CHAPTER 14

Planning and Executing the Attack

We have covered a lot of territory, laying the groundwork for a highly successful new business sales attack, and have arrived at the place where the rubber meets the road. There is an endless supply of people in sales who love to talk selling. They’ve got all kinds of theories. They are masters at philosophizing and pontificating. They would be perfect hosts for the nine-hour Super Bowl Pregame Show: lots of talk and fluff to fill space, analyzing dozens of storylines from every conceivable angle. Have you noticed how many salespeople excel at talking about what they’re going to do? And how few actually do what they say? As you read that, I bet certain salespeople are popping into your mind. Big on talk, short on action. It’s not an admirable moniker, but it’s an all-too-common trait among those making a living, or at least attempting to, in sales.

All the concepts discussed prior to this chapter are meaningless if there’s no commitment to action. It’s all academic unless we take the field and begin running plays. Working out in the preseason and studying the playbook won’t put points on the scoreboard.

We have selected targets and created weapons, so now it is time to start shooting.

No One Defaults to Prospecting Mode

I have consistently observed something intriguing about salespeople: No one defaults to prospecting. No one. We don’t “happen into” prospecting. New business development is the opposite of driving a car on familiar roads. Isn’t it bizarre how we can pull out of our driveway and fifteen minutes later end up where we want without ever giving a conscious thought to controlling the car? Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works in sales. I wish it did, but that’s not our reality.

There are incredibly few dedicated new business development hunters whose sole responsibility entails opening doors and closing deals. Instead, the overwhelming majority of us in sales roles have a myriad of responsibilities beyond hunting for new business. We have existing account relationships that require attention. There are intra-office relationships with coworkers. There are the sales team meetings, one-on-one meetings with the manager, and interdepartmental meetings. There are questions and interruptions from production or project managers. There are customer service fires raging out of control. And, of course, there are personal distractions: sick kids, a hot stock tip, your favorite professional team making it to the postseason, aging parents, the broken furnace, and your obsession with checking the news and weather every hour.

My point? No one defaults to prospecting. We don’t find ourselves with a free half-hour and decide to grab our target list and begin launching weapons. It doesn’t happen. In fact, the opposite does. We start out the day with good intentions. There might even be the desire to carve out some proactive time for prospecting. But then life happens. Your biggest customer’s order is going to be late and you need to spring into action. Your morning is spent alternating between being master apologizer to the customer and chief beggar with your operations people. Then there’s that arduous RFP still sitting on your desk as the deadline for the response inches closer. The CFO e-mails with concerns about your pricing on a major project and also mentions that your chronically late paying customer has gone over ninety days past due again. A very important sales trip is only seven days away and you haven’t booked your flight, car, or hotel. You finally remember to get online only to discover that the world’s largest convention coincides with your trip and there isn’t a car or hotel room anywhere to be found—at least not for what you are allowed to pay.

How familiar is the scenario just described? Some version of that scene seems to be taking place at every company I visit. That is the reality facing salespeople. And you know what suffers, don’t you? New Sales. The very same people failing to achieve their new business acquisition numbers are the ones not making proactive selling time a priority.

It doesn’t matter whether salespeople are happily distracted from prospecting or they are truly victims of circumstances and their environment. In either case, they are not spending a sufficient amount of time focused on their new business sales attack. And the results prove it.

Time Blocking

It is rare for anyone to argue with my premise. Most people freely admit that their commitment to new business development is not what it should be. Admitting a problem exists is a healthy first step on the road to recovery.

In Chapter 2, I explained how poor use and protection of the calendar is one of the most prevalent reasons salespeople fail at new business development. I don’t like talking about time management because it sounds childish and comes across like a never-ending problem. But I love preaching about time blocking, because it’s one of the simplest and easily implementable concepts. Oh yeah, it also works!

Time blocking is the act of making appointments with yourself for activities that are priorities. It allows us to regain control of our calendars, reorient our schedules, and ensure that blocks of time are dedicated to essential initiatives. The idea is stupidly simple, yet completely foreign to most salespeople.

Since no one prospects by accident and almost no one succeeds doing it in a onesie-twosie fashion, we must carve out significant blocks of time in the calendar for proactive prospecting. And in our crazy business world today, where somehow it became acceptable and permissible for other people to put appointments on our calendars, it is ever more important that we get there first to protect prime selling time. As an aside, it’s beyond ridiculous that any joker in your company can see your electronic calendar and schedule a meeting for you. Maybe certain types of people think it’s cool when others fill up their calendars for them. I think it’s obscene. My time is mine. Don’t touch it. Thank you very much.

Decide how much time you should be dedicating to new business development and schedule time blocks at various times throughout the week and month. I can’t arbitrarily declare the right amount for you, but from my experience coaching others, I can offer a few suggestions. We tend to be more effective and more confident when we get on a roll. It takes time to settle in and find the groove, so I’d suggest a minimum of ninety minutes per time block. Three hours is probably the limit on the upside, because it’s hard to focus for that long and other duties will also come calling. In terms of how often, that depends on your goals. For those doing almost no prospecting now, two time blocks per week, each scheduled for two hours, could produce exponentially better results. For salespeople with significant account acquisition goals, it’s conceivable to block out eight or nine of these two-hour new business sessions per week, which still amounts to only about one-third of our working hours.

There are three keys to success for time blocking. The first is to put the time blocks into your calendar. Not just in your mind, but in your calendar. Block the time. The second key is to actually keep the appointment with yourself. Treat this time as sacrosanct. It’s as important as any other slot on your calendar. As Jerry Seinfeld said to the rental car agent in one hysterical episode, “You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation, and that’s really the most important part, the holding. Anybody can just take them!” It’s one thing to put the prospecting time blocks on your calendar, but what’s the point if you aren’t serious about keeping the appointment to do it?

The final key is to remain on task throughout the scheduled time block. Personally, I have found this to be the biggest challenge. Many of us in sales have a hard time focusing. Isn’t that part of the reason we ended up in sales in the first place? Well, that characteristic works against us when attempting to lock in on a behavior for a two-hour period. It is imperative to stay in outbound mode. Do not check e-mail. If you must keep your e-mail open because you’re using it for prospecting, don’t look at your inbox! One e-mail from a friend or an important client who needs something can derail your entire time block. Put your phone on DND. No inbound calls allowed when prospecting. Listen to me: You are not a heart surgeon. No one is going to die on the table because you can’t be located for an hour or two. If the building is on fire, someone will come get you. Otherwise, remain laser focused on prospecting. Whatever e-mails and calls you miss in the course of a couple hours can be handled after completing your time block.

Why am I so extreme on this point? Because there are a thousand salespeople failing at new business development for every one salesperson who is failing to serve the needs of existing customers. You likely purchased this book seeking help, ideas, and perspective on how to more effectively prospect and acquire new business. One of the most important takeaways I can provide is that in order to improve new business development results, you must spend more time prospecting. Period.

The Math Works; Work the Math

I don’t win many popularity contests with this proclamation. We have all heard it before. Sales is a numbers game. I dislike hearing that as much as the next guy. It isn’t complimentary; it doesn’t make us feel smart or important. I get that. But it doesn’t make the statement any less true: The math works.

Most top-performing salespeople are the most active salespeople. Particularly when it comes to developing new business, the most effective attack is a high-frequency attack. There are lots of tools and toys attempting to help salespeople predict which prospects are best qualified and most ready to buy. And I’m all for new technology, improved data, and as much assistance as possible figuring out which prospects to pursue. But there is one truth from which we cannot escape: The more prospects we meet from our strategically chosen, focused, finite target list, the more opportunities we are likely to uncover. Remember, we are not chasing every Tom, Dick, and Harry walking down the street. The very first step in the New Sales Driver process is selecting targets to pursue for new business. Assuming we did that well, then we know exactly which targets we want to get in front of.

Every business and every salesperson should have a handle on some type of sales math as it relates to the progression of a potential sale through the stages of the process. Over time, when engaged in enough sales activity to produce a relevant sample of data, we should know, on average, how much activity at the beginning of the sales process it takes to produce a closed sale. Let’s consider a generic company; here’s a list of the stages of its sales process:

1.   Prospect targeted.

2.   Initial conversation.

3.   Meaningful dialogue/first meeting.

4.   Prospect needs identified; fit established; mutual agreement to move forward.

5.   Second meeting/key data received.

6.   Presentation and/or proposal delivered.

7.   Deal closed and won!

Again, each business has its own version of something resembling these stages. Working the math comes into play when we can work backward from a closed deal to determine how much new business activity is required to make a sale. For illustration purposes, let’s say we win one out of every three proposals we deliver (I understand that every opportunity is different and each deal has its own likelihood of success, but play along with the averages). Three out of four prospects where we have identified needs and believe there’s a fit agree to review a formal proposal. Continuing to work backward, history shows that two-thirds of the prospects with whom we conduct initial meetings or have meaningful conversations move to the next step. And finally, our data show that half the prospects we have a first conversation with agree to an initial meeting. For grins, let’s say our sales goal this season is to close twelve new deals. Playing out the sales math from the end and working backward, this is what we should expect in terms of activity:

12 closed deals requires 36 proposals delivered (we win one of three).

36 proposals requires 48 opportunities reaching stages 4 and 5, where needs are identified and we believe there is a fit and have a second meeting (three-fourths reaching those stages move to the proposal stage).

48 prospects with needs identified requires 72 initial meetings (two-thirds from first meetings move to the next stage).

72 initial meetings requires 144 initial proactive conversations (half of those turn into initial meetings).

Obviously, the math is different for every business, and it’s easy for cynics to poke holes in this example. But the point remains. We need to put a certain amount of new business activity into the top of the sales funnel to generate the amount of closed new business we need coming out the bottom. Sure, we can improve our skills and increase the conversion percentages from stage to stage. The more proficient you become at firing the weapons (discussed from Chapters 7 through 13) the more efficient your sales math becomes. Imagine how the whole math chain would be altered if we could increase the number of proposals we close from only one-third to one-half, or if two-thirds instead of one-half of our initial conversations turned into meaningful dialogues and first meetings.

Understanding your personal sales math provides the backdrop necessary to establish key activity metrics for yourself. It is tremendously helpful to know how much activity you need to generate in order to hit your sales goal. Generally, we cannot control the result, but we certainly can control the volume of activity.

Writing Your Individual Business Plan

One of the best ways to ensure we plan and execute the sales attack, time-block our calendars, and work the math is to write an annual business plan. I’m a huge proponent of salespeople writing an individual business (sales) plan each year. We have all read studies citing that people who write down their goals are many times more successful than those who don’t. More than just a mechanism to declare our goals, business plans also serve as a helpful guide to keep us on course. The process of preparing the plan fosters creative, big-picture thinking and also forces salespeople to take ownership of their business (territory, portfolio, etc.).

Individual business plans come in all shapes and sizes, but there are five key components I ask salespeople to include in any plan:

1. Goals—What You Are Going to Achieve. It is important to start with the end in mind. The plan should declare personal goals for the year. Here are some possible categories for which a salesperson would provide specific goals:

  Total revenue dollars

  Gross profit (dollars or percentage)

  Number of new accounts acquired

  Net new business dollars

  Revenue dollars from existing accounts

  Product category, cross-sell, or new product goals

  Major goals for specific named accounts

  Personal income goals (obviously a private objective, but many money-motivated reps are driven to hit certain income targets and find it very helpful to write them down and monitor progress throughout the year)

2. Strategies—How You Are Going to Do It. The goals are the “what” and the strategies are the “how.” This is the place to spell out how you plan to attack the market and where the business is going to come from. For instance:

  Are there certain existing accounts where you plan on investing extra energy? Some reps provide lists of focus accounts (i.e., largest, most growable) for the year.

  Which geographies, vertical industries, or channels will you pursue? Do you have a focused, finite target prospect list to attach to the plan?

  What major cross-sell opportunities exist within existing accounts?

  How will you approach new accounts? What will you do to get in the door and how will you move opportunities forward?

  What other strategies or tools will you use (e.g., team selling, events, referral sources, social media connections) to achieve your sales goals?

3. Actions—Specific Sales Activities You Will Commit To. List key activity metrics you will measure, monitor, and hold yourself accountable to reach. Examples might include:

  Number of hours time-blocked and committed to proactive new business development

  Number of outbound calls, number of meaningful conversations, number of face-to-face sales calls

  Number of trips to key markets, number of major presentations, number of facility tours or client visits

  Number of proposals delivered, dollars proposed

4. Obstacles—What’s in the Way? Failure is not an option and we don’t believe in excuses. I’m of the mindset that if there are obstacles in your way that will prevent you from achieving your goals, you probably know what they are right now. Put them on the table so that they can be addressed, and ask for help or assistance in areas where you need it. Possible obstacles may include:

  Product knowledge

  Sales support

  Lack of technology

  Distractions or the company’s anti-sales department

  Current account management and customer service burdens

  Personal health or family issues

5. Personal Development—How You Plan to Grow This Year. What are the areas you would like to develop to increase your skills, become more effective, or further your career? Your options may include:

  Seminars and conferences to attend

  Books and blogs to read

  Specific industry training you desire

  Expanding your writing skills, social media involvement, or association memberships

  Peer coaching or seeking out a mentor

Writing individual business plans is a great exercise. Presenting them to your peers is even better! I like to see sales teams set aside the good part of a day to come together and have each member of the team present her plan to the group. Allot thirty minutes per person—twenty minutes for the presentation and another ten for feedback and Q & A.

So much good happens when plans are shared. It creates instant accountability. Now the entire sales team, along with management, has seen in writing and heard from your mouth what you have committed to do. That is powerful. It’s also a great opportunity to steal ideas … err, I mean, share best practices with each other. Everyone benefits by hearing the creative thinking of each member of the group (particularly the rookies). Sharing plans is also a safety mechanism. If your plan is awful or you’re embarking on a strategy that has failed in the past and is bound to fail again, others can stop you, or at least question your approach. That is valuable.

Some managers choose to have sales reps present their plans in private. That is fine too, and there’s much benefit to an extended session where the manager and rep can ensure they’re on the same page. One of the real keys to maximizing the impact from these plans is to review them on a regular basis. That is the easiest way to self-manage yourself, or for your sales manager to hold you accountable. All you need to do is pick up the plan and ask, “Am I doing what I said I needed to do in order to succeed?” It is truly that simple. Are you following the strategies you laid out in the plan? Are you tracking your activity against the metrics you said you would hit? Is your business plan driving what ends up on your calendar? There should be a lot of alignment between what we see in your plan and what we see on your calendar.

Preplanning Travel: Why Southwest Airlines is my Sales Force One

For many salespeople, air travel comes with the territory, literally. Over the past fifteen years, flying for business has become more and more challenging. Things were already on a downhill slide and then September 11, 2001, changed everything forever. The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has certainly added time, complexity, and inane policies to our travel routine. Makers of quart-size baggies had no idea how fashionable their product would become.

However, it is the airlines themselves that seem to have taken most of the joy and fun out of the once-friendly skies. Employees are sour, even bitter. And who can blame them? Many of them have lived through cut after cut in seniority, pay, and benefits. Leveraged buyouts and bankruptcies destroyed pensions and retirement plans. On almost every airline, it’s rare to encounter even one overtly happy, upbeat associate who is helping to make the travel experience more pleasurable. Beyond the unfriendly attitudes are the policies that are even more unfriendly to the salesperson.

As a fan of time-blocking, I encourage sales reps to not only block out time for prospecting, but also to prebook travel to cities where they’re pursuing business. Airfares tend to be cheaper when purchased far in advance. But even more important than the savings, I want the sales rep committed to the trip. There is nothing that demonstrates commitment better than buying a ticket for a trip that’s four or six weeks out before you have even scheduled one meeting with a prospect! If that doesn’t cause you to time-block phone time to set up meetings, I don’t know what will.

Unfortunately, almost every airline has resorted to charging usurious change fees. Here’s a real story: Remember that client I fired (Chapter 3)? Well, I had already purchased a $600 ticket for a trip that never materialized. When I called the airline to inquire about using the credit I had from canceling that trip, the agent on the phone was happy to inform me that I had another nine months to use that ticket, and he was even happier to let me know there would be a $150 fee to do so. Say what? You have been holding my money for months and want to charge me $150 to reschedule a trip. That policy may help a struggling company recoup some margin dollars, but in reality, it communicates to the customer that if you frequently change or cancel trips, you might want to consider using a more sales-friendly airline.

I’m an unabashed supporter of Southwest Airlines. Everything about Southwest is better: Its people. Its pricing. Its sales-friendly policies. When I was a salesperson, Southwest allowed me to business plan differently. I prebooked trips whenever possible, which allowed me to save money and fill more of my calendar with time out of the office. Southwest doesn’t charge a penny to change a ticket. Because its fares were so low, I could easily bring a team member or two along for a second meeting with a prospect. For example, an opportunity would materialize with a prospect I had just met days earlier. The prospect would call and request another meeting to review a hot potential project. Since Southwest doesn’t rip you off for last-minute purchases, I could confidently say to the prospect, “We can be there tomorrow or Friday. Which works better for you?” I would hang up the phone, jump onto the website at southwest.com, and less than sixty seconds later have two tickets purchased at a reasonable price for the senior account manager and myself.

Why do I love Southwest Airlines? Because Southwest is the sales airline! I’m convinced this airline has helped me do a lot more business than I otherwise would have. I even began seeking out prospective customers in cities Southwest served, and I encourage other salespeople to do the same. As I shifted more and more of my air travel to Southwest, I also began appreciating the culture of the company and the way its associates treated me. It is the only airline that makes me feel like a customer and a person, not a prisoner. As a salesperson, and now as a consultant, the mood I’m in when arriving at a client or prospect site matters. Southwest is part of my life and is like a partner in my business. The President of the United States has Air Force One. As a sales professional and sales coach, Southwest Airlines serves as my Sales Force One.

A Balanced Effort Produces a Balanced Pipeline

When it comes to executing the sales attack, not only do I like to talk about time blocking, but I also like to emphasize balance—in this case, balancing the sales effort across prospects and opportunities at various stages of the sales cycle. As much as anything else, this simple concept helps salespeople divide their time and their sales opportunities into clear segments.

Each business and salesperson uses different terminology to describe the stages of the sales cycle (or sales process). When it comes to managing your sales effort and time, for the sake of simplicity and clarity, I want you to divide your prospects and opportunities into just three categories: targeted, active, and hot.

1.   Targeted accounts are those you are committed to proactively pursuing and moving to the Active stage.

2.   Active accounts are those where you have started the sales dialogue, see potential opportunity for business, and need to continue working the process to move them to the Hot stage.

3.   Hot is when real opportunities have emerged, there is some sense of urgency on your part, and you have either delivered a proposal or will do so very soon.

We would all agree these are reasonable categories. Sure, we could split hairs and parse out more segments with greater specificity to perfectly categorize every opportunity. My point here is not to project future business with great accuracy. The goal is for you to take in the big picture and get a handle on the health, status, and balance of your pipeline. Even more so, I want to provide a framework for segmenting your time to ensure you maintain a balanced pipeline of future business.

Why is this so important? Because no one defaults to prospecting mode. Experience shows that salespeople gravitate toward the hot opportunities in their pipeline. That’s only natural and makes sense. Hot opportunities deserve our full attention so they remain hot. The danger begins when the salesperson obsesses over that segment of the pipeline at the expense of working the other segments. Chapter 2 describes how too many salespeople become “prisoners of hope” to the precious few hot deals they’re attempting to close. And when we stop proactively working our active and targeted accounts, bad things happen in the future, particularly if we don’t win as many of those hot opportunities as we “hoped” we would.

A healthy pipeline has three characteristics:

1.   It is full. There are opportunities aplenty, and no one deal will make or break the quarter or the year.

2.   It shows movement. Accounts and opportunities progress from one stage to the next; the majority of deals are not stale and growing mold.

3.   It is balanced. When looking at the report we see accounts and opportunities in every segment.

A pipeline that’s imbalanced in either direction is a sign of trouble ahead. If the vast majority of the accounts remain in the targeted stage, that’s a sign we have either not put in a lot of effort starting new relationships or have done a poor job uncovering opportunities. When that’s the case, the danger is that we have very few deals about to close and the short-term outlook for new sales is poor. A pipeline imbalanced in the other direction shows a good number of hot opportunities but very few in the active stage. While that portends well for short-term results, it’s also a warning sign that we likely have not been working targeted accounts to open new active opportunities. We might be in good shape for now, but things look grim down the road if the active segment is not filled up.

There is no trick to maintaining a healthy pipeline that’s full, showing movement, and balanced. It is completely a function of how we choose to invest our time. My cast-in-stone formula for helping salespeople maintain a healthy, balanced pipeline is simple: , ,

We must intentionally balance our time across each segment of the pipeline. Salespeople should spend a full third of their time working hot opportunities, another third working deals that are currently active, and the final third in proactive pursuit of targeted prospects that are not yet active.

It’s that simple—, , ! Simple yet incredibly effective. I’ve had rep after rep tell me that following this one principle has been transformational for their new business efforts. Those who wholeheartedly attempt to segment their time in thirds come back with the same admission. They didn’t have any clue how heavily they were overinvesting time with hot opportunities and how little time they were truly working to create new opportunities with targeted accounts.