Here is the fourth post in this series… the final relationship unmasked.

However, before I move on and provide the last definition I thought I would explain that there is a ’so what’ that needs an answer for this series. It’s all well and good identifying the different types of business relationships, but there needs to be a purpose… we need to do something with them, they have to mean something, they need some form of application… but before I dive into the so what here are the details of the last business relationship…

Business Relationship

As I mentioned in a previous posts, I’m sure there may well be more than four, but these are my four…

• Transactional
• Dependable
• Consultative
• Partnership

Partnership

Relationship with Customer: High level excellent relationships. CxO level relationships, middle management and low level.

Relationship Status: Trusted Business Advisor.

Customer’s Knowledge of their situation and how Vendor can help: High in relation to understanding their business. Will have good understanding of the strategic relationship between own business and what the vendor can help them with.

Customer’s Risk: Considered to be high due the nature of looking to solve strategic problems. However, vendor trusted to help manage risk.

Customer’s Expectations of Vendor: To proactively identify and help solve business issues. To have good multidisciplinary relationships. To have problems quickly resolved.

How the Customer Buys: Vendor / Customer or both jointly identify business issue. Vendor submits proposal. No RFP issued.

Vendor’s Value to Customer: Understands customer and their market. Proactive at identifying strategic problems to solve in order to develop customer’s business. Delivers solutions that reduce customer’s risk.

Customer’s Value to Vendor: Will generally have large spending power that is secured in the favour of vendor due to trusted business advisor status. Major projects.

Salesperson’s Value to Customer: High due to strong personal relationships and acting as trusted business advisor. Adds value to people by helping them achieve their personal agendas. Acts as customer advocate in own organisation. Finds the right resources to deliver on promises. Facilitates peer to peer relationships.

Competitive Advantage: Relationships. Understanding of customer’s business. Ability to deliver strategic solutions. Possibly share in risk with customer.

Salesperson’s Value to Own Business: Relationships with customer leading to managing strategic client and thus maintaining predictable high volume of revenue.

Role in Customer Process: Part of the customer team that looks at the strategic development of the company.

Business Relationships… the so what

The diagram below (click on it to get a bigger and better view) shows how the four business relationships can be brought together to form an anlysis of the sales territory. I define a sales territory as a set of managed or targeted accounts from which the sales professional is expected to find, manage and close opportunities in order to meet their sales target. It is therefore about focusing on and managing those accounts that currently provide the greatest return for the resources invested. However, in addition, territory management is about the future and is therefore also about identifying and developing those accounts that will provide maximum future returns.

There are two things to consider if you wish to maximize your return on resources deployed… the first is how much money can the customer spend, if you like… the size of their wallet for your type of products / services - Potential - and what is your Influence. The potential should be measured over a 12 month period and the grading Poor, Reasonable, Good and Excellent will differ from account set to account set. The influence I will cover in a minute, but first I want to explain how this matrix is used.

Territory Analysis - an analogy.

Territory analysis is like going deep sea fishing. You don’t just go out on a boat on to the vast ocean and throw your line over the side hoping to catch something. An experienced skipper of a boat will know where to go fishing… it will depend on the time of year, the weather and the tides and then once you know where you are going you need to use the right bait. The matrix above is about helping you to know where to go fishing… and depending on which quadrant you want to go fishing in… will also depend on what bait you use. Transactional selling is very different to Partnership selling.

Knowing Where to Fish… the proactive part of selling

If you have a number of accounts, broken down into a number of different Decision Making Units (DMU) then you need to know where to go fishing for the biggest returns. Go out to catch more transactional business will not provide the best return for time employed… low influence , low spend… not the best combination. So the first use of the matrix is a quick analysis of where to going fishing. The amount of time it takes you to complete the matrix should be no more than 30 mins… and if you get it wrong it doesn’t matter all you are doing is giving some indication of where to fish… if you find out more info, then make changes.

There is a lot more to using this diagram and how it helps with understanding and managing the territory, however, in the hope of trying to keep this post to a reasonable length… not massively too long… then I will have to leave the further explanation to another day and therefore finish this post on a final thought… business relationships and pipeline management.

Business Relationships and Pipeline Management

Hopefully a number of you reading this will have read my past musings on pipeline management and may well have got the impression that it’s a passion of mine… well, you would be right if you did. Have a look at the diagram below… a diagrammatic view of Firstborder’s pipeline methodology… and see where new deals enter the pipeline depending on the business relationship for that deal. Have a look at the competitive advantage and the primary sales discussion… again, like the diagram above, click on it to get a better view.

I don’t know about you, but if you are involved in a high value business to business opportunity then I know where i would want to enter the pipeline… too far to the right and I have no control and the opportunity will have to sit in the ‘upside’. Come in at the left… right at the beginning of exploring the need… and the opportunity will flow along the bottom… in the ‘commit’… and in your control.

There is a lot more to be said about both subjects… Territory Management and Pipeline Management, but I’ve got you started with two key diagrams… and hopefully started to answer some of the ’so what’ about business relationships.

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

Sales reviews, the bane of everyone’s lives. The sales manager has so many to do. The sales professional has to answer so many intrusive questions… and it all takes so long!

As the old adage goes… ‘time is money’… and as so eloquently expressed by the Romans all those years ago… ‘tempus fugit’… so time flies and the problem that causes is amply summed up by another old adage… ’so much to do, so little time’.

So, in the spirit of time is money, time flies and so much to do… then the shorter you can keep your sales reviews the happier everyone is going to be. Therefore, here are the only 3 questions that you need to ask…

1. Show me how you are going to make your number.
Following our pipeline methodology makes asking this question really easy. The sales exec is either going to show you how the number is going to be made, in which case move on to question 2, or not. If not, find out what they are doing to close the gap.

2. Show me how you are going to close your committed deals.
The committed deals make up the forecast and follow the binary method of forecasting – these are the deals the sales exec says will close. So, make sure the close plan is robust for these deals, everything else is incidentally because if these deals close the target is achieved… don’t waste time on incidentals!

3. Show me how you are filling your pipeline.
Lastly, s sustainable pipeline requires a full sales funnel. What is the sales exec doing to proactively fill the funnel? An empty funnel will lead to problems later.

There you are, 3 simple questions to help manage your team… I could have written a lot more, but kept this post short as time is money!

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post

Deep sea fishing… not my sport, if fishing is a sport, but I have now been out a couple of times by the persuasion of a good friend of mine… and enjoyed it… doing nothing… but I did catch a nice Sea Bass for my tea the last time I went out.

However, one thing, other than the Sea Bass, that I took away from the experience was that deep sea fishing is a good way of explaining what territory management is all about… which is very helpful to me right now because I’m currently in the middle of training a group of pre-sales consultants in the art and science of territory management… these guys have individual sales targets and their management want them more involved in managing their business… helps keep the regular sales guys focused…

…so how to explain territory management?

Deep sea fishing is about knowing where to fish… knowing what fish will be about… knowing what bait to use… and using a little bit of skill to hook the fish. Just going out on the water and dropping your line over the side with any old bait in the hope that you will catch something will not produce the best results.

Within territory management we complete the territory analysis… which is just like knowing where to fish. Understanding the vertical market and current issues is like knowing what fish are likely to be about. Developing your solution discussion points is like knowing what bait to use and the skill required to hook the fish is like developing the entry strategy into the account.

Having hooked the fish requires more skill to land it. The bigger the fish the tougher it’s going to be to land… but that’s an analogy for deal management!

If you want to mange your business… know where to fish… know what to fish for… know the best bait to use… and develop the skill to hook the fish… simple!

Share this post: Digg Delicious Technorati Reddit Stumble It!  Email This Post