Critical Selling

3Why Planning Matters: Determine Your Approach

Top-performing sales professionals know a thing or two about planning. Most important, they know that planning is a skill that must be practiced routinely and consistently in order to increase the effectiveness of their sales calls. All too often, however, the typical sales rep overlooks and undervalues this critical skill, leading him to wing it during sales calls and not get the most out of each interaction.

Planning is frequently discounted by sales professionals, and it becomes easy to lose sight of how much value it provides to the sales interaction. Our own research proves this point: the importance of planning—and the beneficial impacts of it—are frequently overlooked. We see this time and time again. In fact, because of the changes in today's buyer, we see planning as an activity that is more important than ever. Your customers are more informed, and in order to meet them where they are in the buying process and add value to the sales interaction, you need to have a plan.

Studies have shown that there is often a disconnect between planning and sales: people don't plan because they believe (erroneously) that it doesn't matter as much as it actually does. In fact, according to Harvard Business School professor Frank V. Cespedes, about two-thirds of companies treat planning as a periodic event rather than an ongoing part of the sales process.¹ Planning is not a sometimes thing. It needs to be thought of as a vital part of the ...