Sales Person's Activities: Planning
A sales person needs to plan everyday in order to succeed.
Plan for the week ahead. Make sure all appointments are confirmed and penned into your diary. When making plans allow time for travel so you are not late for or miss any appointments. It is also important to allow for meetings to overruns. Make sure you leave some time open to call or visit customers that are not scheduled.
Review annual and monthly sales plans on a daily basis to see where you are and where you want to be. If you see a pattern in your sales cycle, adjust your plans to fit. It is also important to adjust the plans based on past performance, so you are not left with too much to do at the end of the year if the first half of the year has been slow. Likewise make sure to revise plans if the first half has exceeded your expectations so you are not left without the opportunity to explore more prospects and customer opportunities. Your actions will depend on the plans that you have made so make sure you review them on a daily basis.
Plan your daily sales calls with customers and prospects. Get updates on any orders that have been delivered or are in process as well as payments due, so you can discuss these with customers on your call. Review previous meeting minutes so you can highlight any discussion points from the last meeting that you would like to review with them. Also review any discussion points that you might like to bring up on the call.
Update your manager on your progress of the targets and results. The manager should be apprised of progress on plan of action that has been approved as well as any issues that you may be facing. Seek your manager’s advice and insights so that they can guide you if you are stuck.
Before you make the call review whether you have gathered data on the company and person you are going to call. Do you have data on your products and any samples ready for the customer if they ask for them? Review and revise your sales pitch to suit the customer you are going to call. Make sure the pitch is in line with the objective for the call and not generic.
Research potential customers through openly available data sources including annual reports and news reports. Establish their potential for business so you know what to expect and plan your sales drive accordingly.
Don’t forget to review the business of existing customers either as new opportunities may lie with them. Review any business you are not getting and prepare offers for them. Continually analyze and identify potential for growth so you are ready to avail any opportunity that presents itself.
Success lies in planning.