Sales Master Best Practices:

Has a systematic set of criteria for classifying customers and prospects into ABC categories

“You’ve got to show it in order to sell it.”

Today’s selling environment is jammed with an unbelievable array of “things to do.” Left without any mechanism to take control, salespeople can easily default to a way of going about their jobs that is characterized by being extremely busy at all the wrong things. We spend all day reacting to the pressures and demands on us. At the end of the day, we have been busy, but we’ve accomplished little of value.

The best salespeople understand that daily temptation to give into the urgent in place of the important. They understand the need to prioritize. And, when it comes to sales, the most important aspect of your job to prioritize is your list of customers and prospects.

The best salespeople spend the most time with the highest potential customers and prospects. In order to consistently do so, they need a system for classifying customers and prospects into categories based on potential – ABC. The “A” customers are the highest potential 20 percent of their account base. The “C” customers are the lowest potential 30 – 50 percent, and the “Bs” are everyone who is left in the middle.

Note that the discriminating characteristic is “potential.” So many salespeople categorize their accounts based on the quantity of their purchases. Thus, the A accounts are those who bought the most last year. But that view is historic – who bought the most last year. In our rapidly changing economy, that historic basis for investing your sales time is misleading. The issue is not who bought the most last year. It is far more effective to determine who could buy the most this year.
The best salespeople understand this, and develop a systematic way of determining the potential in each account. Having a defendable basis for their decisions, they are then free to invest their time where it will get the best results – one of the hallmarks of the high–achieving salesperson.

About the author:
Dave Kahle is one of the world’s premier sales training educators.  Since 1988, Dave has worked with over 400 companies, helping them to increase their sales and develop their sales people. Learn more at his website at http://www.davekahle.com

Sales Master Best Practices by Dave Kahle is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer