Sales Question:

"How Can I Increase the Odds of Hitting My Yearly Sales Target?"

Answer:

Now that we’ve reached the half waypoint of the calendar year, making sure you give yourself the best opportunity to reach your year-end number starts now. Well, technically it started 6-months ago but now is the time to make sure you aren't scrambling at the end.

Here are three steps that will help make sure you're on target:

1) Know where you stand.

Don’t guess or assume you’re on track (or too far off track for that matter… Don’t give up! You can turn this around. There’s enough time! You can do this!!!)

Add up your total sales for the year (Jan. 1st through end of June)

What are your numbers? Are you ahead of the game or behind?

If you didn’t do so in the beginning of the year, take your sales goal number and divide it by 12 (for 12 months) and see how much you needed to average per month. Are you on track for the first half of the year or are you behind? If you are behind, take the difference (where you should be 6 months in and subtract what your actual sales totals are) and now add that to the remaining 6 months that you have left in the year.

Example: Let’s say you needed to have 1 million dollars in sales for the year. Your monthly sales goal should be $84k per month (I rounded up just a bit) and after 6 months, let’s say you only have $375k. This means you are short $125k. So now take the $500k you are supposed to do in the second half of the year, and add the $125k to it ($625k) and now divide that by 6 months. Your new monthly sales average needs to be $105k per month (again, I rounded up a little)

“But how am I going to do $105k a month for 6-months when I’m only averaging $84k per month now?”

Now worries… this brings us to step two:

2) Make Adjustments Now!

You have 6-months worth of data behind you to see what you were doing that lead you to the numbers that you currently have. If you expect to continue to do the same thing you have been doing but get different (better) results, there’s a term for that: insanity. Consider it half time and you’re going into the locker room to adjust your sales game plan.

One tip: Analyze how many sales calls you averaged per day for the past six months. Most sales people tell me they do about 30 calls per day. Well if 30 calls per day netted you $84k per month, what would happen if you increased your call output by 10 calls per day to make it 40 calls per day? That’s around a 30% increase in output production and you only need about a 25% increase in closes to hit your higher numbers. (I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I said you could make it happen, if you really wanted to!)

“But I don’t have time to make more calls, I spend most of my time researching for prospects”

And that leads us to step three…

3) Get uncomfortable.

Maybe your “prospecting” method is part of the problem and your missed numbers are indicators that what you are normally comfortable with doing, isn’t going to cut it.

Ask yourself “how can I prospect smarter (or whatever it is you’ve identified that needs improvement)?” Identify areas that you need to be better at and then make those changes and you will grow!

"But I'm actually making 80 to 120 calls per day!"

Well, in my opinion, that's part of the problem then. You are making too many calls and not having enough conversations! This tells me that your sales process (what you say, when you say it, who you say it to, why and how you say it) is off and in need of an adjustment! In short, you are turning prospects off instead of piquing their interest and engaging them. Fix that, and watch your numbers take off.

Any time we aren't accomplishing something we wish to achieve, there's two ways of looking at it:

1) It is what it is. Or...

2) We can take the data that gave us the results and use them as a road map or a blue print of what we need to do in order to get better.

I prefer option 2.

One Last Thing...

Make sure you have a "reason" to hit your numbers... and I don't mean "so I can pay my bills" or "Keep my job". Sales can be a tough yet rewarding career when done right. There's nothing wrong with treating yourself when goals are reached. Plan that trip you've been wanting to take with your family. Make a commitment to get that new car you've always wanted. Write a check or make an anonymous donation to your favorite charity. Whatever it is that motivates you, allow yourself the pleasure of experiencing those rewards once you hit your mark. Motivation can be more powerful than strategy any day.

Hope this helps.

Michael Pedone
CSS: Chief Sales Scientist
SalesBuzz.com (A 2011 Sales Training Company Watch List Award Winner!)

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