1. The‘PRIME’
Actions toWin
More Quickly
WHITE PAPER

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TACTICAL PLANNING –THE BENEFITS
In our workshops inTheTAS Group, our participants engage in
some very spirited discussions around the obstacles they see
in the way of tactical planning. They mention the numerous
fire drills they have to participate in, or conflicting directives
from their managers and their customers and the difficulty
of adhering to a plan in today’s volatile sales environment.
In short, they have many obstacles and diversions that work
against planning.
However, when they’re asked to list the benefits of tactical
planning they do a great job. Here are some of the items
that they come up with. They tell us that tactical planning
develops discipline and focus keeping their eye on the prize.
They tell us that the simple act of planning reduces their
stress, it helps them confront their resource requirements and
it helps them uncover hidden problems.
The‘PRIME’Actions toWin More Quickly
INTRODUCTION
A few weeks ago a colleague of ours was meeting
with an executive in his largest account. They were
talking about her vision and the obstacles in the way
of her vision. She said something he thought was very
interesting. Here’s what she said:“The truth is that I am
up to my ears in people who think they’re the greatest
strategists since JackWelch. Just once in a while, I wish
I could find somebody who could just get something
done.”
ThisWhite Paper is about tactical implementation,
the ability to get something done, by doing the right
things to help us win more quickly and effectively.
As with any of ourWhite Papers, there will be a
big variance in the seniority and experience of the
readership. Some of you will perhaps be in your first
managerial role, looking to focus on what’s really
important in the deal. Others may be more seasoned
sales leaders, at Director, Managing Partner orVP
level, tuning in to make sure you’re in step with the
latest thinking and technologies. ThisWhite Paper
aims to provide something for the complete range of
requirements, since the ideas and recommendations
have applicability right up the leadership hierarchy.
However, if you want to dig deeper, or move wider, we
urge you to get in touch with us individually. You can
do this via email to: info@thetasgroup.com.
ThisWhite Paper will cover three main topics. First, an
explanation of tactical planning placed in the context
of the overall sales campaign. Second, an overview of
P.R.I.M.E. actions, an integral part ofTheTAS Group’s
Target Account Selling® (TAS®) methodology. Third,
an outline of some best practices for managers to help
them help their people execute tactical planning. Let’s
start with the benefits of tactical planning.
And perhaps most importantly they know that it dramatically
reduces execution time in the sales campaign. Almost all
time management experts agree that every hour spent on
planning will result in a minimum of three hours taken out
of execution. What manager or salesperson wouldn’t like
to dramatically reduce their sales cycles? Finally, tactical
planning almost invariably results in more successful
outcomes. Almost nobody can seriously quarrel with the
importance of tactical planning. The question is: how can we
do it efficiently and effectively?
Before we can speak specifically about tactical actions,
we have to take a look at the overall context of the sales
campaign. Moving prematurely into actions usually results in
wasted, purposeless and incongruent activities. We have to
begin at the beginning.

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The salesperson in the upper left hand corner is‘the buddy’.
This salesperson is seen as having high positive intent, but low
capability. This salesperson relies on personal relationships for
the edge in transactional purchases. The salesperson in the
lower left is seen by the client as being clueless in that they
have low positive intent and low capability, the worst of both
worlds. The salesperson in the lower right quadrant, seen by
the customer as having high capability but low positive intent,
is the‘mercenary’. The mercenary will win some opportunities
but never be admitted into the client’s inner circle.
Once we achieve a certain minimal level of capability and
positive intent in the eyes of our customer, we move into
the upper right quadrant. The credible supplier is essentially
a very good vendor. The salesperson with this level of
relationship will usually be invited to participate in numerous
RFPs, but on a transactional basis. Moving up the diagonal
line, the problem solver will be invited in by the client when
they experience a problem. The highest level of relationship is
theTrusted Adviser. This level of relationship is characterized
by the highest possible combination of positive intent and
capability. This level of relationship usually takes place at the
executive level in the customer’s business units.
The key concept here is that everything starts with your vision
for the sales campaign and then cascades down in alignment
with that vision. Once you set your vision for the campaign,
then you can set your objective, your strategy will follow,
and then finally you can put together the most efficient
and effective P.R.I.M.E. actions possible. Let’s start with the
concept of the vision.
The father of modern management theory, Peter Drucker,
once said that the single most important question that
executives can ask themselves is: what do I want to be?
The corollary to that question is: how do I want to be seen?
The answer to these questions is the executive vision. The
construction of a vision is the work of both executives and the
salesperson who is mounting a sales campaign.
When we think about the question, how we want to be
seen?, it automatically compels us to think about levels of
relationship. Ultimately, our customers will determine the
level of relationship we achieve. Our customers use two
different criteria in assigning that level of relationship, the first
is their assessment of our positive intent and the second is
their perception of our capabilities.
A salesperson with low positive intent is focused entirely on
making the sale as opposed to helping the client achieve their
objectives. The cliché car salesperson, who says,“What will it
take to get you to buy a car today?”demonstrates low intent.
On the other hand, the salesperson with high positive intent is
focused on helping the customer achieve their business and
their personal agendas. These salespeople operate under
the assumption that if they bring value to the client, the sale
will follow naturally. The second attribute our clients use to
evaluate us is our capability to bring value. They look at things
like our products, our people, and our internal systems and
processes configured in a high value solution.
Desired State -
Reality
Current State -
Reality
Objective
Strategy
P.R.I.M.E.
Actions
TIME
POSITIVEINTENT
CAPABILITY
Vendors
Credible
Suppliers
Problem
Solvers
Trusted
Advisors
high
highlow

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sales numbers. This team was going after $50,000,000 worth
of business, with additional substantial future revenue in the
future.
At this point, we’ve set our vision, constructed an objective
that is in alignment with that vision and now we’re ready to
think about our strategy. In constructing our strategy we
ask ourselves these questions, what will I leverage, what am I
going to focus on?
For example, you might have the latest in technology, a level
of technological capabilities that none of your competition
can come close to. In this instance your strategy might
be frontal. Your strategy here would be to leverage that
technology by convincing your client that there really is no
decision - that the only rational choice is to take advantage of
your overwhelming superiority.
In another situation, you might feel that the client’s perceived
solution is inadequate and doesn’t fully meet their needs. In
this case, you might leverage your personal relationships to
convince the client to go beyond their perceived solution and
explore a far richer solution.
The point of this graph is to encourage you to think about
how you are seen by your clients, and how you want to be
seen by them. In some instances it is perfectly appropriate to
settle for a‘credible source’relationship. These are situations
where you don’t want to over-invest in the relationship. On
the other hand, an opportunity that presents high strategic
value to both you and the client requires the highest possible
relationship. Here is an example of a moderate level of
relationship. In this vision statement, the salesperson in our
workshop approached the opportunity transactionally and
focused on what’s important to their transactional customer.
“WewanttobeseenbyAmazon.comasaveryskilledvendor
withtheabilitytostriptime,cost,andcomplexityoutofthe
purchaseprocess.”
In another workshop, a team of computer sales
representatives came up with this vision statement:
“WewanttobeseenbyBoeingaircraftasacritical
successfactor,anindispensablepartoftheirtechnology
infrastructure,andasatrustedadviser.”
To support this vision, their company put fifty engineers
on site for two years to win the business. The lesson here is
that the more ambitious the vision, the higher the resources
required.
Once our vision is set, it’s relatively simple to set our
objectives. Objectives answer the question, “Whatisitthat
Iwanttoaccomplish?” Objectives are specific, measurable,
achievable, realistic and time bound. The key attribute of a
strong objective it is that it is completely unambiguous. As
Yoda said, “Thereisnotry,youngLuke.” Either the objective is
achieved or it is not.
In the context of a sales campaign, our objectives usually have
three components: what are we going to sell, when are we
going to close the deal, and how much revenue will result
from the sale. Again, our objective should be in alignment
with our vision.
Remember the computer sales people at Boeing? It would
be incongruent to have this ambitious a vision statement
cascade down to a limited objective with low or moderate
Desired State -
Reality
Current State -
Reality
Objective
Strategy
P.R.I.M.E.
Actions
What are we?
How are we seen?
What do I want us to be?
How do I want to be seen?
What do I want
to accomplish?
What will I leverage?
What will I focus on?
What work will we do?

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There is no standard path for actions. As we discussed above,
each buying process is unique. The organization doing the
buying and its culture, the reason they are buying, and the
way in which they buy are all different from one opportunity
to the next. This means that there is no standard path that
you can take to win a deal.The specific actions or combination
of actions will usually be different.
In addition, the nature of the buying process further
complicates the situation. These are not perfectly
predictable, linear processes – instead they are dynamic and
sequential. During the process, the next step often depends
upon the previous step. This means that the buying process
will evolve over time, and there are lots of paths a buying
process could take.
To ensure that it evolves in a way that you win, you must
decide on the specific actions to be executed. While there is
no instruction manual to tell you what to do, there are sales
models to help you assess the situation and analyze the
options that you have before you – then make good decisions
about what you’re going to do. This is what P.R.I.M.E. Actions is
all about – it’s a tool that can help you figure out the work you
will do to win key opportunities.
The first thing
that we have to
do is to address
proving our
value both from
a business and
from a political
perspective. Next
we have to be
sure to retrieve
critical missing – because what you don’t know will hurt you.
Next we must insulate against the competition with the intent
of defeating their strategy. The final two items are minimizing
our weaknesses and emphasizing our strengths.
Again, we use this framework to make certain that our actions
are perfectly aligned with our vision, objective, and strategy.
Also, to make certain that our actions are both efficient and
effective.
P.R.I.M.E. ACTIONS
We have now arrived at P.R.I.M.E. actions. And we are now
ready to address the specific question: what work will we do?
As Peter Drucker once said:“In the end, our grand strategies
always degenerate into work.” Let’s take a look at this work
from two perspectives, the buyer’s perspective and ours.
In any given sales opportunity, there are potentially hundreds,
if not thousands of different actions that you could execute.
The problem is that unless you have unlimited time and
resources you can only execute a few of these potential
actions. So the real question for you is – how do you know
which ones are the best actions to win the deal by executing
an efficient and effective sales campaign?
To answer this question, let’s look at actions from both the
customer’s perspective and your perspective. The customer
wants to execute actions that do two things – move the
buying process along and create both business and personal
value.
From the customer’s perspective, their buying process –
which is your sales opportunity – has a schedule. It is usually
in the customer’s interest to move through the buying
process as quickly as possible, but at the same time ensuring
good decision-making, minimizing risk and maintaining
some level of control. If our actions are in alignment with the
customer’s interests, it’s more likely that the customer will help
us accomplish these actions.
Now let’s look at this from your perspective. In essence, you
want the same thing as the customer – to move the buying
process along efficiently and effectively and create value
for your company – by winning the sale, or at minimum by
withdrawing early from opportunities that are not worth
winning.
So the best actions are also the ones that create competitive
advantage for you during the buying process. Early in that
process this means getting better information sooner and
shaping the decision criteria and process to favor your
solution. Later in that process this means creating unique,
credible and quantified business value – something that
the customer can’t get from any of your competitors – and
creating more political value for the people involved in or
affected by the buying process.
P
R
I
M
E
rove your value
etrieve missing information
nsulate against competition
inimize your weaknesses
mphasize your strengths

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see very high switching costs and risk in moving from one
supplier to another. They are focused on the technology and
the reputation of the supplier. Their purchases tend to have
significant business impacts with a much longer time horizon.
Finally, these purchases usually are the responsibility of a
business unit executive.
Here is an example of an action item to prove value, and
notice the accomplishment imbedded in the action.
“I’mgoingtomeetwith(my)mentor,MarySmithtoreview,
refine,andfinalizeourvalueproposition,getherhelponthe
quantificationofoursolution’simpactontheirbusinessissues
includingROICandtheeliminationofredundanttasksand
processes. FinallyI’mgoingtosecureheragreementthatthe
resultantvaluepropositionisrelevantandcredible.”
The second of the P.R.I.M.E. actions is Retrieve missing
information. As detailed before, what we don’t know will hurt
us. During our workshops on managing sales opportunities,
our participants are amazed when they discover the amount
of missing information in their plans.
For example, one of the concepts we teach is the Compelling
Event. A Compelling Event is defined as an event that has
occurred or will occur that forces the client to take action.The
reason that this concept is so important is that in the absence
of a Compelling Event, what frequently happens is that the
opportunity drags on forever without the client pulling the
trigger and buying anyone’s solution.
Here is another example of a P.R.I.M.E. tactic, in this case an
action demonstrating the second of the P.R.I.M.E. actions -
Retrieving missing information.
“(Iwill)meetwithmysupporterJohnBrownandretrieve
missinginformationregardingthecustomer’smilestones
inthebuyingprocess,JohnBrown’srankingofthedecision
criteria,andthenamesandtitlesofallpersonnelwith
substantialinfluenceonthebuyingprocess.”
Before we start taking a look at the individual P.R.I.M.E. items,
consider this critical point: the single most important attribute
of an individual action item is that that action item must
include an accomplishment. Holding a meeting is not a viable
action item. Instead, the action item might go like this:
“WewillholdameetingwithourmentoronAugust15and
emergefromthismeetingwithhercommitmenttosupport
oursalescampaign.”
With this guardrail in place, let’s take a look now at the first
P.R.I.M.E. item – proving our value.
Transactional and strategic customers look at the world
very, very differently. Transactional customers see very little
switching cost in moving from one to supplier to another.
Their purchases carry a relatively low level of investment
risk. And these purchases tend to focus on product and are
managed by lower level managers usually in a service unit
position such as purchasing.
In thinking about action items to prove your value to these
people, your focus has to be on what is important to them.
They see value in being able to finish routine purchases
quickly, inexpensively, and easily. So your action items to
prove your value would focus on demonstrating to them how
fast cheap and easy it is to deal with you.
On the other hand, customers who are involved in strategic
purchases have an entirely different approach to value.They
• Lower switching costs
• Lower investments and risk
• Product or person focused
• Lower operational importance
• Short time horizon
• SU Managers
Transactional
Value
• High switching costs
• Higher investments and risk
•Technology/supplier focused
• Higher business importance
• Long time horizon
• Business Unit Executives
Strategic
Value

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HOW SALES MANAGERS CAN HELP
Here are three tips on what sales managers can do to best
help their teams develop effective actions. First they might
help their salespeople learn to think before acting. Second,
they might want to leverage their years of experience to help
their sales people create and prioritize potential action items.
Finally they may wish to focus on managing the process as
opposed to trying to manage only the outcome. Let’s take
a look at what we mean by these three items in a little more
detail.
There is a lot of pressure in any given sales opportunity to ACT
NOW. The best salespeople have a very strong bias toward
action. This is a real strength. But there’s another side to that
coin. Many sales people don’t take the time to stop and think
about the best actions to execute. They tend to act reactively
rather than proactively, often on the basis of past patterns of
action.
So sales managers should balance that pressure with their
own guidance that encourages sales people to objectively
assess the sales situation, analyze their options, then decide
on what to do and how to execute – all before actually DOING
anything. It’s a new concept: ready, aim, fire.Your guidance
can help the salesperson aim before firing.
Brainstorming can be a great way to leverage your
experience, and that of your team, to create effective actions.
Here’s a proven process that helps make brainstorming
sessions productive.
First working with the salesperson, identify all the action ideas
and options that you can think of. Then working together,
consolidate the ideas into related categories. For example
you may have a group of actions that all fit under“Retrieve
missing information”, or another group of actions that fit
under“Prove your value.” After grouping these items into
the appropriate categories, test the actions by going back
through your strategy, objectives and vision to see if these
actions are congruent with the total campaign.
Once you’ve identified the best actions, refine them further by
defining who is accountable for their completion, define their
sequence and timing and then execute them. Remember
that action planning is not a one-time event.We will continue
to renew the process with fresh and evolving actions until the
opportunity is won.
Next, we’ve given an example of an action item focused
on Insulating against the competition, complete with an
accomplishment. Remember that all action items are
purposeful and they have an accomplishment embedded in
them.
“(Iwill)meetwithmycustomer’soperationalstaffand
compilearecordofourcompetitors’misseddeadlines,budget
overrunsduringtheirlastcompetitiveinstallation. Iwillshare
thiswithmymentor.”
None of our solutions are flawless, and all of us have
weaknesses in our sales campaigns. Rather than just
complain about them after the fact, minimizing our
weaknesses is an action item category that we can take into
account. Here is an example:
“(Iwill)meetwithmyinternalsupportstafftodrafta
contingencyplantoprecludeanypossibilityofaflawed
implementationduringthepilot. Thisplanwillincludehaving
personnelonstandbyandreservestock.”
Mohammed Ali was the greatest. Did he wait for us to figure
it out? Absolutely not! He told us, repeatedly. There’s a moral
here for us. We can’t simply assume that our customers will
appreciate all of our strengths and capabilities. But if we’re
wise, we’ll make sure that we communicate our strengths
to our clients in a clear and unambiguous way, just as
Mohammed Ali did. For example, what if we’re convinced
that our support team of technical staff represents our
greatest differentiator in an opportunity? Here is an example
of an action item aimed at emphasizing this strength:
“(Iwill)meetwithmymentor,introducehertooursupport
teamandsecureheragreementtothejointconstructionofa
communicationprotocoldetailingrelationshipresponsibilities
betweenhersupportstaffandours.”

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And finally, when do you get involved in helping your team
with their opportunities? We tend to see two patterns among
sales managers.
Many get involved late in the process, often in response to
end of quarter pressure, and come in to‘close the deal’. This
is a frequent pattern of sales managers who fundamentally
still see themselves as sales people.These managers are
attempting to force the outcome, not manage the selling
process by coaching the salesperson in the selection of
effective action items.
The most effective approach is to be more heavily involved
early in the process. By getting involved early, you have the
opportunity to coach for both short-term effectiveness and
longer-term development.
Close
Needs
Analysis
Solution
Proof
Concept
Negotiate
Manager’s
Involvement
Sales Cycle
Initial
Qualification
• Hero
• Quarter pressure
• Must fix it
• Lion hunter
• Leverage
• Coach
• Leader
• Manager
Command and
Control approach
Strategic
Coaching approach
CLOSING RECOMMENDATIONS
First, before thinking about action items, place them
in the context of the total campaign, considering
actions only after you’ve nailed down your vision, your
objective, and your strategy.
Next, when it comes time to draft your action
items, be certain that every action item contains an
accomplishment within it.
Finally use the P.R.I.M.E. formula make sure your tactics
are comprehensive. Make certain to address all five
of these areas: Proving your value, Retrieving missing
information, Insulating against the competition,
Minimizing your weaknesses, and Emphasizing your
strengths.
If you wish to find out more, please contact us at
info@thetasgroup.com.

9. ABOUTTHETAS GROUP
TheTAS Group helps progressive sales organizations increase their sales velocity resulting in higher win rates, bigger
deals, shorter sales cycles, and more qualified deals in the pipeline. Our unique value is deep methodology embedded
within intelligent Dealmaker software, 100% native in Salesforce. Smart coaching, delivered just-in-time, improves
sales performance and accelerates sales results.We have changed the paradigm of improving sales effectiveness from
traditional sales training to delivering sales methodology and insights when and where the sales person is working a
sales opportunity.
For more information visit www.thetasgroup.com
Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved.This briefing is for customer use only and no usage rights are conveyed. Nothing herein may be reproduced in any form without written permission ofTheTAS Group.