LITMIR.BIZ

      This might sound simple, but making this transition required painstaking work. Dedicated analysts were required to create opportunity maps for every sales rep in the company and to identify accounts for reallocation. There was of course a very real risk that the company could lose accounts that had deep relationships with reps being reassigned. Therefore, it designed detailed action plans to reduce attrition for each migrated account. The entire process took about six months, but reps now spend more time selling and less time behind the wheel.

      Some companies have used nontraditional sales techniques to exploit new micro-segments. One European integrated telecommunications provider saw a 35 percent increase in call center revenue after just six weeks of actively turning inbound service calls into sales. By analyzing customer data at a very detailed level and developing tailored value propositions, its customer service agents were able to make extremely targeted pitches when customers rang up for general service support (although sales were not attempted if the customer was complaining). Companies from the United States and Canada have seen similar results.

      Keep It Easy for the Sales Team

      Sales teams have neither the time nor inclination to delve into the data or worry about cross-functional resource allocation. For the micro-market approach to work, complexity must be minimized – the sales team needs simple and effective insights and tools.

      A North American logistics company had an overall goal to increase prices by 3 percent annually, but it knew that wide variation in growth and competitive intensity across its markets might make this difficult to pull off. To ensure it met this target, it developed a detailed micro-market pricing scheme and provided simple rules, based on the competitive dynamics of each segment: reps in high-growth markets were expected to raise prices and grow faster, and those in declining markets were allowed to reduce prices to prevent existing customers from leaving. These markets were identified at the city and zip-code level, and tailored strategies were developed by line of business, customer occasion, and customer segment.