Availability - Market Coverage

Where do you leak sales revenue?  The answer is almost always found in how well you're covering your sales markets.  Let's break down sales market...are we boiling the ocean or are we targeting a sweet spot?  Both can work well depending on the value proposition.  If you don't have product with universal needs (most companies fit this) then we go for the sweet spot.  I've been in both scenareos and can tell you boiling the ocean is extremely challenging and requires significant segmentation but is also lots of fun especially when sizing up the opportunity.  Sweet spot keeps you focused and resources and cost of sales are easier to predict.  Either way, lack of visibility into specific revenue streams will cripple your revenue generation efforts. 

A go-to-market model should empower the company to reach specific customer segments.  Strategy will also be shaped by budget.  You'll find capacity planning the number of sales reps needed can be calculated by setting your sights on about 60% of your potential customer base.  This 60% is likely to yield 80-90% of the revenue potential in the market.  There is a law of diminishing returns applied to capacity planning for a higher percentage of the customer base.  Where that top 60% customer base resides can be determined by geo or by industry vertical depending on your value proposition.  Another important consideration is where you can demonstrate product strength is where you will likely win more often.  These considerations then begin to point us in the right direction how many reps we need, what type of sales territories we create and what the overall sales org will look like. 

Will there be segments of customer demographics by customer size? Will there be specialized industry verticals such as Healthcare and Government sales?  How many revenue streams within each segment can you identify?  Revenue streams can take many forms.  Examples of revenue streams: renewals, upsells, new business, winning back lost accounts, product mix when your company offers multiple lines, etc.  Once these are in place, reaching the customer base and building plans to maximize each revenue stream becomes one of the sales leaders main concerns. 

Visibility through key reporting mechanisms and productivity metrics will identify opportunity.  Example, sales rep turnover will undoubtedly impact sales in the respective territory.  How long does it take to get a replacement rep?  Process to facilitate hiring, onboarding and training will minimize open selling days and boost sales.  Sick days and vacations add to open selling days.  Managing this process will reduce revenue leakage.  Open selling days needs to be part of forecasting methodology and front line sales managers need to be trained on minimizing open selling days.

Visibility into customer and prospect calls covering the assigned territory over a window of time (example, 90 days) will give you percent of customers contacted.  Managing to these numbers and comparing data at the rep level, as well as, other regions and across the board will set benchmarks and provide areas of opportunity to squeeze out more revenue.  Other less obvious revenue thieves include keeping reps away from the phone by requiring too many meetings, training sessions, administrative work and inefficient workflow.

Rep role segmentation to align reps with the right customers enhances conversion ratios.  Depending on the size and complexity of your organization you may need telemarketing reps, an inbound team, hunters (acquisition) and farmers (retention), associate reps for smaller accounts and key account reps for the largest accounts.  Keep your best reps with your best customers.  Minimize customer re-assignments.  The probability of losing customer loyalty increases significantly when reps are reassigned. Customer segmentation by opportunity will also provide better rep alignment and market coverage.  Rank your customers "A" "B" "C".  Plan call frequency, messaging, account plans, rep quota expectations and compensation targets around these rankings to get lazer focus on each segment and maximize sales for each stream. 

Lastly, create a strategic account migration plan to move the acquired prospect from lead generation to sales, then evolve the customer from acquistion to retention and subsequently upsell. Sales and financial data will provide much of the intelligence necessary to make tough management decisions on migration strategy. Collaboration with your front line sales team and Finance and Marketing Depts. will also provide valuable insights and feedback to make these decisions with.  This disciplined approach to covering your market based on visibility and metrics will lead to jumps in sales revenue unlike any you imagined.

I'll cover the 3rd of the 4 keys next...Productivity....