A number of sales "Gurus" have promoted the theory that states, "concentrating strictly on your top level premier accounts (some even quantify that by stating your top twenty) will provide you with as much growth and profit as you can possibly handle." This is often stated regardless of individual and corporate strategic initiatives. This position is based on the following facts and assumptions.

? Your top twenty accounts have tremendous growth potential that you have not taken advantage of fully. It is easier to sell an existing account than to generate new Business. It is also less costly.

? The total potential of your top twenty accounts equals your S.A.M. (Served Available Market) potential.

? salesmen are too costly to waste time making cold calls and prospecting.

? Inside sales can handle all other accounts not listed in your top twenty programs.

Although there is some basic truth to those points, there is also some fallacy of assumption in them.

1. There aren't many salesmen in all of distribution that handle twenty true premier accounts. By definition, a top account should be in your highest 10% ranking based on annual revenue, profit margin and potential.

2. Most accounts will not put 100% of their eggs in one basket.

3. Generally speaking, the total volume purchased by an account does not equal your S.A.M. that you specifically can supply.

4. It is a fact that accounts have life cycles. You WILL lose some accounts for any number of reasons regardless of who you are or what you do. Lack of prospecting will eventually cause your territory to die a slow painful death.

5. Vendor relations can suffer dramatically as your salesmen drive by an account while riding with a manufacturer's representative explaining that he is not allowed to call on that account as it is not on his top twenty premier list.

6. What does the salesman do with his spare time - since most accounts don't want to see salesmen more than every couple of weeks? That means seeing twenty accounts every two weeks gives you an average of only two sales calls per day maximum.

7. Salesmen get bored, creativity is suppressed and they even get angry when they have to incorporate too much administrative time into every one of their accounts. The kind of paperwork nightmare associated with this type of program can get out of hand. Unlike the T.L.S. program that differentiates each level of five accounts with regard to administrative time, this type of program requires identical, sophisticated tracking of every account and every activity. That answers the question of what the salesman does with his extra time. Paperwork. Paperwork that often requires trying to document, "What you don't know you don't know." GIVE ME A BREAK! I have actually seen that question listed as a requirement in a program of this nature.

A number of years ago, I actually reviewed a program built on these principles. I looked at the top twenty listing of accounts for 167 salesmen. It turned out that over 30% of the accounts I reviewed were on a C.O.D. status established by the credit department. Another 50% fell way short of logical parameters to be included in a top twenty premier program. Parameters such as total revenue and potential. Don't be discouraged. The basic concept still has merit. There is another alternative that takes into consideration the valid assumptions this type of program is based on and negates the invalid assumptions.

That program is called:

T. L. S. A Penetration Strategy ----------5 + 5 + 5

PROGRAM OBJECTIVE:

The primary purpose and benefits of this Tier Level Selling program is to become and remain focused on your strategic objective in becoming the Distributor of Choice. This program becomes a flexible guide to successful growth in

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