1 Define your company’s value proposition

What is the range of products and services you want to invest selling resources on in order to bring value to your customer? What do you want your sales professionals to focus on selling?

2 Segment your market

Which customers have the highest potential to invest in your products and services? Who needs most of what you are selling? Who values your participation throughout their buying-decision process? Should customers be placed in channels according to their relative potential value?

3 Identify your customer’s buying process

How do the customers in the various segments make buying decisions, and where in the process do they value your sales professional’s participation? Are the selling skills and processes different for different segments?

4 Define your selling process

Where do you enter your customer’s buying process? How do prospects qualify for the most valuable opportunities within time and quota-imposed limitations.

5  Establish sales targets

What is the expected return on an investment of sales resources? What is the minimum revenue expectation for proactive selling efforts within an account?

6  Create territory plan and pipelines

How much revenue comes from existing agreements with customers? How much new business can be developed within existing customers? How much prospecting for new customers needs to occur to fill the pipeline? How are pipelines communicated and monitored?

7 Implement an account-planning process

What is your customer relationship process? How do you acquire, develop and insulate account relationships? How do you share account information on those customers that require teams or multiple resources in order to create and maintain profitable relationships? How do you plan for opportunities within an account? Which accounts merit a written plan?

8 Equip sales managers to lead the planning and developmental efforts

What is your coaching process? How are managers equipped to manage and develop the performance of their teams? What skills and tools are available to develop individual sales professionals? How are plans and opportunities tracked? What mechanism is in place to track wins and losses? How is customer and sales professional feedback communicated and managed?

9 Equip sales professionals with the skills and tools to execute the account and territory plans

What skills and tools are necessary to build and maintain long-term profitable relationships? What is the sales professional’s career path? How do you ensure ongoing growth and development?

10  Align hiring, compensation, incentive and support systems to encourage appropriate behaviours

Do different channels require different approaches to hiring and compensation? What productivity enhancements should be developed to unlock the sales professional’s maximum potential?

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