THE SAME BULLET CAN SHOOT A MOUSE OR A MOOSE

Donald Trump said, “As long as you’re thinking, you may as well think big”. The “DON” is spot on with this saying. So many times we spend our time doing the things that will reap the smallest rewards rather than tackling the things that will give us the greatest rewards.

There are a lot of reasons for this; the most obvious one is that there are a lot more things that will give us the smaller rewards.  Sales reps are impatient, we hate to wait! Rather than wait for an opportunity that is worthwhile for us, we jump at the first thing that comes along. We waste our bullet on a mouse.

How many mice do you think it takes to equal a moose? A hundred? A thousand? I don’t have the answer, but I do know one thing, if I were doing the hunting and I was depending on what I killed to feed myself and my family, I would have a little patience and wait for the moose.

Let’s take this idea to the sales field. We all can agree that the larger the customer, the longer it USUALLY takes to close the sale. This isn’t always true, but in the majority of cases it is. We can also agree on the fact that for every large account there are a lot of small accounts, again I don’t know the ratio but I am sure it runs close to the mouse and moose ratio! Finally we can agree that in most cases it is easier to close the smaller accounts than the larger ones. With all this knowledge it is easy to see why an impatient sales rep will go after the small accounts. INSTANT GRATIFICATION! As reps we feel that the sale is the most important thing, and in many cases we sacrifice the size of the reward to make a sale.

Remember what the “DON” said? “As long as you’re thinking, you may as well think big”, I want to reword this a little, “As long as you’re selling, you may as well sell big”. I know it is hard to pass up the quick sale. It isn’t in a reps DNA to let any sales go by, but we need to understand that if we accept mediocrity in our sales we will always be mediocre sales reps.

I had the honor of being on a field ride with the top rep in a company. It was absolutely amazing the difference between this rep and ALL the rest of the reps I have ever been on a field ride with. The top rep passed by places that the other reps would have considered “A” accounts. This rep wasn’t looking for mice, he was only targeting moose!

I asked him if he ever went into the smaller accounts, he said only if I really wanted to make a sale after I have exhausted ALL the larger accounts in an area. He felt that his time, his energy, his knowledge, his experience, and most of all his income was going to be best served in the largest accounts he could find. He told me that he knew that he could open the small accounts if he needed to, he had the self confidence to know his ability. He also had the ego to know that he would not be generating the income he was worth in the small accounts. He let me in on his little secrete, he admitted to me he was lazy! He told me that he didn’t want to make the number of sales calls to service all the small accounts it would take to make the money he wanted to make and that by focusing only on the moose and ignoring the mice, he could be lazy and successful.

After our day together I went back and looked at the records to see what his account base looked like. I was shocked, every rep in the company had between 100 and 200 accounts, the top rep had only 78 accounts. I asked the rep about this and asked if the other reps could see 2 to 3 times more accounts, wouldn’t it be better for him to open some smaller accounts to generate more income since he had the time?  I already knew what he was going to say, but I wanted to hear him say it to validate my gut feeling. He told me that if he had more small accounts he couldn’t give his larger accounts the time and attention they needed. He agreed that he may be able to make a few dollars from the small accounts, but he felt what he would make would be much less than what he would lose.

I was excited to get back and talk about my experience. I saw in action what I have been teaching for a long time. This one rep reinforced my belief that if reps would focus on the BIG accounts and leave the smaller ones to the competition, the rep, the reps company and the reps customers would all benefit.

You only have so many bullets you can shoot in a day, you can aim at mice, once you skin and bone a mouse there isn’t a lot left to eat, or you can shoot at moose, the skin makes a great rug, the meat can feed you for months! The choice is yours.

Lorin

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