“I have scheduled a trip into your territory next week to visit my house accounts, but I have some time left over so you need to fill the gaps in my schedule with some calls on your customers.”
Reps still get this kind of call once in a while, but less frequently now as today’s professional reps drive a trend toward more highly planned and efficient visits from remote principals.
A principal calling to launch a visit to the territory of a professional, efficient rep is going to hear a response like this:
“Great, we’ll look forward to having you here. And to be sure that we make the best possible use of your time, I’ll be forwarding a principal visit form for you to fill out. We’ll be asking you to identify:
- The specific goals for your visit so we can be sure we accomplish them,
- Any specific customers you’re particularly eager to meet with so we can get the right appointments,
- And, the topics you want to cover so those customers will be ready to discuss them.”
“We certainly want to make this a productive visit, so we’ll also ask you to identify a couple of different windows of time at least six weeks out so we can be sure our customers and all the resources you’ll need from our company are available.”
With that form in hand and the visit scheduled, the rep and principal also need to plan who will be doing most of the selling. Will the principal be taking the point position at customer meetings, or will the rep? Without that advance planning, the principal and rep may find themselves talking over each other, or arriving at the call with neither prepared to make the presentation.
It’s a brave new world since the days when the biggest concern during a principal visit was who would get the lunch check, and a more productive world now that planning for productivity and efficiency trumps the cost of meals. (Although, for the record, a good rule of thumb is that whoever requested the meetings usually picks up most of the meal checks.)
And, in conclusion, to that principal whose visit to the territory was driven by the need to visit house accounts, we offer this reminder: The only good reason to visit a house account is to introduce the rep who is taking it over.
