http://www.stratton.comFirst, and most importantly, a very sincere wish for a wonderful, healthy and prosperous 2012.
For me, it’s always great to start out a new year as a salesguy. The excitement of the entire year's calendar lies ahead. Sales plans and key account plans have been developed, discussed, digested and finally approved. Budgets lay in wait for the spending, and the economic morass which caused so much Q3 and Q4 angst and corporate wallet gnashing seems to be a bit more stable. A perfectly laid out plan.
But, as you know from reading these blogs and our newsletter, The Competitive Edge, I’m a bit of a planning nut. Ok, obsessed would be more like it, but it’s who I am, and I’ve seen the very positive sales results to know that it works. I’m also a disciple of General Sun Tzu’s teachings about planning in The Art of War, and as he pointed out early in the development of his concepts of modern warfare…
The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat; how many more do no calculations at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose. General Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Even given this, we also know that most plans change and some plans change dramatically. I’m sure that when the Patriots were down 21 to 0 last week, they didn’t keep playing the game with the same game plan that they came out on the field with. The point here is that sales plans, just like football playbooks, need to be formal in their construction, logical in their build out, perfect in their training, but also flexible enough that when changes need to be made, they’re made and made quickly.
Just before Christmas, I went to Stratton to do some serious “field research” every morning, while I retreated to the house every afternoon to work on a complex business plan that needed to be finished before yearend. Stratton is one of the major snow resorts in the country and certainly has the best snowmaking and grooming in the East, so think of the amount of planning that goes on in order to open for the winter season. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of equipment are brought up to speed, millions of gallons of water are moved uphill and stored, the village retail shops are inventoried, 11 major lifts are inspected and certified and more than a thousand part time employees are hired and trained all waiting for one simple thing: cold weather. Clearly, a great example of the best laid plans…except when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
What I observed however over the two weeks that I was at Stratton was a well-oiled machine managed by a highly experienced and fluid management team that one way or another had the mountain open every day with newly made and expertly groomed snow. Knowing that some of the days, especially the week after Christmas, were going to result in packed slopes with not a full terrain, management quickly shifted gears and filled the resort with multiple activities aimed at both adults and kids to keep them from getting on one another nerves on afternoons that they may have maxed out their time on the slopes. Mix all of this with excellent customer service and communication on the part of every employee, and the result was a very comfortable guest experience.
As we dig into 2012, we need to keep focused on our formal quarterly sales plans, formal key account plans, and formal territory development plans. No planning= marginal results. But the other side of that equation is that our plans need to be flexible enough and have sufficient backups to answer the question of “What will we do if it doesn’t snow?
Part of that answer will come as a result of attending our Sales Management Effectiveness Boot Camp April 1st-April 3rd in Boston. After a solid quarter under your belt at the end of Q1, we know from our experience of five years of Boot Camps that a retuning, a look at new ideas and the opportunity to talk to other management professionals is just the thing to kick up the productivity of your for 2012. Guest speakers include executives from Brainshark, HubSpot, Time Trade and Salesforce.
The Early Bird Discount is $200 off our low price/high value program if you sign before January 15th plus an additional $100 off each for you and any other managers that accompany you from your company. Plus all attendees receive a free half day Whiteboarding Session scheduled at their convenience anytime during the following six months.
Just email me at jack@derbymanagement.com, and I'll set up a 10 minute call to answer your questions and walk you through the details of how to register.
Good Selling !
Jack
Head Coach
