A new perspective on your role in sales
I would like to present a unique perspective on what you do as a salesperson in your designated territory with your book of business.
I’m sharing this view as many salespeople struggle to put all the pieces of their role into one flowing set of efforts. By that, I mean we often view our job or responsibilities in terms of tasks, such as prospecting, cold calling, routine sales calls, and reporting. Increasing and decreasing these activities based on demand, or whatever seems urgent that day.
We might also base our activities on what we like to do. A popular activity for many salespeople is calling on current customers, especially those who like us. It’s safe and feels good with less rejection.
To help salespeople understand their role, I like to compare their territory to a river. “You manage a river of customers running through your territory for your company.”
As you know, a river starts out small and slow. A lake or small creeks feed into a main river that picks up momentum further downstream. Until it is a giant body of water that is difficult to manage. All along the way, lakes and streams are feeding more water in. As well, there are numerous ways water is lost: irrigation, evaporation, dead-end sloughs, etc.
Your sales territory is no different. On day one, you are given a few house accounts, and your territory is as paltry as a small creek. Cold calling and prospecting efforts eventually get the water flowing in as you add customers. Several years into it, you now have a sizable river that justifies you having a sales territory.
It’s at this point that many salespeople make mistakes. They think the river is raging so fast that it can never stop. They relax and float down the river in comfort, feeling they have made it. They call on their current customers and feel too busy to continue cold calling, adding prospects, or new customers. They don’t realize that just like a river, there is inevitable loss. Customers retire, get poached by competition, change business practices, go out of business, etc. A salesperson’s company may change product lines, change business approaches, or decide to sell into a different market.
All of this makes our happy, successful salesperson struggle to float down the easy-flowing river. If lucky, a salesperson will figure it out quickly and make efforts to continuously build their customer base.
Yet, most don’t. That’s why business books are written, such as “Who Moved My Cheese?” and “Our Iceberg is melting!”. Both are very popular and can be found on Amazon if interested. Both are based on the concept of figuring it out and changing before it’s too late.
This same concept applies to your territory.
Managing a book of business or a territory requires you to:
- Monitor the prospecting process that brings in new customers
- Develop the skills to keep your current customers
- Minimize the loss of prospects and customers
These skills ebb and flow throughout your sales career.
Your success will be based on:
- Your skills and abilities
- Your ability to bring your internal company resources to the sale
- Technology and your use of it
- Your market and how you react to it
- Your personal desire to relentlessly and continuously improve
While there are other success factors, these five contribute the most to the successful salespeople I work with. Don’t hold back on any of them when managing your territory!
And, I wish you all the success in managing your territory river!
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