Making plans that…A plan to…

Making plans that …match the goals

After establishing goals comes making plans to achieve them. Implementation follows and then evaluating how well it all worked comes last in the GPIE acronym. Assuming we’ve created goals that are indeed believable, achievable and measurable, that planning step is often the weak link in those four steps.

All too often we set off to accomplish that goal with no truly executable (or perhaps even no?) plan. Let’s take those three new laundry accounts we want to open this year. Of course we understand that the first planning step is to simply identify and then qualify them as valid opportunities. Then we need to decide which one to target first … how we’ll present ourselves in a way that allows us to gain initial interest and finally what our sales strategy will be.

That angle needs to be one that we believe will be both attractive to that laundry manager and then be doable by us. If they already have great results, proposing bright, white, fresh smelling linens probably isn’t a benefit that’ll be sufficiently compelling for them to give us an audience.

If they don’t have enough washer or drier capacity and have mediocre results because of that deficiency, pitching perfection may sound attractive to them, but it won’t be particularly productive since it probably can’t be achieved.

But maybe proposing a way to maximize that equipment deficiency with a different array of wash formulas and chemistry might be both doable for you and pretty attractive to them.

Next up: Evaluating that P and I.

A plan to…execute today

While we’re on the topic of planning (see left), it’s a great time to address capturing those ancillary product sales we’re missing and that we hope to start making in our less than full line customers.

First, we need to review our sales records and identify the best opportunities Then we need to be prepared to sell them whatever they’re buying from someone other than us. It’s almost certainly either the kitchen degreaser or oven and grill cleaner.

The core of that plan is to have a demonstration sample(s) of the most prevalent one with you. Next carry that spray bottle into every service stop where they aren’t buying one of those two. Finally demonstrate its’ superior performance on a corner of that grill, oven door or tile square and then suggest adding a case or pail to their next delivery.

Now we all tend to think we’ve come too far to actually get back to doing demos since we’re soooo experienced. After all we’re pros, right? Yep, and as pros we need to remember what’s worked since forever in the business. That well done demonstration of a clean grill, oven door or quarry tile square can be very a compelling. And while it may feel “too rookie”, it’s anything but.