“Revisit those short-term plans periodically because if you’re not constantly moving toward things and executing on things in the short-term, you’ll never get to where you want to be in the long-term.” – Mike Simmons in today’s Tip 717
How about you? How do you plan?
Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!
Catalyst Sale
Catalyst Sale Podcast
Mike Simmons on LinkedIn
Submit a Sales Tip
Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]
Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Mike Simmons. Mike is the Founder of Catalyst Sale and host of the Catalyst Sale podcast. Here he is:
Mike Simmons: If you know me, you know how important planning is. Good, there’s some great planning quotes out there. The Mike Tyson, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mount, and that might’ve been really attributed to custom auto originally. Failure to plan is the plan to fail, Benjamin Franklin. Patent has some quotes around planning and you know, the best-laid plans. I’m going to butcher this, but I’ve already have butchered it, but the best-laid plans fall apart once the bullets start flying something to that effect.
Anyhow, what is the difference though, between short-term planning, the things that you need to do in the next 30, 60, 90 days, and long-term planning those things that are beyond your headlights, beyond your skis, those things that are further out, they might be six months out, nine months out, 12 months out, maybe even 18 months out, depending on the sales cycles that you’re working on.
Well, when thinking about account planning with your customers, it’s important to both consider the short-term and long-term aspects of account planning. In the short term, what do we need to execute in that short period of time? What are those next steps that we’re going to move forward through? It might be rolling out to a new segment of their audience. It might be getting feedback from the existing users who are using the product of the SAAS based product. It might be introduction to individual groups of people. Those might lead on to your longer-term plan. That’s 12, maybe 18 months down the road where you’re looking to expand your agreement to an enterprise agreement.
It’s important to reflect on this plan periodically. And one of the ways that I like to think about this as this long-term plan is this where all of the train tracks have kind of been set out. We know that we’re going toward this kind of guiding star, this ultimate destination. In the short term, we’re going to make incremental steps that are gonna help us get closer to that. It’s critical that we execute on those short-term steps so that we start with taking on and making up ground relative to the long-term objective.
The challenge that we have is in that midterm piece, because depending on how we execute in the short term, our midterm activities may change, but our longterm objective will always be the same, which ultimately is delivering amazing service into our organization, into the organization, expanding the relationship because it makes sense for the customer.
So I’d like you to think about the difference between short-term and long-term planning. Short-term are those things that you can see that the tactical things that you can get your hands on around that you can actually deliver on. The long-term planning is that guiding star, that thing that you’re moving toward, and what’s absolutely amazing is you will never get to the guiding star. You’ll never get to that thing, that’s all the way out there because it’s going to continue to provide some direction, it’s always going be bigger than where you are right now. On the short-term side, you should revisit those short-term plans periodically, because if you’re not constantly moving toward things and executing on things in the short-term, you’ll never get to where you want to be in the long-term.
Hope you see how that applies to account planning inside your organizations and your customers from both the short-term and long-term perspective. Short-term very deliberate. Long-term guiding, moving into an individual direction. Thank you.
Scott Ingram: For the video version of this tip. Links to connect with Mike, Catalyst Sale, and his Catalyst Sale Podcast, just click over to DailySales.Tips/717
Then, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!