Speaker 1: 0:00

I was actually going to say really similar items, right? So, firstly, if you don't know how to build a territory plan either so you're a new salesperson if your boss hasn't asked you to do one, if they have asked you to do one and you don't know how to do it, don't wait till territory plan presentation day to turn up eager beaver in the meeting room or on the Zoom call and go. Okay, so I didn't really know what to do and now hold on. All of that conversation happened before you got there and you got the booking a week out the moment you got it. If you need help, put your hand up and you say hey, listen, I want to make sure that meeting in a week's time is really valuable for both of us.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Welcome to Growth Pulse, the B2B sales podcast. You might be a salesperson, you could lead a sales team, maybe run a business, or you're a battle-tested entrepreneur. Then we built this podcast for you. Great salespeople are built, not born. We learn so much from the deals we win, but we'll learn even more from the deals we lose.

Speaker 1: 1:00

In each episode, we bring you some of the world's leading salespeople, sales leaders and experts in sales tech to share their best lessons from both their wins and their losses. Before we start, please check out the screen of your phone or laptop and, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you've clicked subscribe and press that like button down below. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple, click the plus sign to follow it so we can let you know when we publish each new episode. If you liked the episode, drop us a comment with any questions about the show. We'd love to get to know our audience. Great businesses always feature world-class salespeople and the best salespeople are always learning, so let's jump in. Welcome everyone to another episode of Growth Pulse, the B2B sales podcast. I'm Dan Bartels here with Simon Peterson, as always. Mate, how are you, buddy?

Speaker 2: 1:52

G'day, Dan. I'm really well it's Friday again and excited to be recording another episode. Been a busy week.

Speaker 1: 2:00

I've been exceptionally busy and I'm away in the States in a couple of weeks, so I'm trying to get ready for that as well. So it's been great, Mate. Everyone's gone through kickoff season. What's your financial year? Are you calendar?

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, we're calendar year. I'm two thirds of the way through the year. June 30, we're selling to accountants. We need to obviously have their fiscal year and it's actually quite nice having a fiscal year end on an Australian calendar year. First time in my career I've had that. It's always been December or January. It just means December and January. You're not trying to close a year out in the middle of summer, which is a rather nice change.

Speaker 1: 2:34

It is funny it's when you think about all your different customers and what their financial year looks like. You're dealing with Kiwis. There's ends March, isn't it? They kick in April, Obviously, Australia's July 1 to June 30 and all these things, and even if you're talking to the Americans, theirs can be calendar. But then it can also be like I know we spent a year and a long time in Salesforce where theirs ended January 30. That's horrible, isn't?

Speaker 2: 3:00

it. Yeah, the good old conversation of talking to your sales team about January needs to be a big one, and then they'll tell you everybody's on holidays, you need to plan Australia Day. Apparently, accountants take January off Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Which kind of segues us into the topic for today's episode, which is looking at your territory plans, your account plans and understanding those elements about what you've got to do for the year and what your customers need to do, because, at the end of the day, hey, we're not buying our own stuff, our customers are. And having just been through a cycle in my role which is building out what my territory plan looks like and what my account plan looks like, it's quite interesting seeing people's different attitudes towards it and their approach, so I thought we'd delve into that and really pull apart the process. So I think the first thing, what is a territory plan and what is an account plan? If you've got a newbie joining your teammate and you've assigned them the process, the task, how do you describe them? What does it do?

Speaker 2: 3:59

Look, the first thing I'd say to them is a territory plan is for you, not for me, and it depends on what you're selling, how big your territory is, the average. Let's say you're joining, you're a mid-market role, you've probably got 100, 200-odd accounts in your territory, unless you're at Salesforce and you've got about 25. But it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference. You've got basically a limited amount of time in your year. You've got a whole bunch of clients that are, in your view, high priority, some that are medium priority and some that you just don't really know. And it's just a way to plan how you get to the clients that are going to deliver the revenue to hit your number. And I think if you barrel into the year and you randomly call accounts in your territory, that's a sure way to not hitting your number. So, planning where you're going to spend your time. That's probably the 10,000-foot level I would talk to a rep about. How about you, dan?

Speaker 1: 4:48

I think it comes back to the old saying of you don't argue, it's not a plan right, and the one that I've said a thousand times if you want everyone on the same page, the better damn will be a page. But that's for yourself, and I think you're right. The piece that, when I go through this process of okay, what's the plan, what are we trying to achieve, the bit that always jumps out for me in the meat of the plan is the stuff I'm not going to do. I'm just going to acknowledge to myself that is wasted time and effort. I'm not going to change stuff. I might have 10 products, but I'm actually only going to sell three. Three go to markets or 10, whatever it is right. I might have a national territory. I'm never getting to Perth, just okay. Am I giving it back? Or am I just acknowledging to my business that is not a priority? Or alternatively, oh my gosh, all my big clients are in Perth. I need to go and have a conversation with my wife. I'm going to spend six months of this year in Perth. What does that mean? So I think all those things are critically important. Going through the process, though, with my leader, he added some good flavor into it, which is right.

Speaker 1: 5:53

What do you want to get to at the end of the year? Not just from a numbers perspective, because I think everybody as a salesperson can do that. A first-time salesperson will break it up themselves and I'll say I need to hit $100,000 worth of new business for the year, or $10,000, whatever the number is right. I need to sell 10 units. Make the numbers. I need to sell 12 units, one a month. All right, let's clear. I've got to do one a month. What does that mean?

Speaker 1: 6:13

But it's not just the outcome, it's the other activities on the way. So how many calls do I have to make? How many plans do I have to have? What maturity do those conversations need to be? It's not all going to happen on month one. So by the end of month three, will I have built the marketing plan or the pipeline or the funnel that I need? Will that only be version one? And by the end of month six, will it be version two and it'll have a next level of All those things? I think is what goes into your plan itself, but it's on the page, you've got it written down and I think the other bit that, as I've gone into this process. I think salespeople think you can do it simply. I think that's a failure.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Yep, and I think, look. The other thing is and I would say 75% plus account plans. Let's say you've got a January to December fiscal. They get done in January and they never get looked again, and that's another problem.

Speaker 2: 7:14

I think it needs to be sort of a living document and I think we've always said what you write down on a page as your plan is the single thing that's actually never going to happen. So a plan is a good place to start, but you need to iterate on that plan. And I think the other thing is you've got to know your sales place, because let's say you've got a hundred accounts, or the sales place that I've got, or the products I've got to sell, or the units I want to sell. How does that fit into a hundred or so accounts? There's going to be some low hanging fruit. There's going to be some cross-sell, up-sell and obviously some new business in there. So you need to start thinking about how do I get my year off to a good start with some good low-hanging fruit, learn some lessons about what resonates, what doesn't resonate, and then you start planning how that plan then just gets iterated on and you end up probably with 12 versions of that plan throughout the year.

Speaker 2: 8:03

I would be, updating it at least monthly.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah. So it probably goes down to the question of how do you build one. We've established why they're important and what they are and why they're important, yep, so how do you build one? What's your approach? You take people through. Do you mean? Do you give them a template? Do they have to go and find one? What are the things that you go through to build one?

Speaker 2: 8:21

Look, I think the actual tool that you use itself is less relevant than the thought process. I think the thought process about think about what the outcome of a plan is. It's, as we just said it's like, about maximizing the usage of your time, focusing on the clients that are going to yield the biggest return. You need to also think about as a salesperson. You're not the only person that's involved in delivering that number. So what other assets have you got in the business? So they need to be part of your plan.

Speaker 2: 8:47

It's funny, look, I've seen lots of account planning templates before. I've seen hundreds of different ideas of how to do it. I think, to be honest with you, I start with an Excel spreadsheet and it may sound old school, but what I do with a spreadsheet is the first thing I do is I think about my sales plays and I just rank very quickly an A, b or a C across every account that I've got. Let's say I've got 100. I just go through and it's a real gut feel first cut right and you might have, out of 100, you might have 10 A's, 50 B's, and then the rest are C's. And then you say to yourself okay, the A's are the ones where I need to do all of the real detailed work. The B's are maybe they're the ones that I look at marketing campaigns. I look at other parts of the business. Maybe I've got events, I've got webinars, et cetera. Maybe they're the ones that are going to warm up in the second half of the year. And then the C's are the opportunistic. So they'll be in nurture campaigns or whatever they do, and that it's important to know.

Speaker 2: 9:51

That first cut is I can do it do 100 accounts first cut in about 15 to 20 minutes what that does. It just gets the thought process going because you're always going to find that once you're you've gone through that first cut, then you start to iterate on it. You might want to do some white space analysis. So if you're installed base, let's say I've got 10 products, who's got what products? What is product A? What is the logical next step to sell that client once they've got A? And do I move to B? And so you might start looking at a picture of your installed base and just understand what your share of wallet is in there and that may bubble up and change some of the priorities as well. But I think it's really important rather than boiling the ocean in the first cut, just go really quickly through it, because you're a smart person, you know what you're doing, you know your products, you know your sales plays and you've got a gut feel, so you don't have to overcomplicate it. I don't know what are your thoughts.

Speaker 1: 10:45

Yeah, I think the interesting piece that you called out which I do, and I've had this fight with a number of different leaders over time you and I never had this fight, but starting from a blank piece of paper, and I think the failure that lots of people have at the moment is that, okay, where's the template? How's someone going to show me to go through this? It's a plan. Like, you've got to own the plan. If you give somebody else a process that says fill out the boxes, it's your plan, not their one. It's your instruction and they'll get the boxes filled out 100%.

Speaker 1: 11:17

They don't use it. They're doing it to comply with you and I think if you're a salesperson and ever not just a salesperson you could be a project manager, you could be a business owner, it doesn't matter what you are. You could be trying to move house. If someone just gives you the plan and you tick the boxes, you don't end up using it because it wasn't your plan about how you're going to go about this. But then I think the other, like in today's day and age, if anyone's not doing this and building out a plan, you are mad. Chat GPT I've got to say I used cheer like you wouldn't believe. And what do I need to do? What are the prompts or the ideas that I haven't? And literally giving it a good prompt that says something along the lines of I need you to be a sales coach. I am doing this, I am selling in my industry to these types of customers and I need to achieve this for the year. Help, give me a structure that I can follow and then just working through that.

Speaker 1: 12:08

I think that becomes a really valuable piece and again, it's not because I just want a document that I can show my boss and go, ah, it's done, it's. I can get into the depth of it and actually it takes me through all the detail in the process.

Speaker 2: 12:21

Yeah, and I think, dan, for everybody. I think most people have dabbled with ChatGPT. I think there's some pretty important things to know as you do it. First and foremost, don't put any corporate-sensitive content into ChatGPT. I'm thinking there's always going to be the loony that says all right, I'll just cut and paste my list of accounts into ChatGPT. Build me an account plan. Don't do that. Look, I think, and that's obviously ChatGPT. But if you work in an organization that's licensed, say co-pilot, right, yeah, exactly. And then by definition, that instance of the large language model is actually contained within the four walls of the enterprise, so it's safe. So think about what you're putting in. And I dealt with a client a couple of weeks ago that was putting his candidates are applying for jobs into chat and to summarize their CVs, I'm going you're probably breaking a ton of privacy rules.

Speaker 2: 13:12

Yeah, yeah, think about what you're doing. But I think chat GPT is an awesome tool and I think your point treat it as a coach, not as a wizard.

Speaker 1: 13:23

That's for sure, but if the things like okay, I'm selling it to Telco Media and Tech at the moment, right. So if I'm looking at any particular Telco, I can, rather than spending hours trying to understand what are their problems, what are they talking about in the media great, I can literally say what are the five issues that this particular Telco is publicly focused on the next five years, and you get boom. So what used to take you 15 hours of research is now taking you 15 seconds. Yep, now I can understand. To your question around how am I going to categorize and tier my accounts, mm-hmm List, right, and you go okay, now I know why I'm doing it. Now. It's giving me the next level of detail, yep.

Speaker 2: 14:01

I love it.

Speaker 1: 14:03

That's a great tip. Yeah, I think it really gives you so much more richness in terms of what you're doing and whether it's some companies don't have a dedicated list of accounts, but it might be we're going to target these types of and it might be I need to make a decision on. I was talking to a guy the other day I need to make a decision on am I going to target partner accounts where I'm selling through another business or he's out there looking at how do I find leads coming from the internet? Just helping you with some richness in that thought process. So now, as you build your plan, you can quantify why I'm going to do things in a certain way and you've got some data behind it. I think that bit becomes really interesting and it actually turns your role as a salesperson into a little bit more of a science, versus it just being shoot from the hip and then you've got to turn it down.

Speaker 2: 14:52

I also love the fact that, to take your telco example, what are the five things this firm or this industry is struggling with? We all know that first couple of conversations with a client that might be on your territory plan as an A. You want to go validate that stuff. Don't take it as written, but it gives you a conversation starter and it actually from a psychological perspective. You start the engagement talking about them and not you, and that's probably 101 sales, right? Don't start the conversation about yourself. A hundred percent.

Speaker 1: 15:23

I'll go through and ask, ask and I'll say what are the areas that are their tailwinds and what are their headwinds of the industry? Does that customer align to the same problems of the industry? Because they might have a completely different issue to what the industry has. Are there in Tilco? There's regulatory problems Go across and you look at mining. So mining is going to deal with a whole bunch of issues around the fact that the price of raw goods have changed over the last couple of years. If you're an export right now, so what does that mean? And hey, even though everyone else is talking about tariffs, you're in the category that doesn't have tariffs. Oh, okay, cool, great Sell. Go Understanding. That level of detail becomes critically important. And then now you've got just the next set of detail to go into.

Speaker 2: 16:10

And I think we're kind of almost bleeding into an account plan now right.

Speaker 1: 16:14

But now you've got all what's a territory plan. Territory plan is the whole view of all the things you're going to do, and now I'm going to traverse across into the individualized approach of an account plan for that particular customer.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Planning-wise, you're not going to build.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Here's the first you're not going to build an account plan for every single account.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Don't pretend you're going to do it. Be honest to yourself, but I think there's a delineation here that, as a salesperson, you've got to think about. For my big rocks, I'm going to build a detailed account plan. For everybody else, they're going to fit into a bucket. Yeah, and that might be a sales play.

Speaker 2: 16:54

Yep, I think of it as almost like it's a cohort analysis. So you're looking for similarities and in some sales, for some salespeople that might be a geographic region, others that might be particular business forces that are acting on them, regulatory changes you want to know what's changing right. And if you have a particular cohort of clients that you're going to go talk to and the government's done something, there's a new regulation coming in. That's manna from heaven, right. So they're a cohort that you need to think of and you're almost doing an account plan across five accounts because they all have very similar attributes and that's the way you get to think of and it's you're almost doing an account plan across five accounts because they all have very similar attributes and that's the way you get to the masses. But to your point on the A's, the big nuggets, your account plan needs to feed off your territory plan. But I think, going back to the territory plan for a second, we've talked about the accounts that sit in the territory plan and then some of the attributes around the accounts and who you target. You also need to marry that up with the assets of your business and your ideal customer profile, what that looks like. There's no point in going to sell to Telstra if you've got a really strong product for mining, right. Yeah, that's a really basic example, but you really want to know what that looks like.

Speaker 2: 18:08

And I think the assets of the business include marketing, all sorts of things, other salespeople. The other thing Tip is we talked about templates and you're always going to have a boss one day that says fill out this template or die. I don't love that. I want to give people that have never seen it some direction, so I'll give them a baseline template. But you'll find when you join a new sales business, there's always that rep that's on the leaderboards went to club last year and for the most part they're usually happy to share what they've done, as long as you don't sell into their territory. So ask them what they've done. What's the secret to your success? What in your account plan resonated? And nine times out of 10, they'll say look, I did 10 things in my territory plan last year. Eight of them sucked but two of them were winners. And this is what I did and why, and that's great. But don't build this shit alone.

Speaker 1: 18:56

For sure. And I think don't do that shit alone. I think it goes down to again that's bring people around your account plan, bring people around your territory plans so they're clear on what you're doing and they can hey, listen, we don't do that. That thing that you're off trying to sell. That isn't a product that we have or it's not a service we can offer. It may be a great idea, something we should go and build, but we haven't got it today. And I think that's what comes down to those plays. But also what's in those individualized account plans that says are we really clear? And look, they might be saying but hey, dan, listen, I want to focus on my customer and I want to really make sure we're making an offer that is specific to them. And this is where getting really clear in your own head as to how do you best help that customer you're focusing on, if you don't do that thing that you are proposing to sell to that customer, you're actually not helping them.

Speaker 1: 19:50

There's nothing worse than, halfway through a deal, looking at a customer and saying and we've had it in our joint working lives we sold a thing and we just couldn't do it. We had to walk away. It was geographical and there was a war involved. It was a whole like literal war involved for everyone and a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah, and we couldn't deliver on it, so we had to walk away. Yeah, and we couldn't deliver on it, so we had to walk away.

Speaker 1: 20:13

Now, could we have seen all those things before we signed the deal? Probably, if we looked at it with a good set of neutral eyes. And saying no to customers is as important as saying yes to customers. That's where that playbook comes back into play. So, is this things that we can do repeatedly? Can we rely on the service we're going to give to our customers, the products or the services that I'm offering? Can they support the thing that I've sold, like the outcome that I've sold?

Speaker 1: 20:35

And if they don't just realign the customer to this is what I can offer. This is what we've got, this is what I've got for your money? Yep, that's not for purpose. Hey, great, wish you the best. I can refer you to somebody else who can do those things and move on to the next customer, because I think chasing those yes, it might be 50% of your potential growth, but it's not what we do Now. You might want to pivot your whole business and okay, mine or your territory convince the business that we can squint and turn our heads sideways and it looks like that product. Fine, is it actually worth the outcome you're going to get? So I think those things become critically important around how you build it, how you bring your team and leadership around it and everybody buys in.

Speaker 2: 21:15

They do. Yeah, everyone buys in. It's not your plan. It's your plan, but it's not your plan alone.

Speaker 1: 21:21

Think about it and for years, people have said be the CEO of your own territory. And I think that analogy is wrong, and I'll tell you why I think it's wrong. I think the alignment is much closer to something along the lines of a motor car driver, a race car driver, an F1 driver? Yep, lewis Hamilton right, he is not the CEO of whichever. I don't even know who he's driving for now Mercedes, or whoever he's driving for, right. Yep, he's not the CEO of Mercedes. Yeah, I don't even know who he's driving for now. Mercedes is who he's driving for, right. Yep, yep, yep, he's not the CEO of Mercedes. Yeah, but they build a car for him.

Speaker 1: 21:58

They build an entire structure for him, and when the lights go green, he's the driver, he is the one in the seat driving the car and until they drop the chicken flag, he's in charge of what's going on and he's got to perform and he delivers. They can have built the best car possible in the world and if he can't drive, the thing don't matter. Or vice versa, you might have gone and bought the best, you might have gone and bought the best driver in the world, and if he's driving if he's driving a go-kart, everyone else is in an f1 car. Guess what? He ain't gonna win. Um, he might win occasionally, because everybody else crashes. He might do a Bradbrick, right? Yes, but the percentage chances of that happening over an entire season pretty slim. Yeah, and again, but you might set your target as a business saying I don't need to win the F1 race, I just want to make, if we finish all the time for our growth. That's amazing and we'll make money out of that and we're good for that. Okay, that's fine. Win more races than you did last year. It might just go from 14th to 13th this year, no problems, and that might be the plan.

Speaker 1: 22:59

But everybody, from the owner to the GM, to the driver, to the mechanic. Everybody's on the same page, as that's the outcome we're after, absolutely. And when you achieve those things, everyone gets a tick and moves on. So I think that again the adage of you're the CEO of your territory, sure Do you know what? Lewis Hamilton walks in and says that seat doesn't work and he gets to own the fact that he's got to manage the mechanic, he's got to manage the owner to give him some more money because that seat doesn't work. For me, the pedals are in the wrong position. I can't. If we move the pedals half an inch to the right, this makes all the world of difference to me. Okay, great, how do we do those things If he doesn't put his hand up and say hey, listen, we need to change that. Yep Comes on, lewis off, he goes.

Speaker 2: 23:38

I think that's critically important yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:45

So Dan, how long do you spend?

Speaker 2: 23:46

building your territory plan.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Firstly, it's never finished. You never finish building it. Love it, Love it. That's the best piece, right? You never finish it. And if you say it's done, you're kidding yourself. It's going to change all the time.

Speaker 1: 23:58

But I think you've got to have a look at what does your cycle look like? Are you on an evergreen cycle? So some businesses don't really have a year, you just continually evergreen. So then you can have a bit of an extended period of time to get that done. But most sales reps will have an annual number. Look, if it's not really done within a month, you're just wasting time and effort. You're behind. Yeah, You're behind, right.

Speaker 1: 24:19

So I think you've got to really get it done in a couple of weeks at best, time at best. But then I think you will iterate on it pretty hard in the first quarter. You'll move it around, You'll change it, You'll make sure the resources are aligned, particularly if you're in a business that is either global or others. You'll get some playbooks that come through. Does that fit what I'm going to do? You'll see how some customers change. So I think by the end of the quarter you've got to have your plan pretty locked. But then you're going to have a QBR and even if you're in a small business like if you're in a business with five sales reps or one sales rep if you're not calling your CEO and saying right at the end of the quarter this is what we said we're going to do. Do we all still agree? No, let's iterate and change and move on. I think that's the piece. What do you think, Simon?

Speaker 2: 25:02

Yeah, that's interesting. I think the other thing is be prepared to be wrong. We talked about the, the 10 a's that you're going to focus your time on, and here's an interesting one. One of my c's is put an rfp in for a perfect everything we sell. What do you do? Do you drop everything? Do you? Are your a's all wrong? Do you start scattergun your focus, chase the shiny new object, go away from your account plan or your territory plan? What do you do? So? There's a thought process there, right, because there's no right or wrong answer to this one.

Speaker 2: 25:31

By the way, it's with somebody that you've never spoken to. You get an RFP on your desk and it looks perfect. That should put some warning bells off, because somebody's helped them write that RFP and it ain't you, but interesting. So you've got to be prepared to swap some of your A's out. Don't just add an 11th A. You can focus on 10 at once if that's what you've decided. There's one that's popped up. That's way down your list, but it seems like it's a really good opportunity that you just hadn't clocked. Be prepared to swap one into your A's and one out of your A's and whatever that looks like, and don't end up the year with 95 A's, because that ain't focused, I think what you're talking about, though, is the execution of the plan now versus the plan.

Speaker 1: 26:11

Yep, and I always try and quantify this, and I've given this analogy to a lot of people there are three currencies that people spend on any activity time, effort, money. So now you've got your plan. Okay, now I've actually quantified how I'm going to spend my time for the year. I've only got X amount of efforts In theory. If you think about it like this, I've got five working days in a week. I've got in Australia, it's 48 working weeks. If I take four weeks of leave sorry Americans, but we get four weeks of leave and I've got roughly eight hours a day, if you're in Germany.

Speaker 2: 26:42

You get six weeks.

Speaker 1: 26:43

There you go, there you go, germans can tell us off, but the point being is that's how many hours you've got, and then you can divide it by the number of deals that you want. How long is it going to take to close a piece of business? It might be you close 20 deals a month. It might be you close two deals a month. But now you can do the math and what does it look like? So when that bigger deal or more complex thing comes through, what's the outcome that you can get from that? And this sounds like this is the science behind it, right? So now, in the middle of the month, you can start to look at an opportunity and say, all right, maybe I close 20 deals a month. This is worth 50 deals.

Speaker 2: 27:17

Okay.

Speaker 1: 27:18

It's two and a half months worth of outcome Shit, okay. How much effort do I need to put in? If it's six months of effort to win two and a half months of outcome, it might look really good, but am I going to burn what's that? If I do 20 deals, am I going to burn 120 other deals that I would have closed for putting in that effort? And I think the other thing you got to think about is and when you're looking at an individual deal, if it's worth two and a half months worth of outcome, you need to put two and a half months worth of effort into it. And that might be trying. That's the try really hard, that's the bring people around it. That's the not just show up and throw up or just chuck something over the fence and hope it wins. Johnny, if you put one 20th of a month's worth of effort, given my analogy before, and you thought you'd win two and a half months worth of outcome, probably a pretty poor bet, right you might. Hey, you're gambling versus actually trying to achieve something. Yeah, so I think those things come back into it of just quantifying and understanding.

Speaker 1: 28:23

How am I going about this? What have I got to do? Look, I've got one at the moment which is an unrequested RFP to hit my desk. I'm going to put a response in because you've got to be in it to win it. But until we can get proper engagement, I'm not forecasting this as a huge outcome for our business. I just don't think it will be. I could be wrong. It could be someone else has done all the work before I picked up the account and that's all great. I don't think that's the case. Very rarely does it happen that way. Very rarely, right, very rarely. Look, every now and again someone wins the $100 million on Lotto, right, yeah, but I think your point there is in that example.

Speaker 2: 28:55

If you're getting an RFP but they don't want to deeply engage, then it ain't for you.

Speaker 1: 29:02

That's it. And back to the topic for today is the RFP part of? Is answering RFPs part of your plan for the year If it's not? Sometimes make a hard call Back to the customer look, I really appreciate you inviting us. This is just not part of our go-to-market for the year. I mean, hey, look, we'd love to engage with you like this, but this is how we're choosing to operate and if it's not the right fit for you, hey. We wish you the best of luck and I think that's the hard bit for sales in the execution of this, of how you use the plan throughout the year.

Speaker 2: 29:31

And your last question is it a direct correlation to your pipeline cover?

Speaker 1: 29:36

Always yeah, oh my gosh, this gets me out of a hole. But then I think the thing you've got to understand in your plan is hold on, I've got no pipeline cover. I don't have, and this can be for any business person, not just salespeople. I'm a lawyer, I'm a cover. I don't have, and this can be for any business person, not just salespeople. I'm a lawyer, I'm a dentist. I don't have any clients coming to the door, right?

Speaker 1: 29:56

Okay, so what am I going to do? To iterate? That means you're replanning. It doesn't mean you chase the next set of jangly keys that come through the door. You're actually thinking about okay, the plan that I'm executing right now doesn't make sense, so maybe I've got a mid-year correction happening. So I need to then pivot and I go through the process again and I start and I learn from the lessons of the past, or the past month, the past quarter, the half, whatever it is and I ensure that my plan doesn't end up looking exactly like the previous plan. That's what I have to do. Well, hold on. If you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome, that's now on you. Yeah, so it's like how do I walk through this idea of those little bits of change like that and they don't have to be dramatic changes when you get to that execution level. Right, sometimes they can be changes to the way you will talk to prospective clients or prospects in the first email. Am I going to change the outreach iteration? Am I going to change the offer I'm providing to them? Sometimes? Am I charging my offer too cheaply? I'm always amazed the number of times that companies are putting their offers out in the marketplace and not getting the uptake because competitively they look too cheap and therefore I need to be paying more money to this.

Speaker 1: 31:12

And look, there was a great example someone gave me years ago. I think you might have said this to me. When we first started selling ERP, there were a whole bunch of accountants that we used to spending. This is when cloud was coming about. We used to spending 30 to 50 million bucks because of the size of their business, on accounting software and all of a sudden, when cloud kicked in, they were spending like a couple of hundred thousand. And they said I can't walk up to my board and say that four years ago I asked for $20 million to buy accounting software and infrastructure and support and now it's $150,000.

Speaker 1: 31:44

One of these two numbers must be wrong. All of a sudden, the market, just like now. Over time that's all changed and how much people spend on this stuff dramatically changed. But the first couple of iterations were hold on. This can't be right. This can't be right. Your offering can't be fit for purpose. It's not enough money. This is too important for our business. Again, it's all changed over time, but I think that was that iteration of again. Time, effort, money came down to it. Great, I'm saving the money, but there must be more time and effort in this because it can't be this cheap.

Speaker 2: 32:17

Yeah, and look, let's talk a little bit about the execution of the plan, because we've got our high-priority targets, we've got our mid-priority targets. Yeah, A lot of big and even mid-sized software businesses have an SDR function sales development and outbound calls, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 32:34

Yeah, the best sales people. When they're executing their plan, they typically have a weekly sit-down with their SDR, reflect on their territory plan. So this week, what are we going to do to drive some conversations, get some meetings, et cetera? And it needs to be based on your territory plan. It can't just be a random pick of what's in the territory. And I think in most organizations I've worked in you're sharing your SDR with at least one or two other salespeople.

Speaker 1: 33:02

And I think it goes down to and again, I'm going through this process at the moment like being really clear on what that person is going to go and do, what type of customers, what's the messaging that they're going to give out. And I can get it early on. Get into the detail. Show them what you want them to be saying, how you want to be represented. Again, what I met too often junior salespeople think it's just about. If I talk about great features of the product, people will answer my question. Go on.

Speaker 1: 33:35

If anyone doubts this, open up your own email box right now. If you're in Gmail, click across into the tabs and look at the promotions tab. If you're in Outlook, I'm sure there's a similar one, right? I'm a Gmail user. Look at all the emails. Everyone has written these, and they're all about tab For an Outlook, I'm sure there's a similar one, right? I'm a Gmail user. Look at all the emails. That's everyone who's written these, and they're all about products. How many of them haven't you opened? They've got great subject lines. Open the email and read them. There's a great expository of their product. You're not answering and it's not the function of Gmail that's doing it for you. It's the fact that they're talking about a product that is, I'm sure. The product at the end of the email is amazing and if you bought it it would have a positive impact on your life. But it's all about the product. It's not about how it's going to impact you as an individual. I think it goes for the rest of the team that's involved in delivering the number right.

Speaker 1: 34:20

As a salesperson, never in my entire career as a salesperson have I actually built the thing that I'm delivering. Even when I ran my own company, I wasn't the person out fixing appliances. When I sold mobile phones, I didn't build the phones. I just took a book box off the shelf and handed it to the customer and maybe I stuck a SIM card inside, but I didn't do all the hard work. Now I'm selling software. I didn't build the software and I'm not going to deliver it, so you've got to bring the people around, all those other things into the plan.

Speaker 1: 34:51

So if it's in the delivery of your sale, there might be a product person. There might be a delivery person. There might be the warehouse manager. If you're shipping product, if you're planning to quadruple the number of products you sold this year versus next year, is there enough shell fracking in the warehouse to support that, because at some point someone needs to work that problem out or at least start to think about it. What would we do if? Because otherwise you are way over your skis and you're planning for a thing that you can't execute. So if you're going to go through the process of doing more deals this year, if you're in software, like we, are okay.

Speaker 1: 35:31

What does my solution engineer or my solution strategy person got to work with me on? How are they thinking about planning on these deals? How do they prioritize their time? And when do they put their hand up saying, hey, look, great plan, we can't execute that. And I think you've got to listen to your people around you as well and say, okay, if they can't execute it, is it time capacity, is it? They're stretched? How do I then either adjust the plan or talk to the business about additional resources to achieve the plan, because it may be you're being asked to deliver this.

Speaker 1: 36:04

Your new number it's 3x what it was last year, because there's huge opportunity and but hold on, business hasn't backfilled to be able to deliver that. All right, your job as a salesperson is not to get to the end of the year and say I know you asked me to do 3x, but I only did 1.2x because that's all the capacity that we had, if you didn't call that out right at the start of the year. That I don't. And it's not about saying to the business no, I think that's where salespeople get themselves caught up. It's not about saying to your leader or your CEO or chief revenue officer or VP or whoever it is no, I'm not doing that. It's hey, listen, I need help. I don't understand how, understand where I'm standing right now, how I get all these pieces to work, and I need you to help me get there. And sometimes they'll push back. We've all had that experience. Right, work it out, mate.

Speaker 1: 36:55

Okay, so go the other way, bring those people in those roles together and say listen, I'm being asked to go and do this. Can we work creatively together to understand what's the best plan that we can go and do this? Can we work creative, creatively together to understand what's the best plan that we can go and achieve this? And if, fundamentally, x does not equal y, all right, what's the gap? Let's have a like what do we do? And if everyone's agreed, that's the thing that we're going to work really hard on to close that gap. We'll either get there or we won't. It will tell you where we got there, but then we can work out for the next year or the next time period. Okay, what's the change? What are the things? Do we adjust the expectation? Do we adjust the resources? Do we adjust our price? We can sell more.

Speaker 1: 37:36

I don't know what the outcome is, but the point is you've got an analysis that's against the plan and now you can iterate effectively and against a plan and now you can iterate effectively. And look on the flip side of that. You and I have been through the experience of when you've not had a great year before and the CEO says to you no suit for you, suit Nazi style. He literally said to us zero dollars, you can have zero dollars. This year we went okay and we had to go and build our zero dollar marketing plan. What did it then mean? It was creative. And we had the go and build our $0 marketing plan. What did it then mean? It was creative and we had the best year. Like the next year, we killed it, but it was because we had a plan.

Speaker 1: 38:09

Like everybody was clear. We didn't hide behind it. A hundred percent Tough love. I also think there was an aspect of it and, if he listens, I'd love to know if this was the case. I reckon they got to. We have no idea what that number will be. And I got to the end of the list and went we've divvied out all the cash and we forgot about them. It's funny, I like that.

Speaker 1: 38:28

But yeah, and so if the number is again. So this could be your startup, this could be. You're in a team that you're a brand new team and all of a sudden, no one knows how to spend or whatever. It is Okay, what's the resources that we've got? Okay, if there's no money, we're going to put more time and effort in, and that's what we had to go and do. And it just changes how you're going to go about it and look around you. And again, I'd go back to chat GPT. If I have no money, but I have to go and find this many customers, what are some ideas and options of things that I could do? Google some answers, what are some low cost examples? I actually think the funny piece of that year that we had no money, we ran. I actually think the funny piece of that year that we had no money. We ran half a dozen. So once every two months, almost free events breakfasts, dinners, lunches that we could just expense inside our monthly expenses and that was way more than we did on the years that we actually had marketing money.

Speaker 1: 39:25

So you become creative as a salesperson and leader as to how do you go and need to achieve those problems. The last thing I want to do because we are getting close to the top of that I want to talk about what not to do. I think this is natural. I've seen that person, or you've done it yourself who has. We've talked through a few points of this, like what are the things in your planning process and your territory plan just not to do? I was actually going to say really similar items, right? So, firstly, if you don't know how to build a territory plan either, so your new salesperson or your boss hasn't asked you to do one. If they have asked you to do one and you don't know how to do it, don't wait till territory plan presentation day to turn up eager beaver in the meeting room or on the Zoom call and go. Okay, so I didn't really know what to do and now hold on. All that conversation happened before you got there and you got the booking a week out the moment you got it.

Speaker 1: 40:12

If you need help, put your hand up and you say, hey, listen, I want to make sure that meeting in a week's time is really valuable for both of us, but I need some. I feel like my, and it's okay and your boss will appreciate this. They will drill in, they will give you some resources. It might be one of your colleagues to help and just be open and vulnerable and say I don't know how to do this very well, I want to make sure I do a good job of this because it's critically important. Can you help me? And they will help. If they don't help, go work somewhere else. And that's the message to the bosses, right, if you don't help, the person puts their hand up and they leave. That's on you, not on them, absolutely, absolutely. It also means when you get to the day of presenting and if it's not all fine, everybody helps build it. So, out of that meeting, it means they'll help work with you on getting the next steps done right. It's everyone's plan, not yours. Talk to people about it. I agree with you.

Speaker 1: 41:03

Powerpoint is a presentation tool, it's not a planning tool If you go and read from Microsoft or even on Google using slides. It's a presentation tool. You don't use it to plan a project. You don't use it to do financial analysis. All of these things are what your plan is made up of. There's no Gantt chart process in PowerPoint, so you can't plan over a calendar, and there are a whole bunch of amazing free tools. I use Notion except all over my own business, like how I look at my own F1 car right now. You can do that and own it in a whole bunch of different ways. And these are almost free tools, if not a couple of bucks a month. Spend the money. It's four bucks a month. It's not a PowerPoint and it's functional when you walk out.

Speaker 1: 41:49

Now, again, if you choose to summarize the way you're going to talk about it into a couple of slides, that's different to the details sitting in your mouth 100%. I think that's critically important. It also shows that your leadership and your boss you know what you're doing, you're actually across this and they're more than willing to invest in someone who knows what they're doing. And then the last piece of it is again, as you said, don't think you've got all the answers. Don't think you're right. You're not right. It's just a plan. Someone will tell you at the end of the year normally the customer that your plan was a good one because they bought stuff or you achieved the plan or you delivered the project or you grew the team, whatever the objectives are, and that's probably the other thing. Don't have your plan based just around financial numbers. I think that's the what not to do.

Speaker 1: 42:28

Mate, you can give the summary of the top three points, I think, out of our session today before we wrap up. Mate. Top three tips walking away for territory and account planning. What do you want to talk away with? Yep, mate, amazing advice, great to chat. As always, we've had some good fun. Happy Friday, mate. But everyone, make sure you do click, like and subscribe. If you're watching on youtube, if you're on, if you're on apple or on spotify, it's a plus sign to follow us for the next episodes. But hey, this is fun. Simon, I enjoyed chatting about I believe I enjoyed talking about territory account plans. But that was good you did. Thanks everybody. Have a great Friday, talk soon.