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 p...

Buzz words bug me. A decade or so ago everybody suddenly became a “value-added" sort of guy. Every salesperson I talked with for more than 20 seconds managed to find a new place to insert the words “value-add," yet most couldn’t define the value they were adding. Even fewer had any idea as to the worth of their “value” to the customer. And, only one in every thousand could manage to prove their value in dollars and cents. Long ago we suggested a break from the whole value-added selling hyperbole and laid out a plan for value-metric selling. You can read what I said back in 2011 here .  Value-metric selling added definition and focus to the extra services distributors provided along with their products. We suggested then and still believe providing services or some other value to the customer equation without thinking (or at least considering): • Does the customer even want the service? • Does the customer place any value on the service? • Is the value the cust...