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Try This Strategy to Achieve Your Sales Goals This Year

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Now is the time to think about what you can do to make your sales goals this year. Yes, I realize the year has just begun, but what better time to create the actions that you need to actually achieve your goals?

The Chinese have the saying, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is now.” Here is what you can do now to reach your sales goals.

Be sure you are measuring success

I work with a sales professional who is a very talented, hard-working executive. He's put in the time to know his product, and he's able to communicate his knowledge effectively. His job requires him to educate and inform, and change people’s attitudes.

He needed to measure his performance; however, his product is intangible and difficult to measure, so his report consisted of metrics such as the number of participants that attended the programs he's delivered as well as geographical locations and number of programs.

This is a strategy that will lead to disappointment. His objective was to educate and change attitudes, so how does showing that people sat through a program do that? It doesn’t. What if the wrong people were attending his program? He would be wasting his time if the attendees arrived with the attitudes he wanted to create and support. What if he had delivered 50 programs to 2000 people, but instead could have delivered 10 programs and reached the same number of people? In that case, he just wasted his time delivering 40 more programs that were not needed; he was less productive.

This year he needs to change his measurement to one that is more congruent with his goals and will better gauge his success.

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Next, this salesman reported his results in terms of geography, since his territory assignment was by state. Just because you are given a large territory doesn’t mean you have to travel to all points within your territory. Why? All accounts are not created equal, no matter where they’re located.

I recognize that some salespeople focus more on the accounts that are geographically closer to them and easier to travel to. That makes sense only if the sales professional was assigned to live in the city based on a strategic analysis of the sales territory before the assignment was made.

A strategic analysis would have identified the largest accounts and those with the greatest potential, followed by an analysis of the travel costs to reach those key accounts in the most cost effective way. A huge geography sets the outer limits of travel;  it doesn’t determine where you should travel and require that you go everywhere. You should travel only to key accounts because those will deliver the sales you need to make your goals. You get no sales benefits from wearing out your car or body on an airplane.

When you spill water it goes everywhere, but when you pour the amount you choose into a glass, it is contained and you can more easily measure it. You need both the glass and the right amount of water to sell. Define your sales territory—that’s the glass. Focus on the sales potential in your specific glass; that's the right amount of water.

Your time is one of your most precious sales resources. You can never get it back when you waste it on things like unnecessary travel that won’t deliver a sale. Maximize your time by determining before a sales call that a face-to-face meeting is the best use of your time.

Also remember, the telephone is an effective selling tool. Use it when you can, and you can save a great deal of selling time that can be used on getting new business and increasing your sales.

Want to achieve your sales goals this year? Measure your success. Get a glass and watch what you pour into the glass.

Best wishes for your sales success!

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Profile: Maura Schreier-Fleming

Maura Schreier-Fleming is president of Best@Selling, a sales training and sales consulting company. She works with business and sales professionals to increase sales and earn larger profits. She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results and Monday Morning Sales Tips. Maura focuses on sales strategies and tactics that lead to better sales results. Maura is a sales expert for WomenSalesPros. She is part of their group of top sales experts who inspire, educate, and develop salespeople and sales teams.She speaks internationally on influence, selling skills, and strategic selling at trade association and sales meetings, demonstrating how her principles can be applied to get results. She successfully worked for over 20 years in the male-dominated oil industry with two major corporations, beginning at Mobil Oil and ending at Chevron Corp. She was Mobil Oil’s first female lubrication engineer in the U.S. and was one of Chevron’s top five salespeople in the U.S. having sold over $9 million annually. Maura writes several columns to share her sales philosophies. She's been quoted in the New York Times, Selling Power, and Entrepreneur.