You’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule. Also called Pareto’s Rule. It’s one of the simplest, hardest principles to consistently apply. But boy does it pay off!
Take a quick test. Look at your reps’ weekly or monthly to do list. How many times do they fail to completely finish it? How does that make them feel? Are they finishing the goals that will make the biggest impact on their quotas and their lives?
Do your salespeople a favor and help them apply 80/20. Here are some ideas.
One – work on selling deeper into their existing customers before letting them pick ‘x’ new customer targets.
Often I see salespeople that aren’t getting more share of their existing customer business. They either don’t target getting more share or they assume that the customer that buys from another company wouldn’t consider buying more from them. But these are great ‘Stage 0’ conversations to proactively engage with the customer. It might sound as simple as this:
“I’d enjoy the opportunity to learn more about your total business needs and how we might better serve you. Can we get together to discuss?”
Two – consider firing some of their existing customers.
Who would walk away from existing business? I have a client that does this through its ‘product line simplification’ process. It’s in their DNA to do this. They spot low volume, low margin products that hurt the bottom line. Not only do these products return low margin but they also gobble up production time that could be spent producing and selling higher margin products.
Three – practice saying ‘no’.
This might be the hardest for many salespeople. They love the hunt right? But getting better at saying no to business that will cost more to service and with customers that offer little potential for growth and volume is often good business practice.
What happens when your salespeople exercise any of these strategies is they are forced to double down on existing customers and those with truly attractive potential for longer term growth and volumes.
Good Selling,
Mark Sellers
Author, The Funnel Principle and soon to be released sales coaching book Blindspots: The Hidden Killer of Sales Coaching
Creator of The BuyCycle Funnel
Blindspots: The Hidden Killer of Sales Coaching 