In order to build a solid selling strategic plan, I review the following:

Territory Objectives

1. How many companies fit potential list of customers for my product/service?
2. Where are they located?
3. What business are they in?
4. Which is centralized/decentralized?  (makes a difference in how hard they are to sell to)
5. Is my competition entrenched in the account?

Account Strategies:

1. Which of the companies in my territory make the best prospects?  Why?
2. When do they buy (purchasing cycles vary)?
3. Is a standard list used?  How can I get my product/service added to their list?
4. Who makes decisions at each company and how do they get made?  
5. Where are the primary decision makers/influencers?
6. Who is the economic buyer and do I have a relationship with them?

Selling  4 x 4's:  I've always believed that I must be at least three levels deep (CEO, CFO, CIO, Director, Manager, etc.) and three levels wide (Information Technology, Purchasing, Finance, Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing) in order to really know what an account is up to and whether or not I will win their business.  In every account I won and held for a long time (3 years or more) I was four levels deep by four levels wide.  This is outselling the competition, who typically use the 3 x 3 approach.  So, I try to sell 4 x 4.  Consider it the construction term of building a territory.

Next, I need to decide upon a strategy to employ to go after my territory.  Typically, I utilize a mix of all three primary strategies to make up the targeted account list.

Strategies to employ:

1. Vertical Market - select key verticals, such as Financial, Healthcare, Technology, Goverment
2. Geographical - target accounts all located in a common geographical location
3. Named Account - target two to five key accounts (elephant hunting or strategic positioning)

I like vertical market selling because the knowledge you gain at one account is instantly transferable to similar companies (in the same industry).  Each industry has it's own needs, vernacular and way of doing business.  Sometimes the people you contact have different titles and areas of responsibility.  Vertical market selling is highly effective at penetrating a particular market and is, in my opinion, under-utilized by the majority of sales forces targeting Corporate America.

Geographical selling is commonly used.  One manager I had would just take the whole slice of territory and assign it out.  When one rep left, he might switch the territory assignment for another rep to cover the larger territory to adjust for experience.  This strategy worked to a limiting degree and would have been more effective used in combination with a vertical strategy.  The geographical strategy I recommend is targeting vertical accounts, then grouping them by geography.  That way you can schedule your time at each account stacked up with others in that area, and hopefully, vertical, that same day - thereby maximizing your time.

Named account selling is key if you are going to chase the long-term deal.  You cannot have too many named accounts on your list if you are doing a thorough job targeting this list.  The most named accounts I ever successfully juggled was 25.  However, I question if that was the best strategy.  Usually, named account strategies limit your ability to target emerging companies and also can result in lost focus away from the vertical strategy. 

To re-cap territory strategies, I suggest using a mix of vertical market, geographical and named account strategies.  Target 20 companies.  Slice off a few in each category.  Then take your top three accounts and make them your named accounts.  Or, if an account is going to take longer to close, make it a named account focus (one you call on at least once a week to develop over the long term).

Account Planning Goals:

1. Account specific goals are important, such as, defining our products on the customer's standards list.  This is an example of an account-specific strategy.
2. For now, pick three strategies (product/service focus, account to succeed in a certain way, etc.).  
3. Identify how I can sell 4x4 in each account and build on each strategy.   
4. There are other goals I can set, but they must be identified on a product/service strategy per account. 

Planning is essential to success.  A former manager of mine used to say "Plan your work, work your plan."  I read quotes from the dot-com CEO's who as recently as 03/00 said "we don't have time to write a business plan."  These same CEO's are now are laying off most of their employees or getting laid off themselves.  Just one glaring example that without a plan, we've planned to fail.  Would we rather succeed? 

See similar articles in Business Aspiration

See What's New