Episode 285: Wayne Moloney
Meet
Wayne Moloney
Wayne Moloney is an Australian business growth specialist with a global background. For over four decades he helped a diverse range of businesses in Australia, Asia and Europe achieve their revenue and profit goals. Since leaving his corporate career, Wayne has spent over 15 years helping B2B organizations tackle their business growth challenges through the application of sound sales and business strategies, developing salespeople and applying LEAN principles for sustainable sales success.
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The most successful salespeople have the discipline to do what will deliver success. And territory sales planning is a critical component of that success. Most salespeople don’t see the benefits of sales planning, so they don’t do it. Salespeople underrate territory planning because they’re focused on short-term calendar-focused targets. They’re highly reactive.
Today’s guest, Wayne Moloney, shares that the average tenure of a B2B salesperson is only 16 months and it’s steadily decreasing. He believes that having the right territory sales plan in place can lead to long-term success, growth, and longevity in the profession. In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Wayne shares how salespeople can transform their plans with some simple questions.
Outline of This Episode
- [1:01] The largest reasons salespeople discount sales planning
- [3:20] How to overcome reactivity with territory sales planning
- [5:17] The ingredients for the perfect territory sales plan
- [7:53] Attributes or characteristics that make a salesperson great
- [10:48] A simple territory sales plan is the key to success
- [14:10] Top 3 territory sales planning dos and don’ts
- [16:17] How a simple plan led to global sales success
How to overcome reactivity with territory sales planning
If you’re planning a territory, you’re clarifying and articulating where you want to go and what roads will lead to them. If you’re reactive, you’re reacting to suspects, not the right type of customers. Territory planning helps you target the right customers, establish goals for income, and ensures sales growth over time. It also helps you engage with customers early enough in the sales process to have an impact.
A good sales plan defines the specific industries and sectors that will offer the most opportunity to you—and why. That’s the foundation of any plan. Then you must look at the characteristics of your high-value clients. That helps you identify your ICP. Focus on the organizations you can best help versus those looking for a white paper offered by your marketing teams. A good salesperson also completes a comprehensive competitive analysis (i.e. what your competitors are doing and why they’re doing it).
Attributes or characteristics that make a salesperson great
Accountability is critical. After 40+ in sales and business management, Wayne still has a mentor that he shares his goals with who helps hold him accountable. It’s critical to Wayne’s success and will be to yours, too. Accountability means taking responsibility for your plan and the actions you take. Another critical component? Set goals and write them down. Wayne emphasizes that “A plan that’s not written down is just a thought.” You must define and implement actions to make things happen.
Great salespeople don’t operate as islands. Wayne worked with someone who got a group of people together and asked them to pull apart and critique his plan to strengthen his approach. One of the biggest opportunities for salespeople is achieving domain expertise. Developing this starts by knowing what businesses to focus on. You can’t be all things to all people. You need to understand and know your addressable market.
A simple territory sales plan is the key to success
Wayne shares some simple yet strategic questions you can ask yourself to build a successful territory sales plan:
- Where are you now? Why are you where you are? Walk back through what’s happened with your territory, your best and worst clients, and even those you’ve lost.
- Where do you want to be and when do you want to be there? This gives you a starting line and a finish line. The middle is the gap that will grow your territory.
- What resources will you need? What tools do you have available to aid your planning?
- How will you measure performance? When and how will you review your progress? When are you going to do it? How are you going to do it? Who will you involve in the process?
Walking through these questions is the easiest way to build a plan that’s simple, easy to understand, and helps drive you to success.
What are Wayne’s top three territory sales planning dos and don’ts? Listen to find out!
How a simple plan led to global sales success
A man Wayne calls “Jim” used to work for him. Jim was very successful in his sales position but didn’t know why. He was always reluctant to make a plan. Because he was so successful, it was hard for Wayne to argue why he should build a plan. He still taught him the proper framework but never truly enforced it.
Jim moved on and took a role with a major credit card company. One day, Jim called Wayne and thanked him. Why? Because Jim struggled in the credit card industry. So he sat back and went through Wayne’s planning process. He became the top salesperson in his organization. He closed the two biggest global opportunities because he knew where to focus his territory plan.
As a sales manager, whatever you teach your team is not wasted if you coach them properly. Wayne’s message to salespeople? Don’t dismiss what you’re taught—it will become useful at some point in your career.
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Learn More About Wayne Moloney
Are there any books on or including Territory Sales Planning that you recommend? The 2 books I’d recommend are not specifically about sales planning: The Marketing Plan by Malcolm H B McDonald – Swap the word ‘marketing’ for ‘sales’ in this book and it gives a great foundation for territory planning. The Art of War for Executives by Donald G. Krause – an interpretation of Sun Tzu’s Art of War for business – great tips on how and why of strategic and tactical planning that can be applied to territory planning
In the field of Territory Sales Planning – Who do you most admire and why? 2 past managers taught me a lot – Bob Pealsey and Dennis Choo. Practical, no BS approach to planning and made me understand the importance of including other territory owners in my planning where appropriate. Sun Tzu’ wisdom is invaluable to anyone involved in planning. The late John Preston of Boston College School of Business for this quote…”The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a period of worry and depression.”
Are there any aspects of your own Territory Sales Planning skills that you are working on improving at the moment? Not really. I’ve been doing this for 4 decades and the process that I have in place now has been fine-tuned over that time. But with the changes in technology, I’m able to do better research on my market, individual prospects and competitors which helps me in my planning
Hobbies, Interests? Music – Blues and metal, Reading – a great way to learn and to escape, My dog – my best mate and office colleague, Motorcycling – to clear the head
How can our listeners connect with you? Check out my website – wayne@waynemoloney.com or Shoot me a LinkedIn invitation. Always happy to connect with those I can help, those that can help me or anyone who shares my interests.
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