Business, Sales & Marketing

Tip # 4

You need to think both global and local to keep from being blind-sided. Global thinking has to do with the industry and your competition and what they might do to thwart your plans. Local thinking includes what tactics you will use within your specific accounts or to close specific quotes. You need to understand that your account base of customers will degrade about 20% per year, do to a number of events beyond your control, and needs to be factored into your plan. Companies and the people you work with within these companies are always moving and changing and at a rate of around 20% per year. If you have 60 active accounts that buy each year 12 of them will likely change, move, go about of business, be bought out, be lost to a competitor, etc. Therefore, you need to have as part of your plan a hunting component that will replace these 12 accounts so that the next year will be at least as good as the current one. Without prospecting your income will eventually degrade to the point where you will either quit the company or the business. The best of the best understand this and won’t let it happen to them.