Last week I completed my exhortations on your CoV <cost of visit> data pursuit.  Now onto the fourth critical tranche of data you need to collect to run your annual sales team optimisation – “PiM”.  Remember from installment number 1 in this series…

• external position in market data…needs to include size/shape/structure of the sales team being optimised along with all relevant competitor sales teams with market data e.g. size, respective market shares, growth rates/trends

Start with a clear definition of the target market as it relates to the sales team being optimised.  This definition should recognise all the players who distribute, with or without value added, the group of products/services relevant to the sales team being optimised.  Ultimately, identification of the end owners/users/consumers of the product/service grouping must be made and the quantification of market size must related to this sub-population.  Then, by hook or by crook, quantify your market share of this specified market.  With growth/decline rates, too.

Now comes identification of the competitors in this market.  Who … And what market share does each command?  Construct a Shape-of-Curve for this market share landscape…see how closely it exemplifies the classic 80/20 -> 10/10 -> 10/70.  This will show the competitive dynamic in which you play.

Now quantify each competitor by…

• size/shape/nature of sales team and other sales related resources, eg telesales unit
• expected change, positive and/or negative, to competitive products/services
• expected change, positive and/or negative, to the competitor company as a whole

Ultimately these inputs , even if estimates, will tell you your “pim”, and the degree to which you compete versus the way you would want to, ie increase / decrease / maintain  current levels of resource and effort. All in the name of best-of-breed sales team optimisation.

Come back next week to see how “pim” outputs interplay with your sales team optimisation customer classifications and visit frequency programs.