It’s not fair to pick on an entire industry yet I’ve had this experience repeatedly with Real Estate agents.  It happens in every industry.  However, it is one of the easiest things you can do to increase your sales and make your buyers feel a whole lot better about their buying decision.  It’s a win-win.

Stop Leaving Your Buyers Hanging

Each time you contact or engage a potential buyer never EVER end that connection without spelling out next steps.  Both you and your buyer should know who is going to do what, when you will reconnect, and what the next contact is suppose to achieve.

This is top of my mind right now because I am in the process of buying some property.  The first agent I contacted never got back to me.  This agent just left me hanging even after I made follow up contact.  Gee, guess that agent doesn’t want a commission.

The agent I am currently working with regularly ticks me off because he fails to meet those 3 criteria every connection.  Come on… it’s not that tough.  At the end of each contact we both need to know…

• The expected day and time to reconnect
• Who will be bring valuable information to that connection
• What we are trying to accomplish and what we need to do next

 Shut the F@#! Up and Listen

Plus the agent makes another fatal mistake all too many people make.  The agent talks entirely too much and fails to listen to critical information I tell him.  Yet again another sales person who loves the sound of his own voice so much he can’t bring himself to listen for information that directly impacts his income.

If you are making these mistakes you are getting what you deserve.

Don’t be surprised when you don’t get referrals and previous clients want nothing to do with you when it comes to future business.

Take responsibility and make these simple little changes and avoid the negative consequences of these poor sales habits.

Coach Cheryl

Think back to the last time you went out to purchase a product you knew just enough about to be dangerous but not enough about to feel confident you could make the right choice.  This might have been a technology based product.  I realize you probably aren’t selling a product.  You are selling a service.  Yet this example is just as relevant to you as it is to the sales rep selling products.

In reality no matter what you are buying you have a mental checklist of the things you think you want, and the things you think you don’t want before you go to the store.  When you get to the store you start comparing products against that mental checklist.  You are able to determine whether or not a particular product fulfills the items on your checklist on your own.

However, there are usually at least a couple things you can’t seem to find the answer to on your own.  So you search out a sales person for help or perhaps a sales person notices you might need help.  At any rate you ask the sales person a question.

Here’s what usually happens.  The sales person simply answers “yes” or “no”.  It’s too bad their guardian angel doesn’t immediately whap them upside the head with a nerf bat.

That “yes” or “no” response presents a 50-50 chance the sales person has just lost the sale.  You allow that to happen to you when you are talking with a prospect too.  Wait… it gets even worse.

All too often you not only respond “yes” or “no” you then follow that up by trying to tell the prospect their objection isn’t valid.  At that point you have really blown it.  You have probably made a none recoverable mistake and lost the sale.

Worse yet this mistake is entirely avoidable.

Let’s say a prospect asks you a question about whether your product or service has a certain feature.  It doesn’t.  Rather than simply responding “no” ask these questions…

• Is that important?
• What do you want to accomplish?
• How will you use that?

When you ask questions like these rather than just responding “yes” or “no” you now engage the prospect and find out exactly what the prospect wants and why.  You then have the ability to focus on what the prospect really needs.  You and the prospect may find out they don’t really want that feature they want to achieve something else and they need another feature to do what they want.

There may be another way to do what they want and complete the sale.

Bottom line ask more questions and listen.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: Xtreme Xhibits

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been having the time of my life.  While I was off frolicking on the beaches on both coasts of Florida and cruising a few Caribbean Islands my business continued like clock work and my bank account grew.  Just like I planned…

What I hadn’t planned on were the valuable sales lessons I was reminded of along the way.  I’d like to share a few of those lessons with you this month because they are priceless.

When I was a corporate big shot I spent far too much time on air planes.  Consequently, I grew to absolutely hate flying.  Then the terrorists came along and made things even worse.  Finally, the airlines themselves completely forgot the concept of customer service treating their passengers like enemy combatants.  So I will go to great lengths to avoid flying.  In fact, if I never had to get on a plane again it would suit me just fine.

If the Airlines go Bankrupt They Have Themselves to Blame

So rather than flying my husband and I drove and cruised.  The first lesson I want to share with you came about because we drove.  We took interstates to get to Savannah, Georgia from Iowa.  We were going to Savannah simply because I wanted to eat at Paula Dean’s restaurant The Lady and Sons in downtown Savannah.  Then we took the interstate down to Florida.

At that point we got off the interstate because you can’t truly experience this great nation from the interstates.  Interstates are specifically designed to get you to your destination quickly.  You get on make as few stops as possible until you get to your destination then you get off.  However, you know almost nothing about the areas or the people in those areas you drive through.

You have to get off the interstate to really experience this great nation.  There is so much beauty, so many wonderful places, and so many great people to meet in this country we forget just how much there is to see right here in the U.S.  Once you get off the interstate you begin to realize everything can change in as little as 80 miles.  The people, the scenery, and the business environment.

We often overlook or forget this when we approach acquiring clients.  We try to gain clients from the interstate, so to speak.  That just doesn’t work.

You try to gain clients from the interstate when you rudely interrupt the person you want to work with, you spew a bunch of information about you all over them, and then you ask them to help you by buying from you right now.  If you are acting like this you are coming off like a spoiled brat that needs their butt warmed.  The person you want to work with is wondering just who the heck you think you are.

It so easy to get locked into this fast moving, gotta get it done now mindset, and completely forget about what it feels like to be the other person.  It’s so easy to forget that no one is going to hire you until they have at least some form of a relationship with you first.  Ideally, you want to make a friend first and then earn a client.

Try This…

I want you to try a little experiment.  I want you to go to a local sit down restaurant you haven’t visited before.  From the moment you enter the restaurant I want you to make eye contact with the hostess and your waiter.  I want you to pay close attention to what they say.  I want you to smile at them and use their name.  I want you to say, “Thank you” when they bring your drink and your meal.  I want you to engage them by asking them something about them or about the area.

I’ve always done this without even thinking.  I didn’t start thinking about it until I began to notice how other people were treating their servers.  If you don’t already treat these people with the same respect and consideration you would treat any important person you’re meeting for the first time you might be a little surprised to find out just how well you get treated.  You might be surprised just how much these people begin to care about your experience.  You become important to them because you’ve demonstrated they are important to you.

Now translate this concept to the people you want to hire you.  What if you placed this much attention on them, what they need, on learning about them from the first moment of contact?  They should feel good about having an experience with you.

They should feel open to the idea of having other experiences with you because you made their first experience so pleasant.  They should feel they are important to you because they are.  They should feel they can talk to you because you’ve demonstrated you really listen to what they say.

This little experiment is so important because it will help you see how important it is to focus on others, to really connect with others, and to actually hear what they say.

Stop trying to cram your services down others throats practicing interstate selling techniques.  Start creating positive experiences, making beneficial connections, opening the door to making new friends.  The clients will follow.  When you change the way you approach earning clients you can make the process of getting a client shorter than it is when you approach getting clients like a typical sales people.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: dougtone

A lot of people get caught up in the idea they need to improve their attitudes or the attitudes of others.  The perceived solution to a poor attitude is motivational training.  How well does that work?

The thing about listening to a motivational speaker or participating in motivational training is it is motivating at the time.  Yet it has almost no long-term impact.  This reality is through no fault of the speaker or trainer.  It’s entirely the result of understanding what attitudes are and are not.

Attitudes are nothing more than your world view or opinion of something.  Your attitude helps explain why you behave the way you behave, yet your attitude is not a strong predictor of future behaviors.  I realize that might sound confusing so please allow me to explain.

Even though you may have a positive attitude about the assumptive close technique your attitude does not predict the likelihood you will demonstrate that behavior in your sales conversations.  While you view the assumptive close favorably that positive attitude does not necessarily mean you will use it.

Here’s the big catch.  Motivational training or speaking tries to help you change your attitude or world view about an action or idea.  However, that’s not likely to happen and here’s why.

From birth to now you have had experiences.  Those experiences repeated over time, and the experiences that had a dramatic impact over you transformed into a set of values.  Those values are basically the standards you choose to live by because of your previous experiences and beliefs.

What you value transforms into a set of attitudes that create your personal views.  You behave the way you do to fulfill your attitudes.  An adult is highly unlikely to change their attitudes no matter what because those attitudes are based on what you value.  True changes in attitude only come about because of major events that completely change your beliefs and values.

So rather than trying to change your attitudes you need to realize your attitudes are the drivers that make you who you are.  There is nothing wrong with your attitude.  You simply need to use your attitudes in a way that best serves you.

There are 6 attitudes that cause you to behave in certain ways because those behaviors demonstrate your values.  You are driven to fulfill your top 2 attitudes.  These top 2 attitudes are the most important to you and for you.  According to Eduard Spranger the 6 attitudes include:

• Utilitarian - you value usefulness and return on your investments
• Theoretical - you value knowledge and truth
• Social - you value others and serving others
• Individual - you value position and power
• Traditional - you value systems, order, tradition, and unity
• Aesthetic - you value beauty, harmony, balance, and feeling

72% of all people who succeed in sales have a strong utilitarian attitude.  You value money and are driven to take actions that produce it.  However, any attitude can succeed in sales.  It’s just a matter of structuring the way you implement sales so you feed your values and attitudes to produce those sales results.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

We get so stuck inside our own heads we often overlook critical things that make or break our sales success.

When we get our message wrong it’s because we communicate what we want, what we think is important when our potential clients want our message to be about what they want, what they think is important.

When we think about what we are selling we take it literally and think about the particular product or service we offer.  However, you can’t sell that product or service by itself.  The product or service you sell comes with something very important, something you often don’t pay enough attention to, something that has a major impact on the sale.

Every sale comes with…

YOU

Whenever you are selling a costly product, and especially when you are selling a service, that sale comes with you.  Your soon to be clients know that.  They know they aren’t just buying a product or service they are buying a relationship with YOU.

So if you know your product or service meets or surpasses the needs of a potential buyer, the potential buyer tells you they see the value, yet they still won’t commit perhaps YOU and the idea of a relationship with YOU is what is holding you back.

Act Like a Sales Person & YOU Lose

This is exactly why you can’t come off like an ordinary sales person.  Most people do not think well of sales people, and they don’t want to start a relationship with someone they don’t like being around.  Your potential buyer will be weighing the perceived value of starting a relationship with you as part of the investment required to purchase.

They must perceive a relationship with you as mutually beneficial.  They must see you as a value added part of the purchase decision.  They shouldn’t feel like they lose and you win if they buy.

Whether you realize it or not your relationship with your potential buyer started at the first point of connection.  That point of connection may have been a phone call, a handshake at a networking event, an ad, etc.  However they first became aware of your existence at that moment the relationship started.

At this point, the point of the sales conversation, the potential buyer is weighing whether they want to continue a relationship with you as part of the bargain.  Common sense tells you that you want to maintain relationships with people who:

• are pleasant to be around
• are willing to help
• put your needs ahead of their own
• are committed to your success
• treat you with kindness, respect, and integrity

I’m sure you’ll have no trouble adding to this list.

Now think about how you demonstrate those things in each connection and encounter.  Think about how you can increase your value to your new potential client, and then how you’ll keep the value going after the sale.

Coach Cheryl

Judging by the increased number of emails, junk mail, and cold calls I’m getting I would say, “It’s a jungle out there.”

With the unemployment rate where it is now business owners can’t fall back on the old, “I’ll just have to get a job” safety net because getting a job is every bit as difficult as selling your services.

Anyone thinking about starting a business places a lot of attention on:

• What you do
• How you do it

I’m not saying you shouldn’t think those things through because you certainly should.  However, before you quit your job, or further risk your resources realize your attention should be on:

• Who would be willing to pay for this
• How will you sell your services to those people

The old sales adage goes, “Nothing happens until somebody makes a sale.”  To a certain extent that’s very true.  You can get everything in your business ready to serve customers, but until you actually have paying customers none of that is really important.

Once you realize things just aren’t working out the way you thought they would many business owners will think, “Well, I’ll just hire some sales people to go out and bring in some customers.”  So they place an ad and hire some sales people.

Once they discover the sales people they hired aren’t selling enough to cover their cost most business owners will think, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hire a Sales Manager to whip these sales people in shape, and get them out their selling something.”

Sales Managers don’t come cheap so you expect immediate results.  Most Sales Managers end up falling in one of these 4 groups:

• Task Masters - Task Masters are great at creating reports and generating data, but those reports and data don’t put money in the bank.
• Corporate Climbers - Corporate Climber view working for you as just one more step on the rung to the job they really want.
• Team Players - Everyone likes a team player they are so friendly and great to talk to; however, all that warm chatter isn’t putting money in the bank.
• Scalpers - Scalpers get your sales people to bring the red meat to them so they can close them one way or another, and then demand a cut from the sales person’s commission.

When the business owner finally realizes hiring a Sales Manager didn’t really help much it’s often too late to make a recovery.

Bottom line none of those decisions were decisions that were based on a real Sales Plan.  Each decision was a desperate effort to make something happen.  Each decision led to increased frustration and a lighter bank account.

A real Sales Plan demands:

• A clear definition of your best potential client
• A clear understanding of what those people are already looking to buy
• A succinct message relevant to those potential clients
• Knowledge of the process buyers use to make a buying decision
• The skills required to implement a sales process
• Defined daily actions
• Proven results from those actions

Bottom line if you can’t sell whatever you’re selling you won’t be able to hire a sales person to sell it either.  I should know because I made that very mistake myself at one time.  So before you invest dollar one in a business idea, or before you invest another dollar in your business make certain you have both the knowledge and skills required to sell whatever you’re selling.  Then and only then will you have the money to actually run a business and call yourself a business owner.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: GDS Digital

Every year people eagerly set New Years resolutions in anticipation of a better year… a new start.  You should be way ahead of the game in comparison to your competitors because you spent the last month breaking some skull sweat to develop your very own “Strategic Sales Master Plan“.  You now know exactly what you are going to do to increase your sales.

One of the hardest concepts for new business owners to grasp is the fact they really aren’t in the business they think they are in.  First, you are in the business of effectively communicating the business you are in (marketing).  Second, you are in the business of helping ideal potential clients buy what you sell (selling).  Then and only then, are you in the business of delivering what you sold (doing what you get paid to do).

Doing all that is no small undertaking as you well know.

Recommended Reading

The “Strategic Sales Master Plan” helped you become much more effective when it comes to communicating the business you are in.  Because you are so much better at telling people what you do and why they should care, you naturally get more selling encounters.

By selling encounters I mean REAL sales appointments.  Real sales appointments are scheduled appointments with people who are genuinely interested in how you might help them, and how you might do business together.  How you handle those encounters determines if you get money in the bank or simply make a new friend.

You know what’s wrong with most books?  Most books allow you to read the book as a spectator.  That means you read the book, you might think something is a good idea, but once you finish the book you set it down and forget about the book and those good ideas.  Nothing much happens with those good ideas or as a result of reading that book.

That’s where the two books I’m going to recommend you read are different.  These books actually require you to take action as you read that book.  That means rather than reading the book as a spectator you have to engage in the learning process.  When you engage in the learning process you actually learn something, and you actually implement those ideas immediately so… you actually get results.

The first book I’d like to recommend is: The SPIN Selling Fieldbook  This was the book that peeled the scales off my eyes and helped me really understand what selling was about.  I’ve built off this model and taken it a step further by including the science from another scientist who uncovered the concept of conditioned reflex.  However, this book will help you have real sales conversations like a professional.

As I mentioned earlier there’s a lot to operating your own business.  You don’t have time to waste.  You need to squeeze the most value from your time so you have time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

There are two aspects to the way you use your time.  First, there’s efficiency.  Efficiency is about getting the most things done with the least effort.  Second, there’s effectiveness.  Effectiveness is about getting the right things done.  What you really need is to get the right things done in the most efficient way possible.

When I wrote The Race To Success  I wrote it with you in mind.  This isn’t just some general time management book.  In fact, it isn’t at time management book at all it’s a time mastery book.  It will help you master your time so you are working in the most efficient and effective way you can.

In combination these three tools will help you keep your new resolution to increase sales by helping you take the right actions.

Coach Cheryl

Daniel Levis is a wonderful story teller.  Read this quick story he tells about a visit to the grocery store that provided an excellent marketing example…

“Upon getting out of my truck and making my way across the parking lot, I am uplifted by the gentle scent of apple and cinnamon wafting into my nostrils. This is weird I’m thinking …

As I approach the store I am greeted by a half-dozen smiling people.

Seated comfortably on bales of straw, the butcher and baker appear to be engaging customers in casual conversation. Everyone is sipping apple cider and clearly enjoying the ambiance of plump orange pumpkins plunked here and there among antique farm implements.

The sights and sounds and tastes are deliberately designed to evoke warm fall fair memories and the associated desire for pies and preserves and smoky bacon which just happen to be on sale inside the store.”

Could marketing get any better than this?

Yet, how many times do you miss the opportunity to use what you have to produce the results you want?

I Can’t Do that BECAUSE…

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Well, that’s a really great idea BUT I can’t do that because I don’t have (whatever the person speaking thinks they need to have to market themselves).”

A Lesson from Mother

My Mother was hands-down one of the best cooks ever.  Yeah, I know everyone thinks their Mom is a great cook: however, my Mom had the proof to back up my claims in the form of a herd of raving fans packing her restaurant throughout the day on a daily basis.

You know another way you can tell a great cook from someone who just cooks?  Great cooks don’t use recipes or measuring cups.

The rest of us approach cooking by thinking of something we’d like to eat, finding a recipe, then rounding up the ingredients so we can tackle the job.

Not Mom.

Mom exemplified the other trade mark of a great cook.  Great cooks create delectable delights from the ingredients they have on hand.

Like any good restaurant Mom’s restaurant had a menu with the staples you could get every day any time of the day, but that menu isn’t what brought in the crowds.  Nope, what brought all those people to Mom’s restaurant every day was the “specials”.

I don’t think even Mom knew what the specials would be until that very day.  Mom searched her larder (for you city folk that’s where you keep all the grub) and chose ingredients that she transformed into something heavenly.  Her “special” included a main dish, side dishes, AND desert.

Once the ingredients were chosen she began to saute, stir, and season with conviction.

This all started at least 2 hours before lunch.   The smells wafted for miles in all directions.  You should have seen the faces on the diners as they entered.  They entered nose first with a big anticipatory smile.

She had customers who regularly drove over 60 miles just for her specials.

Now had Mom thought she couldn’t cook a particular dish because she didn’t have this, or she didn’t have that a lot of hungry people would have been sorely disappointed.

Mom’s Lesson in Action

So, for example, the next time you think you can’t introduce yourself to a potential client BECAUSE you don’t have some fancy smancy brochure let me ask you, “Do you have paper and something to write with?”

I don’t care how great your fancy brochure, odds are no one will ever even pause to look at it much less read it.  When you send a brochure in the mail it hits file 13 faster than a wild fire on a windy day.  Yet, when was the last time you threw away a handwritten note without reading it first?

Did a brochure ever make you feel good about the company sending it?  If it left any kind of  impression at all it probably wasn’t pleasant.

How can you help but think well of someone who takes the time to send you a quick handwritten note introducing themselves and offering something helpful?

Would you ever want to work with someone who didn’t appreciate your thoughtfulness anyway?

Take stock.

What can you use to reach out and make a connection with someone you’d really like as a client?  What are you waiting for?  Use it.

Coach Cheryl

When I ask new clients, “What’s the best most cost effective way for you to get new clients” they respond…

• Networking
• Cold Calling
• Referrals
• Purchased leads
• Direct mail
• email
• etc.

How Do You Know?

Then I ask, “How do you know?”  Now I get a puzzled look, a long pause, and then I hear “Well, that’s what I do.”

Next, I’ll ask, “What’s the worst most expensive way to get new clients?”  Again I get that puzzled look and then they’ll tell me they tried one of the things on the above list, and they didn’t get a single client from it so that must be the most expensive worst way to get a client.  Again I have to ask, “How do you know?”

My goal isn’t to annoy you.  You see most people DO NOT know either the best way or the least effective way to get new clients because…

• they’ve only tried a limited number of things
• they only try to get clients one way
• they assume certain things work and other things don’t work

All because they don’t gather the hard cold data required to correctly answer either question.  So rather than focusing 80% of their efforts on the 20% of the ways to get new clients that work… they do one of two things.

1. They put all their eggs in one basket and depend on one way of getting new clients
2. They try everything at once and don’t gather any data to determine what works and what doesn’t

Plus just because you tried something ONCE and it didn’t produce the results you want doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it means it doesn’t work the way you did it.  Yet, there’s a very strong possibility that it could work very well if you just knew how to do it right.

Track as it Happens

The only way you can know what works and what doesn’t…

if one change makes something work better or worse…

if you need to do more of something or less of something is…

to track exactly what you’re doing and the results those actions produce AS IT HAPPENS.

Here’s what most sales people do.  They run full bore all week.  At the end of the week they look back through their day planner, receipts, and sales sheets to try to recreate everything that happened so they can fill out a weekly sales report.  The net result is a big waste of time.  Neither the sales person nor the person they handed the completed report over to actually learned a damned thing that will help that person change their results.  Here’s why.

Learning something so you can get better results wasn’t the objective of filling out the weekly sales report as far as the sales person is concerned.  They’re just doing it to keep their sales manager or whomever off their back.  They aren’t paying attention to the details of actions and results, they’re paying attention to the details of how they get paid and reimbursed.  And that’s why it’s so important that you track the actions you take in real time.

The reason you track in real time is so you can gather the data you need to make an informed decision about what works, what doesn’t work, and what doesn’t work when you do it the way you’re doing it now.  So let’s take something you might do to get new clients and use it to learn what to track, how to track it, and why you even bother tracking it.  How about networking?

Before you attend a networking event you must first evaluate whether the event meets your requirements.  Your requirements might include…

• most attendees fall within your criteria for an ideal client
• there will be opportunities to speak with other attendees
• you are prepared to communicate your unique market position
• you have an offer to advance your connection with the people you meet

With all your criteria met you are prepared to attend the event.  As soon as you leave the event you need to track your data.  I recommend you track your daily numbers on your To Do List.  So what data would you record?

• number of attendees you interacted with (a)
• number of attendees who positively reacted to your unique market position (b)
• number of attendees who responded to your offer (c)

From just this simple data you can now calculate the effectiveness of your unique market position message.

Message effectiveness = (b/a)*100

Plus your response rate.

Response = (c/b)*100

As you continue to track the people who responded in your sales funnel you gather more data that will help you know which networking events truly are cost effective and which aren’t.  That comes later though.  The most important number initially is the effectiveness of your message.  That’s what you would work on tweaking first.

You have the data for the effectiveness of your message stated one way.  The next step is changing your message just a little and testing that version of your message against the previous version choosing a winner and then trying another little tweak to your message.  You keep doing this until you can’t beat a particular version of your message.

This may sound tedious to you, but just how tedious is it doing the same things over and over and getting crappy results.  I’m a little ahead of myself though.

Weekly Review

Because you’ve tracked all your actions and all your results in one place, on your To Do List, at the end of the week everything is easy to review.  Every time you took an action you recorded the results from that action so you have a running tally.  Compare this week to last week.  Results should either be the same or better.

Please note you must not make changes on the fly, you must do things consistently for the entire week.  So for example, you can test one version of your unique market position in all your interactions for the week and obtain data on that specific version overall not just from one networking event.

Adapt and Thrive

At the end of the week after you review your data then, and only then, can you choose what you plan to adapt and how you’ll adapt that.  That’s how you would learn whether one version of your unique market position was more effective than another version.  No guessing, no knee jerk reactions allowed.

Continue tracking and adapting each week for a full quarter.

Quarterly Review

Once a quarter track % completion on your “Strategic Sales Master Plan“.  You recorded your top 3 goals for each critical factor in the table.  For each goal there is an entry for date and % completion.  The date represents the target date for completion of the goal.  Once a quarter evaluate how far you are toward the completion of that goal and enter that number on that line.

Ideally you should make consistent progress or complete goals on target.  When that doesn’t happen you have to pinpoint why it’s not happening, what you need to do to get back on track, and implement the new actions.  Bottom line when something doesn’t work it isn’t something to get all upset about.  As Henry Ford II said “… just deal with it.”  So what, you now know one way something doesn’t work.  You are just one step closer to what does work.

Some things will work better than others.  Some things will reveal themselves as the most cost effective ways to get new clients.  Do more of those things.  Some things will reveal themselves as the least cost effective ways to get new clients.  Perhaps you simply just stop doing those things.

What’s important is that you know exactly what works, how it works, and why it works.  Because once you know that information you have uncovered repeatable, reproducible, and cost effect ways to achieve the sales you want.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

Previously as part of the “Strategic Sales Master Plan” you defined your mission.  As you recall your mission describes how you will move your hands and feet.  While your vision is long-term in nature something you work toward over several years your mission is what you absolutely must accomplish this year.

Your Mission is Your Line in the Sand

Your mission represents the line in the sand defining what you will accomplish within the next year no matter what because it’s that important.

You can’t achieve your mission without successfully accomplishing the 5 critical factors.  And you can’t fulfill the critical factors without the goals you’ve written down.  In combination each piece provides the foundation required for a successful service business.

Goals represent the actions you will take to fulfill the critical factors.  You have a list of goals.  If you’ve done a thorough job you probably have at least 5 goals listed in relation to each critical factor.  Doing the math that means you have a goal list with at least 25 goals.

Now that could feel a little overwhelming.

Goal Playoffs

If you’re a sports fan this next step will be an easy one.  You can’t focus on so many goals at once because it is just too overwhelming.  So we need to whittle your list down to your top 3 most important sales goals, and put all your focus on those goals first.  Once one goal is completed you can then move another goal into your top 3 list.  So here’s how to play the goal playoff game.

Get all your goals on one list.  Now compare the first goal on your list to the last goal on your list and choose which goal is more important right now.

Place an asterisk next to the more important goal between the two.  Keep working your way to the middle of your page putting an asterisk next to the more important of the two goals.

photo credit: Sweet One

The last one may not have another goal to compare it against so that goal gets an asterisk by default.

Next start at the top of your list and compare with first goal with an asterisk to the next goal with an asterisk and decide which of those two goals is most important and place a star next to that goal.  Continue until you run out of goals.

photo credit: Lummmy

Now rank order the goals marked with a star from most important (1) to least important.

At this point you now have your 3 most important sales goals.

Making Progress

You really need to accomplish most of your goals to accomplish your mission so simply completing these 3 goals is not enough.  You must continue to make progress throughout the year.  So when you’ve successfully completed a goal you mark that goal as completed, and select a new goal from your goal list to put in your top 3 most important sales goals list.

Some of your goals are never actually completed because you will always need to take that action.  For those goals accomplishment is defined by your ability to successfully take those actions, and produce the intended result.  When you get to that point you continue the action and add a new goal to your top 3 most important sales goals because those actions are now just part of your normal behaviors.

Okay, get to work and pick your top 3 most important sales goals.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance