“Successful relationship selling is not just a list of activity items. It is a thinking person’s occupation, requiring a plan, a process with targets and smart activity, and integrated skills measured against the only metric indicator of success – The Client Business Plan.” - Joanne Flynn, “The Relationship Management Model”©
Sales and Business Development is essential to look at from a holistic perspective, starting with:
All three must be part of a robust relationship management process that is critical for sales and business development success. Skip any of the three concepts, and you will build flaws into your business development program. All this information is absolutely necessary to develop the key management tools to monitor and measure success. It all comes together in The Client Business Plan.
Is it Activity or is it Smart Activity?
A big misconception regarding client management is that activity is the measure of sales success. Activity is an easy metric, and today numerous apps can monitor that activity. However, the only important activity metric is smart activity. The only way to determine and assess smart activity is relative to an evaluation context that determines if each activity is the best use of the salesperson’s time. Only then can we truly evaluate if an activity is a smart activity. The basis of this evaluation is the Client Business Plan.
Activity and the Immediate Gratification Syndrome
Managing client relationships often has nothing to do with the number of face-to-face calls or sent emails that a salesperson makes in a week. The real question is, relative to a specific client relationship, were the right calls made during that week that will move sales targets forward in a ‘process continues’ way? It’s very easy for salespeople to be seduced by the activity syndrome. We all are. It is very satisfying and immediate gratification– like crossing off the “C” category items on a ‘To Do List.” But how many times does undifferentiated activity lead nowhere? If we equate activity to time, misplaced activity is a finite time resource that a salesperson:
So What’s the Big Deal?
It’s Competitive Warfare Out There! That’s the Big Deal!
In a highly competitive marketplace, a salesperson must continually evaluate their use of time as a scarce resource. The use of time is a controllable factor. All activity is not equal, and all clients are not equal. Salespeople are in different stages with their “Portfolio of Clients” and must adjust and use their time and scarce resources wisely and appropriately.
Below are three examples of clients in different relationship phases. Each phase requires that the salesperson engages in specific Smart Activities in the context of strategic relationship management and the client business plan.
No one said successful selling and business development was easy!
To better understand the importance of the Client Business Plan, I invite you to learn more about our Sales & Business Development program as part of the Phoenix Strategic Performance Institute. This program helps you strategically align your sales process to accelerate the relationship sales process, creating corporate growth and building strategic value.