Making Enough $$$$ for the Time Spent?

Some industries and customers rely on the "milk run" approach to selling. This is when a salesperson is at the same account on a given, repetative schedule. Unfortunately, this can lead to a territory not getting enough analysis because the salesperson reasons that his customers don't want any deviation. He can't "afford" to anger anybody by not being where he is "supposed to be".

James was a milk run kinda guy. He had been in his territory for 25 years and by his reckoning "knew everybody worth knowing" . The first day that we worked together, I had the printout, for you younger folks that was the predecessor of the laptop spread-sheet.

The first call of the day was to one of his "key accounts". First call every Monday. We stayed about an hour and James said that was pretty normal. Looking at the print-out I did some basic math quickly in my head and asked if he knew how much he was making at XYZ. When I advised that he was making a little more than $4 each call, he was amazed and said there was a mistake. Doing the math with him showed him the light. That was not the kind of money our company wanted him to make and he agreed that he didn't either. The next account we went to had much better potential but his sales there were poor and thus he didn't put in much effort. He agreed to stop at the first company once a month and increase the time and effort at the other, which paid off for him and the company.

Have you done your math? How much do you need to sell each year, month, week, day, hour and per sales call to reach your goal?