Project Proposal 2
- 1. Driving Inside Sales at Katun Prepared for: Katun Corporation Leadership Team Prepared by: Zach Howland, Inside Sales Representative February, 2016
- 2. ACCOUNT ESSENTIALS Objective You should know all of these categories for every single account. These are your platforms for developing industry trust and earning the ability to grow customer profitability. The List 1) MIF How many machines do you have in the field? ... This question will indicate potential account growth. There are two parts to this question ... 1) The sum total is important, but it will be important for you to know, 2) How many of those machines are ON service contract and how many are NOT? 2) Primary Brand and Secondary Brand What is the primary brand in the field? and, Do you service any secondary brands in the field? ... These answers indicate your entry point. Follow up with, "Are you on OEM contract with your primary brand?" ... If this is true, you have two entry points: 1) Quota: Companies on OEM contract are forced to hit quota - if they blow through it vendors are driven to purchase more the next year ... your pitch becomes, "I'd like to help you not drive up that quota next year ... Do you have FIVE volume machines to purchase WTC's or toner sets for?" ... Here is some truth though: They will pull this card ... "My OEM contract WILL NOT allow me to do that." Bottom line, unless they are a 2,000+ MIF count company their OEM vendor isn't keeping as close of tabs on them as they are telling you. See through their smoke-screen. Confidently say back to them, "I know all about how the OEM's operate, and I know you'd be absolutely safe in putting WTC's in every single one of your machines, and some toner sets in some older models." 2) Secondary: The secondary brand often becomes opportunity to grow with this account. Move to pitch pricing out FIVE volume machines in the secondary brand. Offer competitive pricing! Do your best to not get off the phone without getting those machines vocally, or confirming them being sent via email. 3) Tech Count Tech count indicates viability for Solution Tools. KATUN CORPORATION: INSIDE SALES TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT
- 3. 4) Power Protection Do you currently use power protection in the field? ... What brand are they using? Have you or your techs had any unexplainable phantom error codes this past year? Are your techs able to take diagnostic power readings in the field (Innovolt is the only company that offers this)? Do you incorporate PP into your service contracts? Create an Excel Spreadsheet for PP Leads. 5) Solutions Tools Do you utilize any solutions tools to monitor machines and employees in the field? ... They may not know what you mean ... Follow-Up: Are your techs walking the field to collect meters, Are customers emailing you meter counts, Do you have the ability to monitor toner levels from your computer screen, Can you track techs in the field, Do your techs have access to warehouse inventory levels in the field? Are they happy with their current tools? What are the brands of these tools? ... All these questions will give you information to introduce the correct solutions tools. Background info: If they use a solutions tool alongside their primary brand to monitor machines or a profit bid calculator provided by the OEM company - these tools are not comprehensive ... they only have the capabilities of monitoring a single brand - your Solutions can run in the background of those, and incorporate all primary and secondary machines in the field. Create and Excel Spreadsheet for ST Leads. 6) Business Model Lastly, close the loop by combining this data into articulating to them what their business model is. You have gathered all this information, now repeat it back to them and tell them what they need. Leverage this final discussion to confirm 1) A follow-up email, 2) The e-mail will include a snap-shot of offerings in the brands they gave you, a pricing sheet on 5 machines they offered you (or confirmation of them sending it to you via email), and any other details in the PP or ST world that you see as value to their company. Indicate clearly you will be following up next week - if they say they don't want a call, call anyway. Be honest with your purchaser, service manager, or owner about the nature of the business ... they are the expert, but you hold the tool bag of the latest information and technology in the industry. Confirm to them that you can be an asset to their company and utilized as a third-wheel employee. And never forget - you offer OEM competitive product. This industry is convinced that "Brand Name" is better ... This is like saying PF Fliers are guaranteed to make you run faster and jump higher, when in fact, the truth rests in the eye of the beholder. KATUN CORPORATION: INSIDE SALES TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT
- 4. QUADRANT FOCUSED SELLING Objective To identify the top tactical quadrants to focus your attention on in order to continually 1) Maintain, 2) Grow, and 3) Discover new business in the territory. Use these quadrants to leverage educated conversations that will build territory profitability. Your goal should not be to get customers, your goal should be to get purchases. Purchases boost your revenue and margin, not customers. A customer means nothing to you if they are not buying. Utilize your "Essentials" to leverage educated conversations to gain purchases. Your end goal should be to: Identify the challenge, utilize your solutions, close the sale, learn from your process, and move to the next conversation. The Quadrants 1) Top 20 to Maintain These accounts would generally fall under a "Maintenance" category. They are your top producers and affectively considered optimally enhanced from a Katun perspective - that is, these accounts don't have much room for growth but are constantly being driven to self-sustainability on their online catalog account. Through consistent maintenance of these accounts, if new opportunities arise you will be ready to respond, but they are not your core focus. An important reminder here is: Just because they are your money-makers doesn't mean they have been asked the right questions, or that you are even talking to the right person. Your job first is to be absolutely certain you've asked the right questions of the right people in order to qualify these accounts as "Maintenance" accounts. Don't fall into the mistake of thinking there isn't anymore possibility here. The qualification for these accounts is: $1,000+ avg. 6-month sales. NOTE: Create a month-over-month tracking Excel Sheet for these accounts. 2) Top 20 to Grow These accounts fall under a "Potential Growth" category. These are accounts that fall under the 5-800 MIF +, although you should focus your attention on higher MIF counts first. These accounts have the potential to move into the top producers category. There should be an intentional focus to discover the right person to speak with regarding a certain category of business. These are accounts that have been doing consistent business with Katun, but have not been asked the correct questions to grow their portfolio with us. This category deserves a significant focus of attention. There should be an intention of asking for the sale, competitive pricing based on volume, and comprehensive business possibility inquiries. NOTE: Create a month-over-month tracking Excel Sheet for these accounts. KATUN CORPORATION: INSIDE SALES TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT
- 5. 3) Top 10 to Discover These accounts fall under a "Discover" category. These accounts are diamonds-in-the-rough that are currently "non-buying" or "zero-dollar-average-6-month accounts." Your first priority is finding MIF counts that are in the 1000+ range. These accounts could be lost business, poorly managed historically, have not had the correct questions asked of the right people, generally have a higher tech-count to indicate growth potential (4-plus). Key indicators are to look at historical reports of lost business YOY or "non-buying accounts". "Discover" accounts are strategic players for territory growth potential. But keep in mind they may or may not see growth as quickly as your "Top 20 to Grow." NOTE: Create a month-over-month tracking Excel Sheet for these accounts. 4) KAP/PFP Plain and simple, these accounts are easy sells. They are on program for a good historical reason. If they are on KAP - they are $500 a month account at minimum. However, your strategy should not exclusively be to help these accounts hit rebate each month, keep in mind, just because they are buying consistently does not mean their Katun portfolio is complete ... Don't let them get comfortable with the rhythm of simply hitting their rebate based on the same purchases over-and-over. These accounts know the game and need to have educated conversations. Make sure you know your "Essentials" to platform an educated conversation. PFP are large volume ticket-holders, but it should not be your strategy to get all your accounts on PFP. Don't give away free money. PFP is a business move to get that $2,500 a month account to the next level. Keep in mind, this is as simple as adding a few Innovolts to their purchase, or solidifying a couple sets of toners. Use PFP as a bonus card to earn more business. These accounts are tricky ... Your goal should be to help them consistently be in range of their rebate - meaning - manage these accounts strategically so you don't end up with a "Yo-Yo" effect. If they do $5,000 in one month because you over sold them, and $2,000 the next, this will skew your revenue and margin quotas. Consistency is the name of the game here. KAP/PFP accounts should receive: 1 call and 1 e-mail in the first week of the month ... AND ... 1 call in the third week of the month. NEVER call on KAP in the last week. It has been my experience, unless they are under $100 to go, this comes off pushy and leaves you without the ability to have an educated conversation. It is your fault if they miss KAP, you didn't manage them well enough over the quarter. They have 3-months to nail $1,500 ... ask the right questions up front, to engage in better conversations over the quarter. 5) CSA - Pricing Conversations These conversations are easy opportunities to have educated discussions with your customers at the beginning of every month. It will allow you to drive a margin focused business and keep the power-distance relationship situated in your hands. These are opportunities to leverage conversations with owners, not buyers. Pull the money card and ask for a conversation with an owner. This is an opportunity to discuss product expansion not just ongoing pricing agreements. 6) Power Protection KATUN CORPORATION: INSIDE SALES TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT
- 6. Power protection is a powerful quadrant, but takes longer to win new business. You need to explore background information: What is your business model - Servicing Contracts? Remans? Are your machines valuable to you? Would you be interested in integrating power protection into your service contracts to leverage more money? Does your MIF count cover a significant land-coverage? Have you or your techs noticed phantom error codes? Have you lost some money due to sending techs to unnecessary customer calls? Are you interested in harvesting on- location data that will allow your techs to address power-based machine issues? ... Come at these calls from an educated perspective. Use Rob's monthly Innovolt documents as a targeted starting point to engage current or past buyers. Also use Rob as reinforcement for leveraging expertise. 7) Solutions Tools It should be your goal to get every Maintain, Grow, and Discover account on solutions tools. This is where the industry is going ... Reinforce this to your customers. We want to take the role of educator here, not seller. Solutions tools seem like big decisions to these companies, encourage them from an honest perspective that it is your job to keep them up to date on the latest tools that will make them more profitable. The challenge: You are often working with an owner or service manager that has been doing the same thing for 25 years. It is your job to show them the value of bringing them out of the dinosaur-age. You save them time, tech mileage/hourly pay, their customer receives consistency across their service contract, create more space to capture new business without needing more employees. Solutions tools take time to win. This sales cycle is longer. Target companies within the 1000 MIF range first, shoot for 5 potential companies as a goal ... and work-em. Listen for key phrases: Are their meter readings submitted by customer or done by hand through techs in the field? Are they merging with other companies through acquisitions? Are they an OEM vendor with a secondary brand (they may have an OEM monitoring tool, but nothing for their secondary)? Your first sale in this is to land a webinar. You earn the final sale by consistently following up and driving the conversation to a conclusion. 8) Tactical Reports Bottom line, it should be your goal to get purchases. These customers are buying from a need-based position. They don't need you to place an order, they don't need you to call them and ask "If they need anything?" This is an absolutely fruitless conversation. Once you have established yourself, you need to backbone your conversations. Tactical Reports are rocket fuel to win more business from an account. They show you've done your research, you establish that they trust Katun product already, and you offer a strategic opportunity to expand their Katun portfolio through saving money without sacrificing quality. Come from a position of leverage. Question: What are the top 5 reports that you can run? Product Specific: They used to purchase a certain product but are no longer, Why? ... leverage. Product Expansion: They are currently buying "X" WTC's or Toner Sets, you come with a number of similar machines where we carry the WTC's and/or Toner Sets for those machines. Or they currently buy "X" WTC's and you offer them to expand into toner sets for the machine ... leverage. KATUN CORPORATION: INSIDE SALES TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT
- 7. B2B: You are currently working with "X" business in their area, you have confirmed they are getting good results with "Y" products ... leverage this as an opportunity to grow your reputation and product expansion. Non-buying Customers: These are your dig accounts. They aren't buying. Call everyone on the list and discover what they do. This is your "Diamond-in-the-rough" report. Karrots Product Reports: Comprehensive product sales reporting ... find holes in your sales by looking at all businesses that are buying products "A,B,C." 9) Weeding the Inactive A "non-buying" customer is a worthless customer. Spend time digging in the zero-dollar accounts to explore who these accounts are ... Keep a running spreadsheet of those accounts that have been acquired by other companies or notoriously inactive. Craft a "copy-paste" e-mail and blast it to all recipients in the account. This is an account inquiry e-mail with a power-distance statement indicating their lack of purchases and the repercussions thereof. Leverage these e-mails to creatively drive business to purchases. 10) Account Advocacy and Term Negotiating You are an account advocate. You are the representative that sits between a customer's business and Katun. Term negotiating can be a powerful angle to drive sales towards Katun. Katun's Credit Department has the primary goal to be certain customers pay their bills, but you have ears in the weeds trying to turn over new profitable business - and one way to boost profitability is to serve as a term-negotiator. 1) YOY - lost business reports: Some of these accounts were unable to pay their bills. You need to rebuild this relationship and get them back on track to purchasing through terms. Learn the history on these accounts, contact the credit department, speak with ownership ... gather data and determine if you can renegotiate terms under a watchful trial period. 2) Non-buying accounts: Get your high-potential accounts on terms. Many of them, if they are not buying regularly, have terms with other companies - Getting them on-terms with Katun will incentivize them to drive business over to Katun. This will also leverage opportunities to get visibility with owners. 3) All Customers: Have your eye constantly tuned to how businesses are purchasing. As you begin turning over calls and exploring companies, be blunt, ask how they prefer to operate their finances, that is, do they prefer purchasing by credit card or on-terms? Getting accounts on-terms, while it is a risk to Katun, establishes an immediate platform of trust between you and your customer. It pins you as an Account Advocate - not a Salesperson begging for their dollar. KATUN CORPORATION: INSIDE SALES TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT