To achieve their goals, professional salespeople must develop the habit of
routinely pausing to evaluate their successes and failures.
Examining the
critical factors that contribute to both is necessary not only for growth but
also for making important adjustments that will allow a salesperson to either
continue to achieve his or her goals or get back on track.
This time of year, the fourth quarter, is the time when many salespeople
begin to lose steam. However, this can be the best time of year to regroup,
reevaluate, determine what has worked well over the past nine months, what has
not, and set goals for the end of the year and into next. To place yourself in a
strong position for the remainder of the year, I encourage you to take a few
minutes this week to sit down and review your sales performance over the last
nine months.
How have your sales efforts gone so far this year?
Be honest with yourself. Have you met your goals yet? If not, now is the time
to start making the necessary changes to get back on track. Have you already met
or exceeded your goals? Now is a good time to analyze how and why you were
successful and how you can continue that momentum into next year. What has
worked well for you this year? What hasn't? What adjustments can you make to
increase your effectiveness, both as a sales professional, and as a person? What
goals can you commit to today that will help you make improvements in your life
before the end of the year?
One of the single most important questions a salesperson can ask is: "Has
anything changed?"
Not only is this the first question you should ask each time
you meet with a customer or prospect - whether it's the second meeting or the
22nd - it's also the first question you should ask as you sit down to review
your own performance.
Asking this question gives you the opportunity to evaluate your situation
objectively, taking into account not only the choices you've made over the last
several months but also the factors that may be beyond your control.
Once you've
identified and considered how these choices and factors have impacted your sales
this year, it will be easier to revise your goals accordingly.
It's important to understand that acknowledging problems is not tantamount to
admitting failure; by contrast, recognizing problems allows for the opportunity
to develop new and better solutions to them.
Unmet goals, lost clients and even
circumstances beyond your control can be overcome with the right attitude, the
setting of realistic goals and the commitment to sticking with them until they
are achieved.
However, if you never ask "Has anything changed," you run the risk of
operating under false assumptions.
A bad year can become a disastrous one if you
aren't honest with yourself about the reality of your situation. Your sense of
personal accountability is your greatest asset in overcoming obstacles.
True
sales professionals hold themselves to a high standard, regardless of the
challenges they face. It is the only way to meet and exceed expectations under
all, but especially difficult, circumstances.
As you devise solutions to overcome obstacles, you should also consider the
current climate within your company.
With nearly every business these days
making a concerted effort to trim their budget and become as lean as possible,
as a salesperson, you must constantly be positioning yourself to be seen as
"part of the solution" - an invaluable part of the only department in the
company that actually brings in the dollars.
To bring in those dollars, however, it is essential to make customer care
your top priority.
Since customers are your company's lifeblood, how you treat
them directly impacts your company's bottom line.
What are you doing in each
interaction to ensure your customers are satisfied and well-served?
Have you won
any "big" clients this year?
What factors have contributed to your success?
Can
they be duplicated in the future?
Have you lost clients?
If so, why?
Change is a constant in selling. Keeping abreast of what's going on in your
industry is vital. School is never out for the sales professional, so you must
dedicate yourself to staying current on industry trends and information,
including overall market conditions.
Finally, it's imperative that the salesperson keeps a constant eye on the
competition. Has your industry grown or shrunk this year? How is your market?
What is your competition doing? Are they profitable, growing or adding staff,
introducing new products/services? Have they had any major customer wins this
year?
It's important to always keep your goals clearly in mind by reviewing them
regularly and making adjustments as needed.
Are you on track to meet your goals
this year? If not, what can you do differently to get back on track for the
remainder of this year and into next? If you are on track, how can you keep your
momentum going? Have you set goals? Are they realistic? Would you like to change
anything?
If so, the time for change is now.
Roy Chitwood is an author, trainer and consultant in sales and sales management and is president of Max Sacks International, Seattle.
Roy Chitwood Article
