In July of 2008 I wrote a blog - "Jack Berman's Call Organizer" - about the way I used to prepare for sales calls when I was a manufacturers representative. In the blog I talk about how and why I did this and how successful it was for me.
What I forgot to mention is the time it took to do the preparation. Jack told us (1991, CPMR 101 students) it should take about 15 minutes per call. It often took me much longer to prepare for a call. Here are the steps I took initially:
* went over each manufacturer's reports for sales numbers TY vs LY
* went over each manufacturer's reports (if available) to see what SKU's they were buying
* tried to remember what we talked about the last time we met or talked
* wrote down what I wanted to accomplish during the meeting
Over time the steps changed slightly:
What I forgot to mention is the time it took to do the preparation. Jack told us (1991, CPMR 101 students) it should take about 15 minutes per call. It often took me much longer to prepare for a call. Here are the steps I took initially:
* went over each manufacturer's reports for sales numbers TY vs LY
* went over each manufacturer's reports (if available) to see what SKU's they were buying
* tried to remember what we talked about the last time we met or talked
* wrote down what I wanted to accomplish during the meeting
Over time the steps changed slightly:
* went over internal computer generated reports for sales numbers TY vs LY
* went over each manufacturer's reports (if available) to see what SKU's they were buying
* reviewed call organizers to see what we had gone over previously
* wrote down what I wanted to accomplish during the meeting
As you can see, I saved a considerable amount of time by not having to look up each individual manufacturer's sales reports and by not having to rely on my faulty memory for the previous results of our meetings. However, if the manufacturer still provided an SKU (or line item) report, it still took some time to review them to see what the customer was not buying.
When I originally wrote this post (2/4/2009) MRSware shortened sales preparation considerably. How short you ask - 5 minutes. How can that be you ask - let me tell you.
Here are the steps:
* print out MRSware's "Contact Printout"
* print out MRSware's "Customer Snapshot"
* write down what you want to accomplish during the meeting
DONE!
If you have a slow printer it may take longer, but with just these 2 reports, you have the basic facts you need to prepare your calls.
"Contact Printout"
Print the "Contact Printout" and you have a report with the following information:
Company/Contact name along with phone numbers, physical locations, email addresses and website.
Notes, of a general kind, you may have included
Additional information on the company/contact (spouse's name, birthday, etc)
Categories that you have assigned them (buying groups, markets, etc)
Contacts at the company
Relationships (usually the manufacturers they buy from - your Principals & competitors)
Activities - the Journals describing any previous interaction with the customer (the default is for 90 days, but you can go back as far as 2 years)
E-mail (if you select email, the report may be extremely lengthy)
"Customer Snapshot"
Print the "Customer Snapshot" and you have a report with the following information:
Company name along with phone numbers, physical locations
Dates included in the snapshot
Additional information on the company
Categories you have assigned them
Contacts at the company
Sales by Principal (each Principal is listed with their sales numbers)
Top 10 Products (if you enter line item detail it will show actual products, if not you will see the invoice totals by dollar size)
Sales by Month (total sales by month up to the previous 4 years
So, pick a customer and print out these two reports and see for yourself how easy sales call preparation can be.
Both the Contact Printout and Customer Snapshot reports are easiest run from the Company listing or Customer listing, respectively:
You can also run the Contact Printout report using the Contact Printout icon, found on the Toolbar in every Company or Contact screen.
You can also run the Customer Snapshot report from Report Explorer found on the Sidebar.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, 7 years later, there have been a lot of changes in technology and the way sales reps plan for sales calls/meetings.
One of the differences is the tools sales reps use. A lot of sales reps now use their mobile devices during the day instead of their laptops.
If you are one of the reps who rely on a cell phone or tablet you can still run the Contact Printout and Customer Snapshot reports. Instead of printing them, save them in a .PDF format and either:
* went over each manufacturer's reports (if available) to see what SKU's they were buying
* reviewed call organizers to see what we had gone over previously
* wrote down what I wanted to accomplish during the meeting
As you can see, I saved a considerable amount of time by not having to look up each individual manufacturer's sales reports and by not having to rely on my faulty memory for the previous results of our meetings. However, if the manufacturer still provided an SKU (or line item) report, it still took some time to review them to see what the customer was not buying.
When I originally wrote this post (2/4/2009) MRSware shortened sales preparation considerably. How short you ask - 5 minutes. How can that be you ask - let me tell you.
Here are the steps:
* print out MRSware's "Contact Printout"
* print out MRSware's "Customer Snapshot"
* write down what you want to accomplish during the meeting
DONE!
If you have a slow printer it may take longer, but with just these 2 reports, you have the basic facts you need to prepare your calls.
"Contact Printout"
Print the "Contact Printout" and you have a report with the following information:
Company/Contact name along with phone numbers, physical locations, email addresses and website.
Notes, of a general kind, you may have included
Additional information on the company/contact (spouse's name, birthday, etc)
Categories that you have assigned them (buying groups, markets, etc)
Contacts at the company
Relationships (usually the manufacturers they buy from - your Principals & competitors)
Activities - the Journals describing any previous interaction with the customer (the default is for 90 days, but you can go back as far as 2 years)
E-mail (if you select email, the report may be extremely lengthy)
"Customer Snapshot"
Print the "Customer Snapshot" and you have a report with the following information:
Company name along with phone numbers, physical locations
Dates included in the snapshot
Additional information on the company
Categories you have assigned them
Contacts at the company
Sales by Principal (each Principal is listed with their sales numbers)
Top 10 Products (if you enter line item detail it will show actual products, if not you will see the invoice totals by dollar size)
Sales by Month (total sales by month up to the previous 4 years
So, pick a customer and print out these two reports and see for yourself how easy sales call preparation can be.
Both the Contact Printout and Customer Snapshot reports are easiest run from the Company listing or Customer listing, respectively:
- Select a Company or Customer in the list and click the Report button on the button bar
- Right-click on the Company/Customer and select Reports
You can also run the Contact Printout report using the Contact Printout icon, found on the Toolbar in every Company or Contact screen.
You can also run the Customer Snapshot report from Report Explorer found on the Sidebar.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, 7 years later, there have been a lot of changes in technology and the way sales reps plan for sales calls/meetings.
One of the differences is the tools sales reps use. A lot of sales reps now use their mobile devices during the day instead of their laptops.
If you are one of the reps who rely on a cell phone or tablet you can still run the Contact Printout and Customer Snapshot reports. Instead of printing them, save them in a .PDF format and either:
- e-mail the reports to yourself
- save them to the cloud file storage of your choice - e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive,Apple iCloud Drive, etc.
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