For most of us, the end of the quarter is approaching. This can be a heads-down “crunch time”, trying to move the ball past the goal. You have a good idea about where your individual opportunities stand. How do you prioritize your efforts as a whole to get the most return? Too many times, the end of the quarter turns into solely tactical execution. A little strategy and focus can go a long way to ensure your efforts are rewarded.
Any ‘A’ Player will tell you that account prioritization is a key to success. You have probably already ranked your accounts on certain criteria. How have you refocused your efforts as the end of the quarter approaches?
Prioritization is all about recognizing the factors that will impact your results. There can be different inputs depending on your industry and type of sale. The first key is to identify the factors that are relevant to your situation. They could be things like:
- Revenue amount
- Probability to close
- Effort to close
- Relationship in the account
- Probability of future revenue
- Customer timeframe to enable your offering
And the list goes on. Identify the factors that have the highest probability of influencing the deal. Ensure that your criteria affect all of the open opportunities you have.
The next step is to determine how much each of these factors matter. Each factor must have a weighting to normalize the opportunities. For example, how would you prioritize the following situations?
- An opportunity with a high upside but will be require a lot of effort to close
- An opportunity with a lower upside, with a moderate effort to close
- An opportunity with a low upside, has a low effort to close, and has a high probability of further revenue
There is no set answer unless you know how much each of these factors should weigh. Utilizing the Account Prioritization Tool makes this a simple process. Determine the top influencing factors, assign a weighting, and the tool calculates the rest. If you are working with a team, have each member complete this exercise as well. The more input available, the better the calculation.
Once you have ranked your opportunities through the algorithm, you can approach tactics. Focus on the top-scoring opportunities and de-prioritize others. Determine the timeframe, and what needs to be accomplished. Create your tactical approach and determine the timeline for each action. In a previous post, I included the RACI tool to help establish accountability. If working in a team, use this approach to map who is (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for each tactic.
In a perfect world, we would be able to dedicate as much effort as needed for each opportunity. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Download the Account Prioritization Tool to maximize your end-of-quarter efforts. Use it to prioritize your future opportunities as well!
