An End of Year Exercise that Drives Sales

Here’s the challenge, with just over four months till year end, everyone is looking for a plan to eke out a few more sales dollars. I firmly believe there’s still time to make a difference. Further, if done correctly, the plan can impact the future as well.

One of the most tried and true methods for creating quick success comes via targeting. This process comes from the extensive research we have carried out in the preparation for a book on targeting at distributors. The beauty of the effort arises from three important points:
1) Current customers are the focus of your efforts, eliminating the need for time consuming prospecting, cold calls and the endless phone tag associated with it.
2) It can be combined with normal daily activities to drive the sale of new products.
3) Success comes quickly and is easily measured.

How to get started
Distributors are often noted for a few of their flagship product lines. Typically, these top five to ten product lines represent over 60 percent of your business. Your customers have been conditioned to automatically think about your organization for the products and technologies provided by these brands. The best targets come from the next tier of products, many of which even your best customers don’t realize you sell.





Identify one of these second level products with a relatively broad usage and determine which of your top 30 accounts are not presently purchasing it from you. For most distributor salespeople, this represents around 20 accounts to choose from.

Thinking about accounts
Of the accounts not buying from you, which five to ten have the best chance of success? Consider the following:
• Applications within the account. Do they have the perfect place for this product? How could it make a difference in their business? Why is it better than what’s currently being used?
• Knowledge of the people. Who at the account would be the ideal decision maker for your product? If you don’t know precisely, do you have the contacts required to find the right person with minimal effort.
• The competitive situation. The competitive landscape makes a difference. If you enjoy a strong position, or maybe even have a supply contract with the customer, competition shouldn’t be an issue. If you are not the dominant supplier, does their main distributor actively sell the product? We have discovered some of these products are purchased “mail order” with almost no customer service.

Selecting just five opportunities
That’s right. Of those twenty accounts, I want you to discard all but the best five; think of it as stacking the deck in your favor. Keep the aces and toss the twos. We’re ignoring the hard ones and going after what Iowans call the “low hanging fruit.” While I would never want you to ignore a customer who has millions in potential for this product, for this exercise I would like for you to pick the easiest and fastest sale. We are applying the criteria from our thinking about account selection to purposefully load ourselves up for an easy win.

Measuring success
Sales are a measure of success, normally we go for the big numbers. This time, however, we want to measure our success in getting a reasonable order. For most products, we are talking about $500 dollars in purchases by the end of the year. In the case of a longer sales cycle situation, for instance an OEM, we may consider a concrete commitment for later purchase. Staying with the OEM example, let’s assume you can get your product specified on their next redesign of an existing machine or on the prints for a coming machine. This counts as a sale, too. You just won’t see the P.O. for several months.

The finish line
The point of all of this is to add sales in before January 1st, 2018. Your success will be incremental business which is laid over the top of existing business. I also have ulterior motives. Allow me to explain the value of this process.

My ulterior motive: The Power of Targeting
Back when I was a young sales guy, things were different – much different. Working for one of the leading manufacturers of electrical products, I saw new products introduced at the snail’s pace of five or six per year. The plan for all of these was the same, show them to everyone. It was a features and benefits world where we basically worked our way down the customer list. Customers seemed to appreciate the technology update whether they had a real live application or not.

Let me illustrate how the “real live application” thing worked. After a couple of years, I had a Eureka moment: Customers rarely remembered products unless then had an immediate need; a real live application. I looked to further assess this theory by tracking activity. Customers were shown a product and then reintroduced to it as a new product nine months later. After testing the theory at least 50 times, only one customer called me on it. He only remembered because just before our visit, he had reviewed a file of product brochures left during previous calls.

Today the situation is different. New products fly out of the design departments at unprecedented rates. Customer time is scarce. Just listening to a product demonstration to stay up on the technology is a luxury of the past. Customers report the internet is their primary and preferred initial product research vehicle. While they don’t have time for “old school” salespeople, they do have time for problem solvers and those ready to make solid recommendations.

I believe following this targeting method places the professional salesperson into the problem solving and expert recommendation category. Here is why:
• Targeting involves use of your in-depth knowledge of the issues faced by accounts you already know well (see my comments on the top 30 above.) You already know some of their problems.
• Targeting involves your ability to tie (perhaps lesser known) products to their specific applications. Rather than coming in with a five-pound catalog, you are selecting specific products for their needs.
• Targeting matches the person responsible for the customer issue with your solution to that problem. You aren’t wasting their time or yours.
• Sometimes you can suggest a solution to a problem the customer doesn’t even realize they have, or at least until you point it out. This demonstrates your true interest in and knowledge of the customer.

Now visualize the future
You’ve become good at this product targeting process. You think of every new product in terms of targeting the right application and the correct customer need. You are viewed differently than other salespeople. You expand your business by targeting dozens, maybe even hundreds of products per year.

My challenge to you
I challenge you to give this process a trial run. It has been time tested and proven in dozens of distributor territories. It works. Give this a try, share your beginning thoughts with us and River Heights Consulting will provide you with some pointers along the way.


**If you are a sales manager looking to accept this challenge and explore the options with your team, we would be happy to share the details of an award driven program.  Click HERE to receive more information.**