Establish a balanced team to define Best Practices. There is often a disconnection between management, sales communications, and field sales. The first step in defining Best Practices is to get input from all relevant parties and identify practices already in place or standard practices for the industry. It’s important to level the playing field of your organization by sharing the best thinking with those who interface directly with key customers on a regular basis.

Focus on business-building initiatives that contribute to top line sales. Leverage your investment in top customer teams to drive practices for 2nd and 3rd tier retailers. The consolidation of retailers means that fewer retailers make up the majority of sales for many manufacturers. These large retailers require teams versed in category structure, POS information, syndicated data, analysis techniques, and software tools. Share this expertise with less experienced customer teams.

Acquire tools that integrate Best Practices into the workflow. In addition to increasing sales effectiveness, Best Practices should contribute to increased sales efficiency. Streamlined business practices should be accompanied by technology that supports and enables the new processes. For example, developing a standard retail business review may require tools to create a series of charts or templates from which custom presentations can be built.