Help! My sales territory is enormous!

In this episode of The Luxury Choice podcast, Steve Vaughan, Pru Layton, and Jayne Green discuss effective strategies for managing large sales territories. They emphasize the importance of planning, identifying key accounts, maximizing efficiency in customer visits, and leveraging support roles. The conversation also highlights the use of technology and tools to enhance sales efforts and the need to focus on both high-potential accounts and those in less competitive areas. The episode concludes with practical tips for structuring territory coverage and maintaining customer relationships.

Steve Vaughan, Jonathan Cooper, Pru Layton, Christian Walter, Pascal le Floche and Jayne Green are Sales Trainers from george james ltd. You can email the show at: Podcast@georgejames-training.com

The trainers on LinkedIn:

Steve Vaughan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-vaughan-salestrainer/
Jonathan Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cooper-18716b1/
Pru Layton https://www.linkedin.com/in/pru-layton-b46a3528/
Christian Walter https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-walter-a1857b1/
Jayne Green https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-green-salestrainer/
Pascal Le Floch-Riche https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascal-le-floch-220ba46/


george james training website https://georgejames-training.com/

Transcript

Steve: [00:00:00] Hello again and welcome to the Luxury Choice A B2B Technical Sales and Business Podcast, brought to you by the training team of George James Limited. My name is Steve Vaughan. I'm a senior sales trainer at George James, and I'm also the host and the producer of this podcast. And today I've got two of my colleagues with me, Pru Layton, and Jayne Green.

Steve: And I'm sitting here in North Oxfordshire looking at the rain coming down through my window right now at the back of the the screen. What's it like in Wales and in Nottinghamshire today, folks? 

Pru: So we've had the rain overnight and we've sent it your way. We always get it first.

Pru: Thank you. Very kind. So actually I think it'll be brighter later. 

Steve: Oh, good news. 

Jayne: Yes. I'm thinking it would All I'm looking forward to because we've just seen that over the past few weeks, haven't we? If there has been a few clouds they've seen blown away. So I'm looking forward to the sunshine later on.

Jayne: No doubt. 

Steve: Yeah, from a purely selfish point of view. I'm going on a golf trip this weekend, so it would be nice if it blows away. . 

Jayne: Okay. 

Steve: Fingers crossed. But, uh, yeah, we'll see. See how that works out. Anyway, this isn't the shipping forecast.

Steve: This is a sales podcast. So what are we gonna talk about today? Well, [00:01:00] again, it's another topic that's come up really from, you know, input from you, the listener, really. And that's what do we do when we're covering an enormous sales territory? Now that could be geographically enormous. It could be enormous in terms of.

Steve: Potential customers or in terms of actual turnover. But how do we get ourselves organized and how do we get ourselves set up so we cover that territory as effectively as possible? 'cause I guess that's our job as salespeople, really.

Steve: What's the biggest territory you've ever been responsible for? Proof 

Pru: Yeah. I've never done that big a territory actually compared to others. I think probably the biggest territory I ever did. I had half the UK. 

Steve: Okay. That's quite 

Pru: big as a direct salesperson. Yeah. So it wasn't overwhelming.

Pru: But, uh, I guess the smallest territory I ever had was London. 

Steve: Okay. Well, still 9 million people. Yeah. How about you, Jayne? What was the biggest territory you've ever had so far? 

Jayne: and so the biggest one, again, I've only ever covered uk. I remember at one point going from York down to Cambridge. [00:02:00] So having a, a sort of a segment that was sort of on the east, sort of side of the country, so Yeah.

Jayne: Uh, but I've also covered South London as well, and so I've had very compact and sort of very sort of tight territories. 

Steve: Well, I can beat both of you. I've covered the whole of the United States before you win and, and Canada. So that's quite a big territory. Uh, I guess the smallest one I ever had probably was sort of the northwest of England.

Steve: So the old chemistry runners was, you know, the sort of runko wind is Cheshire, that kind of. Kind of belt. So, uh, well, regardless of how big your territory is or how small your territory is, really one of the things we have to do as salespeople is cover that in an effective and efficient way. So where do we start?

Steve: So, you know, I'm, I'm a salesperson responsible for a territory. I might live in the middle of that territory. I might live on the edge of it. I might even live off it. That's happened to me before now as well. So what, what are the first things we need to think about Pru when we're starting looking at how we cover our territory effectively?

Steve: Where would you start? 

Pru: think you said the most important word up front actually, Steve. Okay. [00:03:00] Was to get yourself organized. 

Steve: That's a good start, isn't it? 

Pru: No matter what size your territory, territories are often scaled based on business potential. Sure. So some might be incredibly concentrated in terms of a lot of people to get around and some may have a lot of distance between.

Pru: The business centers if you like, doesn't matter which way round, it's, you have to get yourself organized, and I do feel like a broken record sometimes, but you need a plan. 

Steve: Never, 

Pru: Everything about you need a, you never sound like 

Steve: a broken record. 

Pru: Everything about sales, in macro and in micro is about having a plan.

Pru: So, you know, you have to have a territory, a coverage plan, if you like, about your territory. Know where your customers are, their scale of importance and plan, how often you are gonna see them, how often you are gonna be in certain areas, dependent on the current and potential business. 

Steve (2): Right.

Steve (2): 

Pru: it's different for everybody, but [00:04:00] if you don't get yourself organized, you totally risk the customer trying to organize you. And I've definitely let that happen. Well, I've been getting up at the crack of dawn, driving forever. I remember one trip driving forever to the very east of my territory. It was the only appointment I had that day.

Pru: Don't tell my manager. And um, the person canceled. 

Steve: Brilliant. Yes. Pro. I think we've all had experiences like that where we've been on the road and then the customers contacted us and said, sorry, we can't see. It's very frustrating. Jayne, you would give us an example before we started recording, actually from your own career of how you I think.

Steve: Gave a great way of managing the customer's expectations and also meeting the customer's or your requirements to fit the customer into your call plan. Uh, do you wanna just share that with us? Mm, that was a great example. 

Jayne: Yeah, definitely. When I first went back to, the company that I was last in a selling role for when I was sort of new back into there, I was trying to get round, get coverage, you know, [00:05:00] meet all of the important customers.

Jayne: What Pru talked about, having a plan, he would, whom I'd obviously identified some of the important customers to our business. And there's this one particular company, and I won't mention who they were, but everybody had said, well, you're gonna find it really difficult. And the chap in there never, never, he.

Jayne: Doesn't like to see reps, you can't turn up, you know, very difficult. You're gonna struggle. So I like that challenge. So I went in, saw the customer and there were a couple of other people in there with him. And so I decided thinking, well, one, I've got an appointment in, but how am I going to make sure that I can continue getting appointments in with this difficult customer?

Jayne: So I just decided to go for it. Recognized that he got a really busy calendar. He was a busy man. And so, you know, saying, you know, I'd really like to be able to plan when I can see you. Over the next year because I know that there'll be certain areas we need to talk about when you've got budgets being released.

Jayne: And he said, well, I can tell you now, Jayne, I'll only see you twice a year. And I'm like, that sounds fantastic. I've got my calendar here. Actually, [00:06:00] it was still a paper diary, not gonna lie, that old. So I flipped through and scheduled those two dates in. Relief at that moment was thinking, you know, when you new back into a place, I'm like, I've already got a couple of, this is a key account.

Jayne: I've already got these in. And he also told me, never turn up at the door at reception. You'll never get back in again. But you can ring me on the phone. 

Steve: Don't turn up unannounced. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. 'cause it's, it's a common courtesy, isn't it, really? I think that's a great example because you've got those dates in your schedule, but then so is the customer as well.

Steve: Yeah. So he knows that you are coming in at that time. Uh, I guess now in, in the electronic world, we could have sent, you know, we'd sent them out, look invited to Yes. Schedules and so on. So yeah, it's, it's a great example and I think it's really important that we, where we can, we try and fit the customers into our plan and not the other way around.

Steve: I, I speak to some salespeople that seem to drive an enormous amount of miles every year covering enormous territories because they are always being reactive. And I know they'll always be the need to be [00:07:00] reactive crew in sales. But wherever possible, I think we need to fit the customers into our plan, not other way around.

Pru: Yeah, I mean I think there's always a boasting, isn't there? That used to go on about how many miles you covered and yeah, it was like some badge of honor, which was ridiculous to be fair. It was just like, oh, well I do this much, or, or if you have a much bigger territory and have to fly, you know how many points you've got, avios points you've got on certain things.

Pru: And actually, you know, with hindsight, I wish I hadn't joined in with it. I did a bit. It's about efficiency and it's, if you have a plan, if you have a, and it's only going, let's go back to the Preta rule. If you have a plan, it'll work 80% of the time. 

Pru: So 80% of the time you can get your plan to work.

Pru: 20% of the time it won't work, but at least that's the minority rather than the majority. Mm-hmm. And that's what you know, being efficient is about. It's managing the things that you can manage and making space for those times when you need to [00:08:00] be reactive. But many of us, I think, are overly reactive in sales.

Pru: We have a lot of pressure from the businesses to get to see customers, 

Steve: of course. 

Pru: Many of the listeners, you know, and us as well actually, you know, we wanna get to speak to customers, both new and existing customers. So we'll sometimes accept any old appointment just to get our numbers up. 

Steve (2): Yeah. 

Pru: And it's, you know, what you shouldn't do is not do that.

Pru: It's like, organize yourself so that. The appointments that you do have are meaningful, helpful, and help you move towards your target and exceed your target. And again, I think, one of the things is have a plan. Know where the good accounts are, know the ones that need regular visits. And Jayne, I wish I'd met you many years ago 'cause had much fewer sleepless nights.

Pru: If I'd thought to do that would be great. 

Steve: We've talked about the importance of planning and, you know, I think it's absolutely crucial in managing a territory, whether it's enormous or not so large. but what kind of things do we actually plan? So I guess it would depend some degree on our [00:09:00] role, you know, for account managers looking after existing customers as opposed to perhaps being more sort of hunters looking for new business.

Steve: But what kind of basis would you use for your plan, Jayne, if you were taking on a new territory, what kind of things would you start with? 

Jayne: So I'd be looking at the existing customers, and again, it depends. So if, if I knew I'd got some, looking at my example of the company that I talked of before, I'd got some key accounts that were really important that I knew they would repeat buy, but you could never guarantee that, 

Jayne: When you are, you've got a preferred supplier status in a place, you know that the competition is right on the doorstep. Identifying who the key account are and where the spend comes from, really, follow the money. where's it likely to be? But also where am I working on where, where is the money?

Jayne: Where's the potential? You know, if I've got to create a lot of new business in my territory, where am I gonna get that from? Because it may not be all from, my existing customer base, but which areas? So I've been very fortunate in a lot of my selling [00:10:00] career that I've had really high value areas.

Jayne: So Oxford and Cambridge, and London. Sure. And of course they're very rich. So you have to look at those areas and go, actually, where's spending and who's spending in here, pre mentioned the Pareto principle and you know, it's that bit, isn't it It's not always the case, but 80% of our business often comes from 20% of our customers.

Jayne: So true. Yeah. So, you know, I remember somebody saying years to me if you would said that you'd only visit 10% of your territory over the next six months, which 10% of your territory you're going to concentrate on, 

Steve: good thought. 

Jayne: You know, where's that business gonna come from? If I'm not covering all of it?

Jayne: Where's the most business gonna come from? Um, but we obviously have to. Cover our territory. Yeah, that's part of it. I think one of the things I was thinking of, we had this phrase, you know, help my territory's enormous, and that can feel as a new Salesforce really overwhelming, you know? Yeah, sure.

Jayne: And it's like, oh gosh, I don't know where to start. And it's back to that plan. It's back to that, [00:11:00] identify what you've got and where the areas are that we'll spend and start from there. 

Steve: Super points. Yeah. So we could sit and look at our existing customers and plot those out on a map of our territory, I guess we could look at our target accounts, things where we think, you know, there are opportunities for growth.

Steve: what other things could be used for a plan proof. We missed anything. 

Pru: think I was only having this conversation yesterday actually with it. New salesperson and, uh, there's a couple of things they, I asked them to look at in the, in the CRM was those accounts have had a, a change in spending over the last year.

Pru: This is a, a consumables type of business and it's like, you know, if you wanna know where to start and plan out where you wanna go, look at those accounts who've spent more. There looks like their spends increasing. Go find out why. Have a look at those accounts where maybe the spend has declined over the last year, and go and find out why those, I'd prioritize.

Pru: Put the pins on a map, or this young lady was [00:12:00] much, much more upstate than me, so she'd probably do it on the computer. Plan out where they are and work out how you're gonna do it. And I said, you know, one of the activities that this business measures is people who've tried samples. You know, where's there been lots of samples and where's there been none?

Pru: And use those to start to prioritize where you're gonna go. Because the truth is that most of the listeners here can't visit all of their customers. You know, you don't have time and neither is it there any point actually in visiting all of your customers. And when I say visiting, I use that loosely or contacting.

Pru: It could be in person, it could be. Over teams or Zoom, or it could be by phone, but not all customers are equal. Unfortunately. This is not a democracy of sales. for me as a brand new sales person looking at a territory with lots and lots of potential points that I could engage with, it's the ones where there's.

Pru: Movement and activity, either positive or negative, that I get on top of first. [00:13:00] 

Steve: Yeah. Great 

Pru: points. When I go and take a territory over, that's what I wanna do. 

Steve: Okay. Yeah. Great points. And I think also we, you know, we have to think about yes, coverage and maximizing growth, but we also need to think about our own costs as well.

Steve: I've just come back from, running a training course in California, and I was shocked at the cost of hotels and things now. It's been a while since been over there, really. So if we're not organized, then. We gonna be, you know, if we've got a large territory, we're only spending nights away from home, which isn't always necessarily what we want to do.

Steve: Running up big bills in fuel, running up big bills in potential air travel if territories are big hotels, all those kind of things as well. And if we have a more structured plan, yes, there's always a need to, you know, have a night away from time to time, of course. But we can do that in a more efficient way and a more organized way.

Steve: just a thought that popped into my head really, and I'd welcome either of your thoughts on this really. What about if we're. So we're thinking at the moment of a sales person covering a territory, but what if we're an applications person or a person in a support role that's responsible? You know, sometimes they can be still [00:14:00] responsible for, say, the uk, but they're not necessarily the person that is arranging the meetings, they're responding or supporting somebody.

Steve: How do we get ourselves in that kind of role? Organized? 'cause I, you know, I've had lots of conversations with people over the years in those roles who spend a lot of time traveling. Are the things that they can do themselves to mitigate the time they're spending traveling. Any thoughts on that one? 

Pru: The sales process?

Pru: Yeah. All you needed in there. Absolutely. You know, we've all worked with both sales and applications, people in businesses, and the great thing about being an applications person is when you understand the sales process and your own company's sales process, you can start to prioritize the many calls that you have on your time 

Pru: Where you have the most impact and where you add the most value as customers make decisions. And it very much depends on your sales process within your business. But if you don't understand it as an applications person, the risk is that it's the most persuasive or loudest salesperson who grabs your time [00:15:00] as opposed to the right time.

Pru: To actually move the opportunity on where you can have the biggest impact. So I've really enjoyed working with applications people and going back afterwards and they say, oh, I have some interesting conversations now with my salespeople because I can ask them where the opportunity is and how can we move it to the next stage?

Pru: So empower your applications people, or if you're an applications person, become empowered. Yeah, that's a great point. 

Steve: Your thoughts on that one, Jayne? 

Jayne: Yeah, I mean, what pre said is incredibly important, isn't it, to understand. 'cause I think I was guilty of wanting to drag, an applications scientist out with me in my early days because I felt I didn't have enough knowledge.

Jayne: So it's that I didn't have enough specific product knowledge and I thought the application person then clearly did. So I felt the need to take somebody in with me, but actually. Did I really, I possibly just needed to get that information [00:16:00] from them rather than that application person, being flung all across the uk, which is what seemed to be happening, you know, in a week.

Jayne: Um, so what do I need to know? Where do they need to get involved in that process? How can we be kind? And actually there's a wealth of information. I love application. Teams because they bring, they've got such a great rapport with customers when they see them. Yeah. Customers tend to tell them more than they would tell a sales person in a less guarded way and funny that isn't it?

Jayne: Yeah. But their time is incredibly valuable, you know, it's such a resource and use it wisely. 

Steve: Completely. 

Jayne: and I think, you know, maybe, maybe part of our coverage is if we know that actually our application person can go in and we, we've got complete trust within them, that's another touch for the customer from us as their supplier.

Jayne: So that, you know, if we're talking about covering the territory, then part and parcel, that may be the other teams that are part of [00:17:00] our organization that may also give a great experience to the customer. 

Steve: You know, I hadn't thought of that, but that's a great point that it might be that, you know, sometimes it's an application person that needs to go to see this customer rather than me, the sales person.

Steve: Uh, and we're still keeping in contact with the customer, but, you know, depending where they are in the sales process or their existing customer, and, you know, it's an application support call rather than the sales call. I mean, every call's a sales call, but you know what I mean? Yeah. it might be that the applications person's the right person to make that visit.

Steve: Sorry. Don't forget your service engineer when you actually measure those touch points with customers front of mind, picking up information, finding out if a competitor's been in those things that you only really pick up when you have some presence with the customers, you know, inside your business.

Pru: If you are going to have. Help my territory's huge. Then think about all the other opportunities. Now, we can't turn our service guys if we have them into salespeople. 

Steve (2): No, should try. 

Pru: But as the salesperson, you can definitely make time to catch up [00:18:00] with anybody who's visited the customer, you know, and have a, you know, how did it go?

Pru: You know, what did you see? just pull the information, not necessarily direct from the customer, but anybody else who has those. Contacts with a customer, don't miss out on that. 

Jayne: Yeah. Very valuable. 

Steve: Super points. Yeah, because you know, we go and see the customer and naturally the customer's defenses go 

Steve: 'cause we're salespeople, you know, I better get into salesperson prevention mode because the salesperson is coming in today. But when it's the application person or the service engineer, I think they have a different relationship with the customer, rightly. And perhaps the customer is more open to tell them things or share information than they would do with us.

Steve: Or at least not as readily. So yeah, super point thanks for making that point. just to go back to a center, salespeople now covering our territories. Any more hints and tips in terms of doing the actual planning? Perhaps I have to share what I used to do as a starter and see if there's anything that overlaps.

Steve: So I was always a great fan of what I called Mindy Territories, so I would divide my territory up into four. I think once I did 10, which was perhaps overkill, [00:19:00] but still, you know, so I divide my territory into four and do it in a geographical sensible way. So, you know, use. Motorways or whatever as a boundary or cities, as you say, Jayne, you know, Oxford, Cambridge, London, that kind of thing.

Steve: And then I would plot onto those many territories, my top a hundred accounts or whatever, if I was more of an account manager. And then that would give me a. Relative percentages. So the amount of accounts I've got in each of those territories. So I might have 50% in territory A and 25% in territory B and so on, and then I'd look at my next six to eight weeks out and I would then put in my diary or my calendar or whatever use would, do you wanna use coverage of those mid territories as a proportion of those percentages?

Steve: Because then that would mean that when I have those conversations with the customer that says, I can't go, you know, I can't see you that day. I can go and say, well, I'm next in your part of my territory on, you know, two weeks on Tuesday. Will that work? You know, so that I have a framework and a structure.

Steve: I might not know where I'm gonna be. [00:20:00] What customer I'm gonna see in three weeks time, but I'm know geographically where I'm gonna be. Yeah. That, that always worked for me. And, and you know, it's not exact science as well. Is that the kind of things that you, you two used to do or did you do anything different to that, or any variances on that?

Jayne: Yeah, I did something very similar. I try and work four weeks out. Okay. And so that I could see the plan of where I was. So if I was. Particularly when I was responsible for Cambridge and Oxford, I knew because of the vast amount of customers that were in that I'd be wanting to spend, two days in Oxford, one week, one day, the next two days.

Jayne: So over the course of that, I could give a customer, I. When we're talking about scheduling my time in, I've got a plan of four weeks and an ongoing, you can't see me these two days while I've got, you know, Thursday of next week or the week after that. I've got the Tuesday, Wednesday. So I would, I would move those sort of the, I would call them, my hubs, you know?

Jayne: Okay. So I used to split into four and then I would have my key hubs and I would grade them in terms of, you know, where. Where the potential was as well. What's moving and [00:21:00] shaking that I need to be aware of, but which hubs do I really need to make sure I'm touching over these four weeks? 

Steve: Super, super.

Steve: What did you do per anything different? 

Pru: I think there's also this idea about when you have big territories, if you have the Golden Triangle, Oxford, Cambridge London. Yeah. The other thing to be aware of is, yes, you need to cover them, but so is everybody else. So when you're in a highly competitive covered area, don't ignore the peripheries of your territory.

Pru: Maybe they're peripheries in terms of where you live, or maybe they're peripheries in terms of I could easily spend all my time in London because there's plenty of people to see. one of the things that I have noticed over the years. Benefited from myself was those kind of places, businesses on the edges of your territory get less attention and actually you can 

Pru: Do really well those so, don't ignore them. you are clearly not gonna travel a long way [00:22:00] for one place if you plan your in and out. Get furthest down and move Back towards your base. It's amazing how easy, how welcoming, how open some of those customers can be because they get much less attention or they don't suffer from what's horribly known as rep fatigue.

Jayne: In fact, they're probably really excited to see a rut because they don't seem, yeah, if they're in a far-flung PA place, they're probably excited to see somebody coming in,

Steve (2): yeah. 

Steve: I'm just thinking of examples from my own career. So, uh, and you know, these organizations are still going now, 

Steve: Dune Ray on the top of Scotland, the nuclear power station was always one and the other one was always English, China, clay in, uh, st. Ol down in Cornwall. So if you're an international lister, so Cornwall is the bit of England that sticks out right at the very end, the pointy bit at the end.

Steve: And uh, it's a long drive from anywhere unless you live in Cornwall, of course. And uh, I remember in my days of weighing equipment going down there and it was actually a really big with lots of potential, but it was a long way from anywhere, so people just didn't go. So yeah, it's a great point.

Steve: There are, you know, always [00:23:00] important accounts on the extremities of our territories, and just because it's a long way doesn't mean we don't try and see them if the potential is there. Of course. So it's a really good point and back again to why we need to be structured and organized. So, yeah.

Steve: Fantastic. Any final points on, how we can help anybody listen to this, who's a bit concerned or very concerned about the size of the territory, how they're gonna cover things, how they're gonna be on top of everything? Any final points that we've missed at all? 

Pru: So I think if you are gonna go to those extremities, and I always, yeah, I think one side learned how to do it.

Pru: I thought this is quite good fun actually. It's, we talked about it before we started recording is understanding those types of customers that fit very well with your business. I mean, in sales speak it's called your ideal customer profile. If you can work out those. Businesses, accounts where you enjoy good business and you can describe them in some way.

Pru: Look at four or five characteristics. One of the things that can direct you to do [00:24:00] those longer visits to travel out further is to look for similar kinds of business to the ones that you work really well with right now. And if you do that, it means that you can justify from a time and a. Cost point of view, making those visits to the extremities of your territory, wherever they are from where you are based.

Pru: 'cause you know you are likely to enjoy success because there's already an example of a good fit between your business and these kinds of businesses. And so in terms of your planning, it can help you target those accounts and go, it is actually worthwhile me. Them getting there and looking for some business, and the chances are they, it'll be slightly less competitive or they're more welcoming, as you say, Jayne, they're quite excited to see you, so great point.

Pru: Great. think about those and make them a target, particularly to grow your business. 

Steve: So thinking about a customer you have a great relationship with, they've got a great level of business with their perfect account in terms of [00:25:00] applications, in terms of the way they do business, their growth strategies and all those things are perfect for us.

Steve: What other accounts are there on my territory out there that are just like that? I've just not been to see them. I've not called on them for whatever reason. Yeah. Yeah. And love it. Great, great, great. Uh, great concept. Jayne, anything else from you on, on that one or anything different? 

Jayne: I would just say know all the tools that you've got available to you.

Jayne: So pre already mentioned your CRM, you've got that. It's a great source of what has happened within the company. Contacts, names that maybe you've not even discovered as yet, but the tools that you can reach out to people I prefer, and I think we know that personal visits are likely to be the best.

Jayne: But if you've got a huge territory, you could also got lots of other ways. We've got teams, you've got telephone calls, you've got crazy ways that you can contact people on LinkedIn by, using some of the tools on there, which is fantastic. Don't rely on email. Because we think we've done something with email often, it can be great for confirming, but we've got a lot of tools available [00:26:00] to us.

Jayne: So just trying to find that right mix to this part of our plan. How am I gonna actually keep touchpoint with all of my customers? Well, I can call them as well. I can have a teams meeting and mine. We need to maybe prioritize my in-person calls, but that they're all there. 

Steve: Great points. And uh, you know, I always, I know we'd all agree, but I'd always prefer to go and see a customer face-to-face, particularly if you've never done business without account.

Steve: 'cause we can have a good look around. Yes. And we can be nosy and see what they're using and you know, what they've got hidden away in the corner of the lab. But if it's an existing customer or, it's developing an ongoing opportunity, then a team's call might be an appropriate way of keeping in contact.

Steve: But I do think sometimes we do over rely on those technologies sometimes. But that's another topic for another Jayne Pru, thank you very much for today. So if you are struggling, dear listener with terrorist coverage, hopefully there are a few thoughts there for you. I know there's nothing worse than starting a week in sales with a blank diary and I've been there.

Steve: So hopefully that, uh, you know, we've given you a few things there to at least give you some structure and some framework around, uh, [00:27:00] your territory planning. So if you've enjoyed today's episode, then please subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app. That way you won't miss an episode of a Luxury choice.

Steve: And we'd also to give us a review. If you use Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can leave us a rating and a review. A five star rating would be lovely. We'd be very grateful if you could. And don't forget also to check out on our website our latest news in terms of our scheduled training courses for the autumn and the rest of this year.

Steve: And all three of us have been very busy over the last few weeks delivering scheduled training courses around the UK and father of Field. And new courses for the rest of this year will be on our website very soon. So make sure we check out our website and keep on top of those. I'll be back with Jayne and Pru for one more, uh, podcast in a couple of weeks time.

Steve: In the meantime, happy selling out there and we'll talk to you soon.