One of the hardest things for If the sales leadership team does not make this determination and asks sales reps to pursue every possible opportunity with a “pulse” the efforts of the reps will be diluted, selling time will be squandered and results will be disappointing. The leadership team needs to be proactive and make these difficult decisions for the sales reps
Sales operates in an environment of limited supply and demand. On the supply side, sales budgets are limited and only so many sales reps can be invested in. The precious supply resource is sales rep selling time. On the demand side, there are only so many prospects who can buy the products/services you sell. The precious supply resource is the sales ROI – the potential spend of each prospect divided by the selling hours required to facilitate the prospect’s buying decision.
Equilibrium of the sales supply/demand equation happens when selling time is pointed at the opportunities with the highest sales ROI
Achieving equilibrium requires that the sales analysis process define territories that target prospects with the highest sales ROI, taking into account the total available sales rep selling time across the sales force
The world class sales analysis approach described previously in this blog (A World Class Territory Design Process) provides all the data necessary to identify the potential of each sales opportunity and the selling time required to capture it. If prospects are stack ranked from highest to lowest by sales ROI, a line is drawn at the point of sales rep time saturation. Sales rep time saturation is the point at which all the available selling resources are 100% utilized to pursue the identified opportunities
Any prospects below the line are excluded from the sales analysis process. Those above the line are provided to the sales reps as part of the territory plan
Anyone who is a sales person at heart will have a very hard time saying no to any possible sales opportunity. But, world class sales leaders have mastered this skill. Next time you perform sales analysis; have the courage to make the hard decision. If you can and your sales team executes, the results will help you leapfrog the competition
