1. TEC BEST PRACTICES
2 Easy Ways to Lift Sales Performance by 10%
By: Andre Vlcek, TEC Speaker and Chair of TPP 505
Any small, medium or large business in Australia is focused on achieving either one
of the following sales objectives:
You are focused on finding and winning more customers, or
You are focused on keeping and growing your existing customers.
If your business falls into one of these categories then read on because we are about to share two (2) really
easy things you can do right at this moment that will improve your sales performance by at least 10%
sometime in the next 6 ~ 12 months.
Let’s begin with the first objective.
Finding and winning customers is something of interest to most Australian businesses. It’s an important
strategy for growth and it’s expensive.
Despite its relative importance and cost most Managers have a lot of difficulty recognizing a good opportunity
from a bad one.
The result is that a lot of time, effort and money is wasted on pursuing opportunities that the supplier had no
realistic chance of winning in the first place. It’s demoralizing and its costly.
To convert an additional 10% of new opportunities into firm orders (you will probably convert more) we suggest
you implement the following new business diagnostic tool pictured below.
The objective is to use the descriptions for each scale and create your own new opportunity evaluation matrix
to evaluate and plot all new opportunities in your sales pipeline out of a possible score of 10 for each scale.
If you apply this tool to diagnose and analyse all your new opportunities you will take the guesswork out of
managing your sales pipeline, create a sharper and more objective focus on new business development, and
improve morale and sales conversion ratio.
Diagnostic tools such as the new opportunity evaluation matrix are the hallmark of the sales professional and
distinguish the sales professional from the sales amateur.
Let’s now move onto the second objective.
Copyright © 2012 TEC l Best Practices Page 1

2. TEC BEST PRACTICES
Keeping and growing existing customers is something of interest to most Australian businesses. It’s another
important strategy for growth and it’s relatively inexpensive when compared to the cost of new business
acquisition.
Despite its relative importance and low cost most Managers have a lot of difficulty recognizing a good account
from a bad one, and lack a disciplined account management framework.
Most Australian businesses have an ad-hoc approach towards account management structure and basically
make it up as they go along.
The result is that a lot of time, effort and money is invested into accounts that have little potential for growth,
whilst at the same ignoring other accounts that have enormous potential for growth.
This often happens because sales people like to spend their time having cups of coffee with accounts and
people who they like while at the same time consciously or unconsciously ignoring other accounts where the
chemistry is not so good.
To increase profitability and revenue from your existing account portfolio as well as to better align your account
management team by making sure they spend their limited time with the right accounts, we suggest you
implement the following Account Growth Diagnostic Tool pictured below.
The objective is to plot all your major accounts of a possible score of 10 for each scale as a way to prioritize
and focus the account management strategy.
The other benefit of this Account Management Diagnostic Tool is that in addition to prioritizing the account
management strategy it imposes a discipline on the entire sales and marketing team to find the right economic
balance between retention and growth.
The Account Management Diagnostic Tool and the Account Growth Diagnostic Tool are arguably two (2) of the
most important and effective sales and marketing tools.
Deploying both tools in your business is the single most important step you can take to improve sales
performance efficiency and effectiveness as well as lift sales performance by a minimum of 10%.
About The Author
Andre Vlcek leads and mentors a group of TEC members, focussing specifically on strategic sales practices. Andre is also
Managing Director of Sales Psychology Australia, and has designed and implemented highly effective and innovative sales
transformation strategies for small, medium and large organisations, both here in Australia and overseas. Andre frequently
speaks to Business Leaders in Australian and overseas, about new trends and strategies across the arenas of Sales and
Marketing. Andre was awarded The Executive Connections (TEC), Best New Speaker Award for 2009 and is one of only a
handful of speakers to have been awarded the prestigious '100 Club' award for speaker excellence during the last 25 years.
Connect with Andre http://au.linkedin.com/in/spaaus or email andre@salespsychology.com.au
Copyright © 2012 TEC l Best Practices Page 2