“Don’t worry about the competition.  Worry about, and focus on your customer”.  An old maxim, and true.  To a point.  The annual sales team deployment plan in Oz B2B sales organisation heartland is often a bit thin on a particular aspect of the competitor analysis.  At The Next Level, we call it “position in market” analysis.  Whatever label used, too often this analysis stops short at a national level in terms of drill down.  When done well, drilled down to territory and town level, such analysis sometimes unearths surprisingly opportunistic outputs for improving sales team return.

Specifically, don’t stop at the classic benchmarking …

• How do we compare on sales team size?
• Structure. E.g do we/competitors have key account manager speciality?
• How do we compare on new products coming down the line?
• What about internal sales/telesales comparisons?
• Tools of the trade. E.g are we well enough equipped so that Sales execs can stay on territory and not have to undertake comms back at office?

Look for aspects below national/whole team level ….

• Geographic reach. E.g are there regional centres that the competition don’t cover from sales team deployment level?
• Geographic deployment. E.g are there states/regions where the competition are underdone in terms of Sales exec deployment?
• Targeting patchiness vis-à-vis geography. E.g are there regions  where the competition only cover very big Tier 1 customers with Sales exec deployment, leaving Tier 2 customer underdone?

Come back next week: Why you should err on the side of “generalist” sales teams… Not specialist

Want more? Check out “The 5 big changes for Australian B2B sales organisations in mature markets since the GFC… A Sales team return imperative”