Three key questions every sales leader should ask their people. And, three questions every sales rep should be ready to answer.

"I never plan, that way failure comes as a complete surprise and I haven't spent countless hours worrying."

I'm not sure if anyone actually said those words, but I certainly have heard that sentiment before. Once on a "ride-along" with a prospective client's sales rep I was in the back seat and the sales rep and the district sales manager in the front and this is what I heard.

   Sales manager: "So, what are we going to do with these guys?"
   Sales rep: "Well, they called me last week to ask about our new capabilities in xxx. So, that's what we're going to talk about."

Sound familiar?

The purpose of this note is to help one of the most important things a first line sales manager can do. And that is to coach their reps. And, it's all about planning.

Here are the three questions:

1. You are going to see Joe at ABC company next week. What's your plan for the meeting?

2. You have a deal with ABC company in your funnel. What's your plan to close the deal?

3. Now that you've closed the deal with ABC, what's your plan to manage the account and the account relationships?

This is a pretty simple concept and you obviously see a theme here; "What's your plan?"

You see planning is the most underused and underdeveloped skill in sales today. If a manager does nothing else it should be to help their reps plan.

But, the real question is what does a plan look like for a sales call, for an opportunity pursuit, for an account relationship plan?  That's your job as sales leadership. You need to develop consistent ways to help your people plan. Then you need to promulgate that planning throughout the company so when you ask Harry for a plan it's similar to the one you asked Suzy for.

Developing common planning tools, common language and common reporting are three crucial keys to sales leadership.

So, I ask you: "What's your plan to develop the plans?"