We are well into another new year, and many businesses have taken a count of their inventory and are in the process of crunching their numbers.

The results of this number crunching will give business managers answers to how things went last year and serve as a guide as to how to proceed for the rest of the year.

Just as every business needs to take an inventory of its stock, you as a sales representative need to take an inventory of your “assets” — your accounts.

If you performed your inventory, what did you learn? In addition, what are your plans for the new year based on what you learned?

If you didn’t take an inventory, ask yourself why. Maybe you are in a comfort zone and don’t have a concern about your assets going down. Maybe you are afraid of what you will find when you analyze your accounts.

Whatever the reasons, I suggest that it is time for a close look at your account list, and for some serious planning for your future.

The following are a few suggestions on what to look for when doing your analysis — some are obvious while some may not be.

• Compare your sales, profits and income to the same period last year. Did you beat inflation? Did you give yourself a raise? Did you meet or surpass your goals and your company’s goals?
• How many new accounts did you add to your list? How many did you lose? Did the new accounts offset the lost accounts by sales, profit and income?
• Take a look at your best accounts. Did they grow, shrink or stay the same? Did you increase your sales and profits in your secondary accounts versus last year, or did they slide?
• Do you have a good balance of your assets or are all your eggs in one or a few baskets? Are one or two big volume products into one account? Do just a few accounts make up a big share of your income? If either of these two situations are the case, beware. Things change, and when they do, you don’t want to be surprised.
• Take a look at your product penetration into your better accounts. Are you selling a good mix of items, or is your volume coming from one or two products? In these accounts, you have an opportunity to sell more products, so set up a strategy to increase the number of products.

Maybe after your review, you have decided that the number of accounts on your list need to be increased to optimize your sales and profit volumes.

• Examine the types of accounts where you have had some success. Determine what has led to that success and seek out similar accounts using that same formula.

Maybe it is a specific system of products or a single item that has opened the doors for you in these accounts. Turn to the yellow pages for more of those same types of accounts and pay them a visit.

• When you inventory your list of accounts by name, type of product sold, volume and profit, you should do more than just look at the list, you should study and analyze it.

Take out a pen and paper and set out a sales plan for your future, listing your goals for the month, quarter, year, by account, by product and by income.

Write down what help you will need from your sales management, vendors and other people and departments within your company to make this plan a reality. Go to see those people. Show them your plan and ask for their help.

If you do this inventory with your eyes and mind open, and create a realistic plan for yourself, there is no reason why it should not pay you excellent dividends. "

To share your selling ideas, fax: (414) 228-1134, contact Mr. Dixon at (877) 379-3566 or e-mail liz.greenawalt@tradepress.com.




POSTED ON: 4/1/2007