Early one morning in 1996, while getting some work done in the office, one of my peers proudly walked to his cubicle positioned next to mine and boasted: “It’s all in here. This is my whole world. I’ll know everything about all eighty accounts in this notebook. If they buy any type of office equipment, I’ll know before they do.” I can remember him holding the white three-ring binder in his right hand like it was a winning lottery ticket. Even though he was acting smug about his accomplishment, this guy combined hard work, success, and likeability in such a natural way that I enjoyed his gloating.
To add context to the scenario, my coworker had just been promoted and was now responsible for selling our most expensive systems. His average transaction had just increased from $15,000 to $80,000. He needed to identify the right prospects. However, he earned his promotion by being the hungriest sales person I’d met to that point of my career – not the most strategic or organized. He was impulsive and opportunistic, so his new attitude toward being proactive and deliberate impressed me … so much that I’m writing about it 22 years later.
So, what accounts are you pursuing on a regular basis? If you can’t answer this question by showing a list of accounts, then you’re probably not proactively selling.
In the next month or so, build your database of targeted prospects. Of course, there’s a lot more detail involved to this strategy, but the first step is to identify your targets. Don’t get bogged down by the other details. Heck, feel free to do it the old-fashioned way and create a three-ring binder. It doesn’t really matter – create your list of accounts and go get ‘em.
