MANAGE YOUR TERRITORY WELL

Just as a retail shopkeeper has a store from which he or she sells, you have a store as well. It is your sales territory. It is the area in which you work to develop sales and customers. And just as a physical store must be well organized for maximum sales results, so must your territory.

One of the major reasons for failure in selling is poor territory management. The average salesperson travels randomly throughout his or her territory, driving from place to place depending on whoever calls or is willing to see him or her leave at the moment.

This salesperson will often drive all the way up to the north end of the city to make one call and then all the way down to the south end to the city, spending an hour or more in traffic, to make the second. Then he or she drives all the way back to the north end again for the next call.

You know that your income is largely determined by the amount of time that you spend personally with people who can buy. You must therefore plan every day strategically to increase these precious moments, and let nothing distract or divert you.

Here is a simple method of territory management that you can apply immediately. Divide your sales territory into four parts, like cutting up a pie. From now on, resolve to work in one of these quadrants each day or each half day. When you make appointments, cluster your appointments so that they are close together. This will shorten the amount of time you spend on the road and increase the number of minutes on each day when you are actually prospecting, presenting, and following up.

If someone asks you if you can meet on a particular day and you are not scheduled to be in that area on that day, resist the temptation to change your plans and rush over. Instead, explain politely that you will be in the prospect’s area on a particular morning or afternoon, and ask to arrange an appointment at that time. It is amazing how much more respect prospect have for a salesperson when they know that he or she is busy and well organized.

Many salesperson, by reorganized their territories, have increased their income by 20 percent, 30 percent and even 50 percent in a single month. They find themselves spending much less time travelling and much more time face to face with customers. Both their income and their self confidence go up.

Remember, your time is all you have to sell. And nobody will pay you for the time you spend driving around between appointments. It is not the number of hours that you put in each day that counts but the amount of direct selling work you put into those hours.

To increase your income, you must increase the number of minutes that you spend face to face with customers by reducing your traveling time. Put the law of averages to work in your behalf. The more people you see, all other things being equal, the more you will sell.