         “exploratory” 
·         a target should be “one of my top 5 accounts.”

All answers came from the same sales team, same management, attending the same meeting.

Vendor salespeople were no different.  When asked for a “target” for their new product line, one district manager rattled off:  Forest Products, Mining, Food Processing, and Automotive Industry.  Why was this particularly bothersome?  The nearest Forest and Mining businesses were thousands of miles away.   To a salesperson thinking about targets, this sends two messages, “My vendor doesn’t even know a target for my territory” and “this product may not deserve my selling time.” 

Proper targeting is the key to successfully launching new products.  Human nature drives a desire to produce fast results.  Dr. Robert Atkins, inventor of the Atkins Diet, stressed the need for an initial quick success in weight loss to drive future behavior over a long period of time.  Dr. Shinichi Suzuki discovered that children who experienced quick success in music were more likely to continue their

studies, even once practice became routine.  Specialists can drive a result by “stacking the deck” for early success.  This creates the initial one or two wins that build long term success.  Since you are responsible for getting the new products into your company’s sales pipeline, time invested early thinking about targets pays important dividends. 

For each new product answer the following questions:

Which customer types would best benefit from the product?

This should be answered in as specifically as possible.  A bad example would be General Motors – a good answer would be the painting department of a large metal assembly company (General Motors) where explosive paint fumes create the need for tools with special arc proof coating.  This opens the door to thoughts about a number of different companies where the environment is similar.  Vendor partners and nationally based organizations like to use SIC codes to make these decisions.  Unfortunately, the SIC registry is not an exact science.  I suggest you put your personal knowledge and your team’s knowledge, to work in developing a short list.

Who at these companies is most likely to understand the impact of the benefit?

Hopefully your salesperson has multiple account contacts.  Careful thought should be given to selecting the right contact.  If your product has a safety feature, showing it to a maintenance person may prove to be disastrous.  She may judge your product based on it being difficult to use rather than the importance of added safety.  This is as important as selecting the client company.

Do you (or the vendor salespeople) know of companies experiencing success in some other part of the country/territory?  What drove their success?

Nothing can jump start the success of a new product like an introduction to the local plant of a company that has already experienced success.  Before adding these people to your list, it is important to know a few details.  What were the situations leading to the use?  What went well?  What was learned?  How well has this been publicized to the company in general?   Make contact with the key decision maker at the remote location.  Call for these details to make the success story more valid for local users.

Once you have this information and the opportunity presents itself, Specialists can gain buy-in from the salesperson.  Discuss your ideas for quick successes.  Whenever possible, overlay your choices with her own top accounts.  It is easier to sell more to existing accounts.  When you are finished with the initial process you should have the following information:

• Target Account names: No more than 6
• The right contact: By name or Title
• Proper collateral materials: Literature, demos, samples, joint call dates
• A few specific bullet points to use in selling the product: Remember salespeople have dozens of accounts
• A mutually agreed upon time frame for initial contact

Targets need to be revisited.  After the salesperson’s first

customer meeting, the Specialist can help fine tune the Targeting process by discussing the high and low points of the call.  If new collateral is needed, it can quickly be brokered to the salesperson.  If the demo didn’t go smoothly, a personal tutorial will rebuild confidence and drive better demos at the next Target.  If this meeting produces major discoveries, i.e. the competition has the same thing at 10% lower price, adjustments can be made for the entire sales organization. 

Targeting accelerates business growth, but is this worth the effort?  Here is a parting thought; new research indicates that organizations who are great at targeting are 47% more effective than those with average targeting skills.  Specialists are uniquely qualified to make an impact!  Good luck and happy targeting.

Sales Training for Distributors – Don’t forget Inside Sales

Last week I threw out some thoughts on sales training for distributors.  The response was great, but I received more than a half dozen challenges from inside sales groups.  The overall feedback could be summarized as: Don’t forget about Inside Sales. 

The comments reminded me of a couple of points:

• Outside Sale people may make the phone ring, but it is the service the customer receives when they call that keeps customers coming back (aka customer retention).
• Most customers gauge Distributor customer service by the quality of the Inside Sales team.

Historically, distributors have focused on outside sales improvement…

Experience shows when distributors invest in skills training (which is meager at best,) they tend to focus on the outside sales position.  A quick “Google Search” on the topic of “distributor sales training” brings up something like 28,600 results.  While I didn’t read all 28 thousand of them, I did look at the first twenty listings.  All were outside sales related.  Assuming that training organizations follow the money, we can assume there is darn little effort devoted to the team who keeps the customer calling and by which our customer service is often judged.  Houston, we have a problem...

Inside Sales was once a baby step in
the trail to Outside Sales

There are three potential reasons for this lack of investment in inside sales: 

1. Back in the good old days, inside sales was viewed as a stepping stone job for outside sales.  The career trajectory for most people looked something like this: start in the warehouse, move to the counter, go to inside sales and finally grab a company car and hit the road.  Compensation for inside sales people was meager and anyone who stayed in the department was viewed at lacking in personality, drive, motivation or intellect.  You might say the good old days were not so good for the inside team.
2. Most of the sales managers serving the distribution world grew up in the outside sales world and don’t understand the inside sales role well enough to realize what training should be focused toward.  They realize the need for training but tend to see it as a subset of the training they provide for outside sales people.
3. Again going to distributor sales managers, most grew up in a pre-internet environment.  Only the most progressive managers realize selling roles have shifted.  Customers no longer count on their outside sales person as the harbinger of information.  Research indicates customers review products, find information and make preliminary decisions without waiting for data sheets to be delivered by their friendly outside sales resource.

The job of inside sales is changing…

Just a decade ago the job of inside sales centered on transferring phone and fax orders to computer system (ERP) orders, answering questions on delivery and selecting the proper part number from a customer’s detailed description.  All good stuff for the time, but nothing like today.

The end of these activities is on the horizon.  New computer technology allows orders entered onto customer PO forms to be automatically entered into the system without human interface.  Further, some of the product selection criteria has been automated or moved to mobile apps allowing customers to better determine the proper catalog number (even in instances where complex part number strings are involved.)

Today customers look to inside sales for more.  For instance, for most distributors, the first line of price negotiations has been switched to the inside sales team.  Front line technical support falls on to inside sales to do some logistical matters like expedites, freight issues and invoice clarification. 

Provide world class technical support and you will attract customers.

How do we train for customer support?

If your companies sells highly technical products (Programmable Controllers, computerized operator interfaces, complex sensors, drives or irrigation controllers, programmable heating systems, etc.), we recommend establishing an inside specialist(s).  This person would be the phone resource for customers with urgent issues. 

The inside specialist need not be a new hire.  We have seen companies delegate slices of their technology to individuals with keen interest in the products.  This will work well assuming the person is not overloaded with other tasks. 

But product support can be taught.  First, let’s assume customers commonly ask the same set of questions.  Identifying these questions and training on the answers grows the overall support.  Rather than being tasked to learn everything, inside sales is taught to understand the 20 most commonly asked questions on the product. 

Further, inside sales is taught a plan for escalating the call to someone more knowledgeable.  Years ago, my own organization created a “who to call list” which allowed the inside team to access factory and internal experts on various topics – but not until the problem was qualified.

Train for add-on product sales…

The most powerful marketing tool in history is McDonald’s

own, “Would you like fries with that?”  Sure, everybody knows Mickey D’s has fries, but just prompting the customer with the question turns a five dollar order into a seven dollar ticket (a 40 percent sales boost not considering fries have a high gross margin for the company.) 

Many of our computer systems (ERPs) allow the addition of suggested sale or “goes with” products.  We need to reinforce the importance of both populating the system and training our people to remind customers of products they may have forgotten.

Proper pricing can improve the inside sales role.  First, without a well-developed pricing system, inside sales teams devote lots of time looking up last prices paid and checking on price levels with their outside sales counterparts.  Inside sales should be trained to spot poorly maintained price files and provide the feedback required to get these fixed.  Second, inside sales people should learn a few basic negotiating tricks to avoid being “duped” by procurement professionals who have been trained in the science of negotiation.  If you have not yet see the information provided by Strategic Pricing Associates or their sister company SPASigma, we recommend you check out this really funny video.  

Again a special offer…

Last time we offered a postcard from Iowa to everyone who shared their suggestions for sales training with a grand prize of a professionally developed training class set up to be shared with your team.  We are repeating the offer.  No obligation, no telesales calls, no nothing.  Everyone will be a winner. 

Postcards from Iowa for every entry.

Free Sales Program to the coolest suggested subject.

BTW –Sue from California was our winner last time.  Sue claims she had never received a genuine postcard from the Tall Corn State.  Sue, we expect more entries.  The USPS wants to bring you another card.