3 sales focus areas from my week as a Fractional Sales Leader
During this past week in my world as a fractional sales leader I have been working with my clients on recruitment, territory plans, and upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
by Steve Victor
This week I’m back sharing with you my week in the life of a fractional sales leader which includes what I have been doing during my working day, as well as my daily exercise routine.
During this past week in my world as a fractional sales leader some of the areas that I have been working with my clients on is recruitment, territory plans, and upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
But first my week of exercise which has probably flatlined this week, although I am pleased to say that my recent niggles with my knee and shoulder have vastly improved. I have continued to manage my 25 sit-ups each day but haven’t resumed my push-ups yet. I’ve also put on hold my planking for 60 seconds. I did manage some cycling of about 30km’s and walking of about 25km during the week which the physio supported.
Anyway back to some of the sales work that I have completed during the past week.
1. Recruitment
I was involved in a series of 2nd round interviews for a client. The previous week I had also completed 2nd round interviews for another client. Just like a sales process you need to be prepared and rehearsed with the flow of the interview and important questions to ask. You also need to provide an opportunity for the candidate to speak and ask their questions. Also in this weeks interviews we asked the candidate to prepare for a scenario and role play. They had 48 hours notice and it was a safe fun role play for the purpose of seeing how the candidate would interact with the client and not push for the sale but be informative. The all did well and we have determined our frontrunner.
2. Territory Plans
With another client I am working with the sales team on revamping their existing plans with more robust quarterly territory plans. The team all have pretty good process and execution but it isn’t documented and mostly sits in their heads. With a territory plan written down with targets, goals, client targets, competitors, SWOT analysis, travel plans, etc, the team can collaborate better and all be singing off the same song sheet. Equally important is that the plans can be visible to the business so the sales team can call out needs and support to help them achieve success for their territory. This can help marketing, customer success, support, with insights into what the sales team are planning to do.
3. Upsell/Cross-sell Opportunities
I’ve always been a fan of selling more to a client than trying to find a new client to sell something to. Forgive me if this sounds lazy, but its not, because it is logical that an existing client is more likely to buy from you than a prospective client who doesn’t know you or your business yet. There is definitely a role to play with new business but that’s for another day. Today is about cross-sell/upsell opportunities within your existing client base. How do you figure out what to sell to an existing client? Well firstly you could look at your client bae and look particularly at the clients who spend the most with you. What are those clients buying from you? Then mirror that back to your smaller clients and identify the gaps between the larger spending clients and these smaller ones. The more share of the clients wallet you can get means your competitors don’t get a look in. Providing subscription based services, SAAS, to client is more palatable for them than a larger chunky one-ff investment. Subscriptions also create client stickiness too. So have a good look at your best clients who buy a lot from you and note their purchase patterns and then start working down your client list identifying gaps in these clients to sell into. Easy! My 2nd tip here is looking at clients in the same industry and discussing with your less engaged clients about what other similar clients are buying from you. No one likes to miss out on what their competitors might be up to. FOMO!
I’ll be back next week with some more stories from my week in the life of a fractional sales leader
Exercise stats for this week:
Bike = 30km - stable
Walk = 25km – stable
Situps = 802 days in a row
Pushups = was 66 days in a row, now paused for another week at least.
Planking = on hold too.
Learn more here: youtube.com/@Steve-Victor
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