Now that you understand SPACECHAMPS and the importance of information in a sale, you can work with your salespeople to take a more strategic view of their sales on an individual basis.

As you’ve already learnt, strategy is all about knowing where you are, where you need to be, and how you’ll get there.

Assess:
First, you need to assess the current situation to accurately understand your As-Is. And you need to know that for every letter of SPACECHAMPS.

Plan:
Next, you need to map out the steps required to get from where you are, to where you want to be. This could be knowing who to speak to, what to say, or anything else that gets you the information from SPACECHAMPS that you need.

Act:
Now you’ve got the plan, you need to encourage (or coach) your salesperson to carry out the plan.

Review:
Finally, you need to review how you and the team performed against the plan to help you to perform as well, or even better, next time.

So, you know the As-Is and you know the final goal, but what makes a reasonable To-Be for a sales person? This needs to be something that can be achieved in the next 2-4 weeks.

A useful exercise to do internally, is to put RAG descriptors in place for each letter of SPACECHAMPS. Here’s an example which you might use for Competition 1.

Competition 1
R: I don’t know who I’m competing against.
A: I have identified the competition and have a strategy on how to eliminate it.
G: I have eliminated all the competition, and am the only option this prospect is still considering, confirmed by my Sponsor.

Now, you can help your salespeople to take a strategic view of their major sales in order to maximise their chance of winning the business.