Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: A Simple Plan

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...If you want to be successful in sales you have to know your customers. You have to know what their needs are, what problems they face and what they consider a good vendor. As a sales person it is your job to know those things and know them cold. You have to be able to eat, drink and breathe the customer. Your job is to be the absolute expert on what your company needs to do to. First, find new customers and then keep them happy enough to keep them forever. You have to develop account plans.

Now, when it comes to account plans, some people go crazy, they just plain over-do it to the point of ridiculous. Account plans to do not have to be complicated, they do not have to be longer than the great American novel. Their effectiveness should never be measured by weight, but, rather, by the accuracy of the information and, yes, the final measurement will be if you can keep and win accounts; the ultimate measure of success.

These plans can fit on one page; in fact, they have to fit on one page. They have to be comprehensive as well as accurate because your company is counting on you to give them the right information about the account.

When developing a customer account plan, the following are the most important facts that must be included:

1. Key people and their contact information. Organizational hierarchy delineating the true decision makers.
2. What market are they in? What do they produce? What is their position in that market?
3. How synergistic are they to your company? What of your technology and services do they require?
4. How much business do they have? What is their total available market (TAM)? How much of it fits what your company sells? In short, what is their potential for your company? This is, without a doubt, the most important question and answer of the entire account plan; and it is the one that people have the hardest time answering.
5. Who is your competition? Who are your competitors and how are they doing? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
6. What are your customer's hot buttons? What do they really care about?
7. What problems do they have?
8. How can your company solve these problems?
9. What actions do you have to take to win and then grow the business?
10. Why should your company invest their resources in going after this account?

And that's it, the entire account plan. If you can answer these questions accurately you will have a complete and very effective account plan; a plan that will certainly help you in winning the account and then keeping and growing that account.

You should develop one of these for every significant account that your target. This plan should be the first step by the way, in developing your forecast because if you cannot answer these questions then how can you develop your forecast? To be a bit blunt, if you cannot answer these questions how can you call yourself a sales person?

Any good sales person should be able to sit down and answer these questions off the top of her head. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. Many sales people just do not know this information and in some cases are even afraid to ask. This is especially true when it comes to the question about the amount of business a company has. Sales people will claim that the buyer does not know so how can they know? This is just sheer laziness. First of all the buyer knows, he just does not want to tell the sales person because he is afraid of any sort of commitment. He might not know what he is going to buy next year, but he sure as hell knows what he bought last year and the year before that and the year before that and so on. So what a good sales person can do is figure it out. That's her job. She can base it on the average price of the board, number of part numbers, the average order size and the frequency of orders. There are ways and if you are a truly engaged and passionate sales person you will come up with them.

During my years of consulting I have come up with a pretty standard, but very effective account plan that I use and if any of you out there are interested in seeing what that looks like get in touch with me and I'll send it to you.

Meanwhile, make it your business to know everything you can about your customers, most importantly the 10 items that I listed above. Remember, knowledge is power--especially when it comes to sales.

It's only common sense.