7 Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™

Don’t serve time, make time serve you.

—Willie Sutton

I have too much to do, and it all needs to get done.

It gets to a point where I don’t have time to go to the

bathroom. And you’re telling me to make more time

for prospecting?

Salespeople are so busy that prospecting becomes just one

more thing sliding toward the bottom of the to-do list. You

know you should do it, and you will—someday, when you

have the time.

Of course, this won’t do. In this chapter and the next, we

will describe two tools that will help you manage your time

better. The ProActive Sales Matrix_ will is presented in this

chapter and the PowerHour is presented in Chapter 8.

To introduce the first of these tools, let’s start with a story.

“How can I spend my time more wisely?” asked the

young student to the wise sage.

“Silly boy,” answered the sage. “Have you not

learned the way of the great hunter?

 “No, wise one, please tell me.”

“An ordinary hunter goes into the woods to hunt

game for his family. With geese, ducks and pheasant

relatively abundant, the hunter knows there is food

out there. With a lot of work, he gets some food every

day. The hunting is long, but he comes home with a

bird so his family does not starve.”

“This is wise, is it not?” asked the youth.

“It isn’t stupid,” the sage conceded. “But the ordinary

hunter must hunt from sunup to sundown just

to kill enough birds to feed his family for a day. The

great hunter is different, however. The great hunter

hunts birds, but he also spends some time hunting

buffalo. If he kills a buffalo, his family can eat for a

month.”

“It seems the great hunter is wiser, but also that he

works much harder than the ordinary hunter,” the

boy observed.

“This is not so young one,” said the sage. “On days

when he finds no buffalo, it is true the great hunter

can take a little longer to get his birds. But when he

does find a buffalo, he gets a month’s worth of food

for a day’s worth of effort.”

Did you ever notice it often takes the same amount of effort

to close a $100,000 order as it does to close a $5,000 order?

But you get used to hunting birds, you know where the birds

hang out, and quite frankly, you like hunting birds. Bird hunting

winds up consuming so much of your day that you have

no time to hunt buffalo. So you tell yourself there are no buffalo

in your territory. Everyone else’s territory has buffalo, but

yours is strictly for the birds.

It’s true that selling to buffalo is different from selling to

birds. But we’re talking about cold calling here, and how to

make time to do it.

The ProActive Sales Matrix™

The ProActive Sales Matrix™ will give you a clearer understanding

of the way you are spending your time today and

make it far more obvious how you can find time to prospect

among the buffalos. Let’s start with a typical sales forecast

time management scale that ranks prospects as A, B, or C. This

is the way a salesperson usually forecasts:

_ A _Current Hot Prospects. These are accounts you’re

banking on. A 90 percent factor is typically assigned

to these prospects, meaning that the salesperson is

90% sure the deal will come in.

_ B _Medium Prospects. These are works in progress,

somewhere in the sales funnel. A 60 to 70 percent factor

usually is assigned to them.

_ C _Lukewarm Prospects. More than likely these

prospects have just been identified, they are just starting

the sales cycle, or they are “hope and a prayer”

prospects. These accounts usually get a factor of 10 to

40 percent.

Now these weighted averages are okay, but there is a lot

more information you can use than just a weighted guess. To

turn that forecast into a far more effective time management

tool, let’s change the meaning of the letters a bit and add a second

dimension to the A, B, C ratings. The first dimension will

represent history—what the prospect has done in the past

with you or your competition. The second dimension will represent

the potential for future activity on the account. To keep

things specific and realistic, let’s limit the projections of future

activity to the next 90 to 120 days.

A _ Sales greater than $100,000.

B _ Sales between $30,000 and $100,000.

C _ Sales less than $30,000.

Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™ 35

So, an AA account is one that has spent more than

$100,000 with you in the past or has already agreed to do so

currently (first “A”), and has the potential in the next 90 to 120

days to spend more than $100,000 with you again (second

“A”). If we assign BC status to a prospect, that means the account

currently or in the past has spent between $30,000 and

$100,000 with you and has the potential in the next 90 to 120

days to spend less than $30,000.

Now we know two valuable things: why it is worthwhile

to devote some time to prospecting, and where we should be

spending most of that time. We have identified our buffalo.

Obviously, we need to provide for the care and feeding of the

major accounts we’ve already got. But for prospecting purposes,

we don’t care about the first letter in a prospect’s status

equation. The buffalo are the ones with an A or B as the second

letter (Figure 7-2.)

Figure 7-1. The ProActive Sales Matrix™.

AA AB AC

BA BB BC

CA CB CC

Thus, instead of an A prospect, we might have an AA

prospect. The first “A” refers to past activity on the account,

the second to projected future activity during the next 90 to

120 days. (Figure 7-1.)

You Only Get What You Hunt For

At the risk of beating this metaphor to death, you’ll never get

a shot at a buffalo if you’re sitting in a duck blind. Salespeople

miss great prospecting opportunities every day simply because

it’s so easy to develop habits that keep them focused on

the wrong hunting territory, and therefore looking in the

wrong direction.

Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™ 37

Figure 7-2. The Buffalo Zone.

Buffalo Zone

(Red Zone)

AA

BA

CA

AB AC

BB BC

CB CC

Birds and

Deer

Zone

Bird

Zone

The Bird Zone

This is where salespeople typically spend 50 to 70 percent of

their time shooting ducks, geese, and the like. It should be 10

to 25 percent. The Bird Zone (also called the Dead Zone) is

filled with customers calling in with problems or questions,

with very little potential for additional business in the near

future. The 80/20 rule applies here: Approximately 80 percent

of your customers generate 20 percent of your revenue—and

80 percent of your problems! There are actually some

customers in this zone whom you wish would go away and

give their business to the competition.

The Bird and Deer Zone

Also called the Comfort Zone. Here we find the customers we

consider most important. They are the bread and butter of our

territory. They have spent a lot of money with us in the past.

At the current time, however, their budgets or buying

windows do not justify a great deal of our prospecting time.

Yes, there is business to be had, but in the short term (the next

90 to 120 days), we can find better uses for our precious

prospecting time and resources.

The Buffalo Zone

This is the Red Zone. Those big, hairy critters munching grass

are prospects that have the potential to spend a lot of money

with us. If we want that money, we need to invest some

prospecting time. So here is where we do most of our homework

and invest most of our prospecting energy. Red Zone

accounts should be clearly identified, and 10 to 30 percent of

our total time should be proactively spent here. Concentrate especially on accounts at the BA and CA level or on trying to

move accounts into a BA or CA status. Why? Because you

already know the AA accounts. Chances are it’s the BA and

CA prospects that are crying out for more of your time, effort,

and hunting skills.

Here is an example of how a salesperson might use the

Matrix:

Susan looks at her account base to figure out how

she can allocate her prospecting time proactively.

She determines that an A account should be one

where the revenue is $100,000 or above. B accounts

are from $50,000 to $100,000, and C accounts are

from $10,000 to- $50,000. Any accounts below

$10,000 she keeps off the forecast.

She decides that her second digit, time, will apply to a

sixty-day window.

By using the ProActive Sales Matrix_, Susan determines

where she needs to spend her time as well where she should

go to hunt some buffalo. She’s all through working weekends

just to feed the birds.

Do you spend way too much time feeding your birds?

Including some you wish would just fly away? Now you know

what you can stop doing to make more time for high-potential

prospecting. Be proactive. Monitor yourself for the next thirty

days to make sure you spend at least 20 percent of your time

in the Red Zone and less than 50 percent in the Dead Zone.

Look forward, not backward.

The ProActive Sales Matrix_ gives you an objective view

of what you are doing now and what you need to do to be

successful in the future. It gives you a clear map of the road

that leads to where your very own buffalo roam.

Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™ 39

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Don’t serve time, make time serve you.

—Willie Sutton

I have too much to do, and it all needs to get done.

It gets to a point where I don’t have time to go to the

bathroom. And you’re telling me to make more time

for prospecting?

Salespeople are so busy that prospecting becomes just one

more thing sliding toward the bottom of the to-do list. You

know you should do it, and you will—someday, when you

have the time.

Of course, this won’t do. In this chapter and the next, we

will describe two tools that will help you manage your time

better. The ProActive Sales Matrix_ will is presented in this

chapter and the PowerHour is presented in Chapter 8.

To introduce the first of these tools, let’s start with a story.

“How can I spend my time more wisely?” asked the

young student to the wise sage.

“Silly boy,” answered the sage. “Have you not

learned the way of the great hunter?

 “No, wise one, please tell me.”

“An ordinary hunter goes into the woods to hunt

game for his family. With geese, ducks and pheasant

relatively abundant, the hunter knows there is food

out there. With a lot of work, he gets some food every

day. The hunting is long, but he comes home with a

bird so his family does not starve.”

“This is wise, is it not?” asked the youth.

“It isn’t stupid,” the sage conceded. “But the ordinary

hunter must hunt from sunup to sundown just

to kill enough birds to feed his family for a day. The

great hunter is different, however. The great hunter

hunts birds, but he also spends some time hunting

buffalo. If he kills a buffalo, his family can eat for a

month.”

“It seems the great hunter is wiser, but also that he

works much harder than the ordinary hunter,” the

boy observed.

“This is not so young one,” said the sage. “On days

when he finds no buffalo, it is true the great hunter

can take a little longer to get his birds. But when he

does find a buffalo, he gets a month’s worth of food

for a day’s worth of effort.”

Did you ever notice it often takes the same amount of effort

to close a $100,000 order as it does to close a $5,000 order?

But you get used to hunting birds, you know where the birds

hang out, and quite frankly, you like hunting birds. Bird hunting

winds up consuming so much of your day that you have

no time to hunt buffalo. So you tell yourself there are no buffalo

in your territory. Everyone else’s territory has buffalo, but

yours is strictly for the birds.

It’s true that selling to buffalo is different from selling to

birds. But we’re talking about cold calling here, and how to

make time to do it.

The ProActive Sales Matrix™

The ProActive Sales Matrix™ will give you a clearer understanding

of the way you are spending your time today and

make it far more obvious how you can find time to prospect

among the buffalos. Let’s start with a typical sales forecast

time management scale that ranks prospects as A, B, or C. This

is the way a salesperson usually forecasts:

_ A _Current Hot Prospects. These are accounts you’re

banking on. A 90 percent factor is typically assigned

to these prospects, meaning that the salesperson is

90% sure the deal will come in.

_ B _Medium Prospects. These are works in progress,

somewhere in the sales funnel. A 60 to 70 percent factor

usually is assigned to them.

_ C _Lukewarm Prospects. More than likely these

prospects have just been identified, they are just starting

the sales cycle, or they are “hope and a prayer”

prospects. These accounts usually get a factor of 10 to

40 percent.

Now these weighted averages are okay, but there is a lot

more information you can use than just a weighted guess. To

turn that forecast into a far more effective time management

tool, let’s change the meaning of the letters a bit and add a second

dimension to the A, B, C ratings. The first dimension will

represent history—what the prospect has done in the past

with you or your competition. The second dimension will represent

the potential for future activity on the account. To keep

things specific and realistic, let’s limit the projections of future

activity to the next 90 to 120 days.

A _ Sales greater than $100,000.

B _ Sales between $30,000 and $100,000.

C _ Sales less than $30,000.

Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™ 35

So, an AA account is one that has spent more than

$100,000 with you in the past or has already agreed to do so

currently (first “A”), and has the potential in the next 90 to 120

days to spend more than $100,000 with you again (second

“A”). If we assign BC status to a prospect, that means the account

currently or in the past has spent between $30,000 and

$100,000 with you and has the potential in the next 90 to 120

days to spend less than $30,000.

Now we know two valuable things: why it is worthwhile

to devote some time to prospecting, and where we should be

spending most of that time. We have identified our buffalo.

Obviously, we need to provide for the care and feeding of the

major accounts we’ve already got. But for prospecting purposes,

we don’t care about the first letter in a prospect’s status

equation. The buffalo are the ones with an A or B as the second

letter (Figure 7-2.)

Figure 7-1. The ProActive Sales Matrix™.

AA AB AC

BA BB BC

CA CB CC

Thus, instead of an A prospect, we might have an AA

prospect. The first “A” refers to past activity on the account,

the second to projected future activity during the next 90 to

120 days. (Figure 7-1.)

You Only Get What You Hunt For

At the risk of beating this metaphor to death, you’ll never get

a shot at a buffalo if you’re sitting in a duck blind. Salespeople

miss great prospecting opportunities every day simply because

it’s so easy to develop habits that keep them focused on

the wrong hunting territory, and therefore looking in the

wrong direction.

Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™ 37

Figure 7-2. The Buffalo Zone.

Buffalo Zone

(Red Zone)

AA

BA

CA

AB AC

BB BC

CB CC

Birds and

Deer

Zone

Bird

Zone

The Bird Zone

This is where salespeople typically spend 50 to 70 percent of

their time shooting ducks, geese, and the like. It should be 10

to 25 percent. The Bird Zone (also called the Dead Zone) is

filled with customers calling in with problems or questions,

with very little potential for additional business in the near

future. The 80/20 rule applies here: Approximately 80 percent

of your customers generate 20 percent of your revenue—and

80 percent of your problems! There are actually some

customers in this zone whom you wish would go away and

give their business to the competition.

The Bird and Deer Zone

Also called the Comfort Zone. Here we find the customers we

consider most important. They are the bread and butter of our

territory. They have spent a lot of money with us in the past.

At the current time, however, their budgets or buying

windows do not justify a great deal of our prospecting time.

Yes, there is business to be had, but in the short term (the next

90 to 120 days), we can find better uses for our precious

prospecting time and resources.

The Buffalo Zone

This is the Red Zone. Those big, hairy critters munching grass

are prospects that have the potential to spend a lot of money

with us. If we want that money, we need to invest some

prospecting time. So here is where we do most of our homework

and invest most of our prospecting energy. Red Zone

accounts should be clearly identified, and 10 to 30 percent of

our total time should be proactively spent here. Concentrate especially on accounts at the BA and CA level or on trying to

move accounts into a BA or CA status. Why? Because you

already know the AA accounts. Chances are it’s the BA and

CA prospects that are crying out for more of your time, effort,

and hunting skills.

Here is an example of how a salesperson might use the

Matrix:

Susan looks at her account base to figure out how

she can allocate her prospecting time proactively.

She determines that an A account should be one

where the revenue is $100,000 or above. B accounts

are from $50,000 to $100,000, and C accounts are

from $10,000 to- $50,000. Any accounts below

$10,000 she keeps off the forecast.

She decides that her second digit, time, will apply to a

sixty-day window.

By using the ProActive Sales Matrix_, Susan determines

where she needs to spend her time as well where she should

go to hunt some buffalo. She’s all through working weekends

just to feed the birds.

Do you spend way too much time feeding your birds?

Including some you wish would just fly away? Now you know

what you can stop doing to make more time for high-potential

prospecting. Be proactive. Monitor yourself for the next thirty

days to make sure you spend at least 20 percent of your time

in the Red Zone and less than 50 percent in the Dead Zone.

Look forward, not backward.

The ProActive Sales Matrix_ gives you an objective view

of what you are doing now and what you need to do to be

successful in the future. It gives you a clear map of the road

that leads to where your very own buffalo roam.

Time Management I: The ProActive Sales Matrix™ 39

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