photo credit: Ikhlasul Amal

In just a couple days you can mark off the first half of the year.  Are you where you want to be at this point in the year?
Whether you are or you aren’t now is the time to prepare for the second half of the year so you ensure the results you want for the year and increase your sales .

There are 5 key questions you should be asking and answering to prepare for your success.

What have I accomplished so far this year?  In terms of where you want to be:

• financially

• in business growth

• with your customer relationships

• in your ability to effectively manage your business?

What do you want to accomplish in the remainder of the year?  In terms of:

• revenue and profits

• market share

• client retention, repeat business, and referrals

• your ability to run your business without your business running your life

What has to change?  As you look at what you’ve accomplished so far this year and what you want to accomplish in the remainder of the year can you do that doing exactly what you’re doing now?  If you can’t you will have to do some things differently than you are now?  If you can, do you have an opportunity to stretch and grow and accomplish more than you have before?  What behaviors and actions will you have to take to accomplish what you want?

How will you make those changes?  Changes to produce different results require different behaviors and actions than you’re using now.  If you were to get what you want how would you behave?  What actions would you take?

When will you take the first action?  Most people trip themselves up because they focus entirely on the completion date.  Time will pass no matter what, right now the most important thing is taking the first action.  The longer you put off that first action the longer it is before you get what you want.  Identify the first action you must take to get what you want and then set a firm date to start taking that aciton.

The only way to get the future you want is to create it.  You’ll find those who excel in sales plan the future they want and implement their plans while others wait for things to happen.  Jonathan Farrington put together a nice list of things the top 5% do.

Have you ever taken an assessment to find out where your professional services sales strengths and weaknesses are?  If you haven’t you’re probably making things much harder for yourself than they need to be.  You are really two people in one.

You are the person you think you are, and then you’re the person you really are.  That may sound confusing to you, but let me explain.  Have you ever said or did something and had someone react in a way that was completely surprising to you?

Of course you have.  We all have.  There are two reasons this happens.  First, you think everyone thinks, or should think like you do.  And second, you have blind spots when it comes to your own behaviors.

Assessments can scientifically tell you two very important things about yourself.   One type of assessment deals with your behaviors and how you react to people, work pace, problems, and procedures.  Another type of assessment deals with motivation.

To gain a full understanding of why you’re getting the sales results you’re getting you need to take both types of assessments.  As a result you’ll understand how you behave in different situations, plus you’ll understand what drives you to take action.  Based on this information you can adapt how you approach sales and selling to better fit who you are and what you’re naturally good at.

The more you focus on doing what you do well the better you become.  The better you become the easier it is for you to sell.  And the more you sell the more confident you become, and the more comfortable you are doing what you’re doing.

You’ll also discover what’s really keeping you from having the sales success you deserve.  In some cases there are ways to work around these weaknesses so they become unimportant.  In other cases if you don’t overcome these weaknesses you’ll continue to struggle in sales.

In less than 30 minutes you can stop guessing and beating yourself up, and know exactly what’s working and what isn’t working.   And that gives you a starting point for closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.  It just doesn’t make sense to overlook such useful and potentially profitable tools.