Working in a collaborative environment is a great thing – you want lots of people to have input on your deals. When you are a salesperson, you discover a whole world of people who enjoy telling you all the things you should do. Once they are free of that quota, the opinions just flow out like water.
The problem with a lot of these opinions are that they are not connected with the current situation. We’ve got a customer who might be leaning to a competitor, and the advice is, “You need to get the contact there to see that we are more than just this area.” That is great advice….but the customer is not in any place to listen to it. We’ve probably got about 5 things we need to do before we get to that high-level, high-selling place. More inexperienced salespeople have the same problem – they focus on some big-time goal and miss all the steps to get there.
So, when you are working a deal with someone, ask them to focus on these things. I’d even recommend that you get people to write these out. This is the boiled-down guts of an account plan:
- What is the current situation? Who are the players and what do they want?
- What is the high-level goal you want to get to?
- Given where you are now, what is the first action you need to take?
I agree, this plan looks way too simple to work. Still, it seems to help me when I talk it out with people. The main problem is that people do not take into account where you are – they just want to talk about some theory they have. When you focus on where you are now…when you get really specific about what is the deal today….then you can plan on only your next action.
Note that an action is not a statement. Action is, “Call the main contact and get her to introduce us to her boss.” Action is not, “Make them see we are the best choice.” That statement is a goal – you need to focus on the action you need to take….people already have their goals forefront in their mind.
Once you nail this down, you can then go on to build out an account plan. The key is to know where you are right now….
