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Effective territory management is absolutely critical for transportation companies to optimize their sales. Despite this fact, account managers frequently miss golden opportunities in their territories, driving right past prime businesses on a regular basis. This presents a significant dilemma with a negative impact on both small and large transport companies alike.
Conversations about this topic tend to result in the account manager explaining with great persuasion how they have fully tapped the potential of their territory and how the company’s sales targets are unrealistic. These conversations often get heated as the account managers tend to feel defensive and do not like being questioned about their productivity levels.
In many cases, such a response results from a genuine belief that this is the truth. Salespeople and account managers are relationship people who are often highly passionate! Data analysis, systems, and an objective look at their own performance tend to not be their strong suits.
To persuade account managers to find more opportunities in their territories, changes in both attitude and strategy are needed. One helpful approach is to get the president and CEO on board with a new method for managing territories. Account managers tend to be much more willing to accept change when motivation comes from the top.
Because account managers can be sensitive regarding productivity and are often resistant to change, it is best to avoid making them feel like they are underperforming. Instead, the goal is to inspire them to try new strategies and to identify new sales opportunities in their territories. Instilling a culture of increased opportunity and optimism is very helpful in avoiding conflict with your account managers and preventing their discouragement.
While the new strategy is being set up, it is important to incorporate the feedback given to you by your analysts, your account managers, your marketing team, etc. By combining this feedback with cutting-edge sales and market research techniques, you can create a new strategy that is truly collaborative, which will help your sales team significantly increase productivity.
For more information about how to create effective territory management strategies and how to properly motivate your account managers, schedule a strategy call with GRG Consulting today.
In order for account managers and sales representatives to optimize time and effort, they need to know where all active and inactive clients are in their sales territories. Having access to this information allows them to fully understand client density, data which can then be used to their advantage.
To see this information, account managers must be equipped with aerial maps of the CRM database for their territories. These maps need to show both active and inactive clients in a clear manner. When viewing the map, account managers should be able to easily identify both clustered areas as well as untapped regions.
There are two primary ways that seeing client density assists account managers. The first is that when account managers can see clusters of both active and inactive clients, they can concentrate sales efforts in a tighter zone. This reduces windshield time and allows more contact with more clients, both active and inactive, in the hopes of boosting business.
The second way seeing client density in an assigned sales territory aids account managers is by showing in which areas their territories are relatively untapped. When prospecting for new business, he or she can travel to one of these identified areas and stop at several businesses instead of wasting time driving to remotely located possibilities.
The less time account managers spend on the road, the more time they spend with clients, which results in greater productivity and efficiency. Reducing windshield time between each engagement drives costs down while enabling account managers to interact with more businesses. This increases the revenue per account manager and reduces wasted time.
Wasted driving time isn’t good for anybody: not for the account manager, the company, nor the client. Continued monitoring of territory assignment density growth can help account managers to choose where they spend their time more wisely. This is beneficial for all parties.
For more information about how monitoring territory assignment density growth can help your business to generate more revenue, schedule a strategy call with me today.
Many account managers fail to generate optimal revenue from their accounts because they do not organize clients into meaningful categories that allow them to see who they should prioritize.
It is common practice to simply call on accounts randomly, with no underlying strategy. This regularly results in time wasted on less valuable clients while high-dollar clients are unintentionally neglected. How can this problem be fixed? GRG Consulting helps you position your accounts judiciously using the Strength & Fit model.
How can we optimize call cycles after all accounts have been analyzed for strength and fit?
The average account representative is expected to make about 1,000 sales calls every six months. See a breakdown of how call cycles are organized according to Strength & Fit results:
By analyzing each client and assigning a score for strength and fit, we bring discretion to what is usually an at-random process. ‘Strength’ tells the relationship value you assign to each account, with one being the lowest and ten being the highest. For example, longer-term, higher-value accounts would be assigned a ten, while less-engaged, newer clients would be assigned a one or two. ‘Fit’ tells of a client’s alignment to your service offering. Territory/shipping lanes, shipment or revenue volume, and the number of service items used in your service portfolio are all considerations when analyzing fit. Below, see a chart demonstrating accounts categorized by Strength & Fit.
Clearly, accounts in the HW and HS quadrants should be given the most attention and, therefore, take up the bulk of the account representative’s time.
Once account managers begin scheduling calls around the Strength & Fit model, you can expect revenue to increase significantly. Your most important clients will no longer be neglected while account managers unknowingly push past them to spend time with less significant clients.
Once account managers know who to prioritize, the revenue increases they generate each year are often quite substantial. There is a big difference between targeting clients at random and targeting them according to a precise, organized method based on value analysis.
If you would like an Excel demo to better understand how the Strength & Fit model can help your account managers improve their revenue-to-cost ratios and general productivity, book an appointment with GRG Consulting today. An account manager’s time is simply too valuable to be wasted!
Once your account managers are scheduling their calls around the strength and fit model, you can expect your revenue to increase significantly. This is because your account managers will stop neglecting the most important clients and driving right past them to spend time with less important clients.
Once account managers know who to prioritize, the increases in revenue that they generate per year can be quite substantial. There is a big difference between targeting clients at random and targeting them according to a precise and organized method that is based on value analysis.
If you would like an Excel demo to better understand how the strength and fit model can help your account managers to improve their revenue to cost ratios and general productivity, feel free to book an appointment with me today. The time of account managers is simply too valuable to be wasted due to a lack of organization.
Every sales team has a unique skillset and level of experience. To get the most out of your company’s sales team, it is imperative that you work strategically to bring out the best in your salespeople and capitalize on their positive qualities.
Salespeople tend to have above-average interpersonal skills. However, most salespeople can continue to improve in this area by learning to be more observant, to ask the right questions, to listen better, and to acknowledge or reflect more carefully on information clients provide.
Many account managers do not fully understand how powerful interpersonal skills are and how to sharpen these skills to increase their productivity. When interpersonal skills are honed and then combined with a proven sales system, the results are tremendous!
The ultimate goal is not to merely have your account managers selling, but also to be doing consultative selling. Your sales team should be so in tune with clients and so adept at extracting information during conversations that they are able to completely understand a client’s problems and create solutions for them, no matter how large or small, on the spot.
The OPEN System helps sales professionals identify key information for closing deals. Using the OPEN system, sales professionals are taught to identify the following:
“O” – Opportunities: Opportunities are identified both through research and by engaging with the client to learn key information.
“P” – Problems: The more problems discovered by your sales team, the more solutions that can be offered to the client.
“E” — Economic Impact: The potential economic impact of a client’s business must be quickly understood by your sales team
“N” — Needs: Your sales team must be attentive to a client’s often openly revealed business needs, as this significant information presents the opportunity to discuss potential solutions.
When the OPEN System is used correctly, it is extremely effective at unlocking sales and helping your account managers reach their full potential.
Has your sales team reached its full potential? If you need help training your salespeople to increase productivity, schedule a strategy call with GRG Consulting today.
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