Typical Sales Challenges
Why do these well- intentioned investments fail?
Over the last few years we’ve conducted some analysis of where things go wrong. If we could understand this perhaps we could create a solution that would prevent or diminish the risk of failure.
Click on the boxes below to review our assessment of each discipline.
The Account Planning process
The Account Planning process is something all sales people understand, or should do. Assuming your sales force has some sort of account planning tool – perhaps it’s built into your CRM tool - what’s it supposed to do for the business?
How about some of these things:
- Direct you and the account team in how best to develop an account to win the maximum available business, over a sustained period of time
- It should certainly tell you what needs to be done to win specific identified deals – or to qualify out, so you don’t waste valuable resource.
- It should help you formulate an Executive Alignment Strategy ...
- ... and your Competitor Positioning, your Differentiation (why the customer should buy from you versus some other solution).
- Help you define the Strategy and Tactics of the sales campaign and highlight the Key Dependencies (things that need to be done to give you the best chance of winning).
- It should prompt regular reviews to ensure the plan stands up under pressure of interrogation.
If your Account Planning process meets this standard then all’s well – but most don’t! At best, they are exercises in form-filling because someone senior says the plan has to be filled in. No one really manages the process with any degree of rigour and no one really tests the plan.
For further information, questions or advice please call Richard Lown on 01926 430 531 or contact via our online form.
