Why do many sales people settle for an income based mainly on farming their present customers, when they could make so much more by spending more of their time hunting for and presenting to potential new customers?

The answers to this question and what companies do about it separates the fast growing companies from so-so performers.

Clearly, the high cost finding and training new salespeople and the risk of losing momentum in territories by replacing sales people who underperform in bringing new accounts plays a big role.

Whatever the dynamics in your company, there is comfort in the fact that you can turn even average salespeople into new account rainmakers by taking some basic steps that are outlined below.

• Establish new account selling metrics. If you don't have a handle on which sales people bring in an acceptable number of profitable new customers, start now to gather that information. When you know the facts, share them with your managers and use them to establish new account quotas for each sales office and salesperson.

• Leverage the enormous power of peer pressure by publishing new customer wins every week, and summarize them monthly and quarterly by sales office and individual salesperson. Praise those reps that are meeting or beating their quotas. This is a no-brainer when focusing a sales organization on new account generation. Nobody wants to be on the bottom of the list.

• Benchmark your new account effectiveness. How good are your salespeople at winning new business presentations? Find out by sitting in on at least 10 new business presentations, then quantifying and writing your impressions for each one. You'll be amazed at what you find - good and bad - and where to concentrate your training and sales support.

• Create a world class new business presentation. Your sales reps have ten minutes or less to convince a new account that your company is the one to do business with. They need a new business presentation support package to help them identify what the prospect wants, how your company can help, and the ability to communicate a total value proposition that puts your company in the lead. In this effort we suggest you involve both inside and outside professionals to prepare, test and produce a winning sales presentation package.

• Train your sales reps on new account presentation skills. Your new world class presentation package is the perfect reason to retrain your salespeople. You'll need a training professional who can put together a formal program, complete with a syllabus, course materials and verbal and written tests to be sure the material is understood.

• Assess the selling skills of your sales organization. What's the best way to discover how well your sales reps can make a new account presentation? Put them in front of a buyer in a simulated sales presentation - before and/or after training - then score their performance. Use this information for specific training and mentoring. Just the process of preparing for their assessment presentation will increase their new account competence and confidence.

• List your best new account prospects. Access a new business list from any of the leading list suppliers, such as Dun and Bradstreet, for each of your sales areas and ask your managers to identify the companies they would most like to sell.

Since there are over 12 million business establishments in the U.S. we suggest you specify your prospects by SIC codes, number of employees and/or sales, and by state, county or zip code.

You can order records with the names of key executives and with fairly in-depth financial data. Make the companies your managers have identified your VIP targets for mailings and phone follow-up in each territory.

• Reward the winners. Salespeople thrive on challenge and recognition. Use these factors to turn the 20% factor around - to where 80% of your sales reps are meeting their quotas for new account generation. Recognize the highest achievers at meetings, with perks and with special treatment - they deserve it.

Finally, establishing a new business culture should involve everyone in the company from the president to the shipping clerk to the technician, not just the sales organization. Remember, nothing happens until somebody sells something.

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