How to Plan Your Sales Week

You have three choices when it comes to starting your week.

Begin With Your Existing Opportunities

You can start the week in your existing pipeline, either working forward or backwards. If you decide to work backwards, you start at the opportunities that are closest to the end of the sales process and gain the necessary commitment to move those opportunities forward. Maybe that’s a phone call. Maybe it’s an email. Or maybe you need a meeting. From there you work backwards to the opportunities at the early stages of your process. This is a good choice because it ensures you’ve taken action on everything that can and should be moving forward.

You might start with the opportunities at the earliest stages of your sales process, gaining the commitments to move each of those forward before you do anything else. As you move each opportunity forward, gaining commitments as you go, you work towards the opportunities that should be closing soon. There is nothing wrong with this approach, and it ensures you move the early stage opportunities forward.

Begin By Creating New Opportunities Within Your Existing Clients

Another choice you might make is to work on your existing clients to create new opportunities. If there are clients for whom you do not have 100% wallet share, and there is greater value you can create, this is a great place to start. Starting here ensures that you create easy opportunities. You already have the relationships, and you already have the contracts.

Begin By Prospecting and Nurturing Your Dream Clients

But the final choice is to begin your week focused on your dream clients. These prospective clients are cold. You don’t have any existing opportunities, and you don’t have deep relationships yet. By focusing on prospecting first, you ensure that it gets done.

By choosing either of the first two choices, starting with your existing pipeline or existing clients, you can easily get tied down in all of the activities around those opportunities. If you’re being honest, you know it’s unlikely that you’ll make time for your dream clients once you start pursuing your existing opportunities and existing clients. Carving out a half a day of prospecting early in the week ensures it gets done, even though I know many salespeople who swear by Thursday’s and Friday’s.

How will you start your week?