Customer input into the value of the Sales Exec visit in the development of your sales management system

In recent posts, I have mounted myself high on one of my hobby horses……….good visit design as an integral component of your sales management system.  Its inalienable counterpart , visit duration, has to become part of the debate and design.  And then all this feeds into visit capacity (current reality vs modelled “to be” benchmarks).  Critical stuff for sales management system development.

A prescient client of ours recently asked us to survey an adequate number of their customers as an input into visit design.  They argued, very logically, that they wanted the selected customers to think about the best-of-breed visiting Sales exec they have experienced and then answer a series of questions about what would add value and differentiate that Sales exec visit.  And on-going visits.

We reasoned that such an exercise could be worthwhile, but needed to be entered into with caution.  The old adage “be careful what you ask for, because just might find that you get it” rings true.  The late great Steve Jobs taught us time and time again that customers often don’t know what they don’t know.  Many of the iconic Apple inventions could not have been foreseen by customers.

Don’t kid yourself that the “humble” design of a Sales exec visit in garden-variety B2B sales cannot be compared to this analogy.