by Jim Steiger

I’ve always liked the quote from Dwight Eisenhower – “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”.  It applies to so much more than battle or emergencies.  How often do you get to everything that you had planned for the day or the week?  If you’re like most people, and most of you are, then you end the day or week and still have a long list of tasks that need to get done.

That long and growing list of undone tasks may seem daunting, but if you turn around and look at what you were able to accomplish, you will probably see that you got a lot done.  Now imagine how few of those things you would have done if you had not planned to do them.  It could be a great way to free up your day – simply don’t plan anything.  Unfortunately, in this situation free time equals a complete failure to get anywhere.

So now we’re back to planning.  Is it possible to get more done by better planning?  Of course it is – that was a silly question.  Effective planning can mean the difference between excelling, simply succeeding and complete failure in nearly any professional endeavor. 

One of the most under planned aspects of any company is their sales efforts.  I have seen so many companies getting by simply by hoping someone will call and buy from them.  This is like staying home and waiting for someone to come to your door with a handful of money.  Somehow sales just keep coming in without any proactive measure what-so-ever. 

Others who have a sales staff think that if they have enough “feet on the street” then sales will happen.  They send people out with no direction or plan and believe that if they contact enough people the prospect will find a reason to buy from them.  These random “feet on the street” are incredibly expensive, create turn over issues galore and are a high risk low reward strategy.  There is far too much competition today for this to effectively drive sales.

Successful sales organizations continue to grow and prosper not because of their detailed plans, but because of their continuous and detailed planning.  They put a great deal of thought into who will do what and when and why.  They do contingency planning, they plan in layers so that they reach their goals via many different avenues.  They use all of the tools and resources available to them to their fullest.

These organizations are prepared for changing markets, circumstances and client needs.  They put the people in place who can execute plans, but more importantly, they can quickly adapt to changing conditions because their comprehensive planning efforts have prepared them for nearly everything.

Getting back to Ike - The rest of his quote – “I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning”.

While sales are not usually emergencies you can count on things not always happening the way you are planning.  If you have put the appropriate time and effort into planning you will be able to react to a perpetually changing market.  Actions will become measurable and predictable.