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How to Achieve Sales Goals by Focusing on Activities
When I broke into sales in 1986, I read several books that talked about how important it was to set goals if you wanted to achieve success. I bought into the idea completely and started writing down extensive lists of goals that I expected to achieve, along with due dates for each goal. Per the advice in the books, I made my goals nice and lofty. You know, make a six-figure income, buy lots of nice toys, go on fabulous vacations, that kind of stuff. And, every day, several times a day, I visualized what my life would be like after I had achieved my goals. So, how much impact did those goal-setting and visualization exercises have on my performance? None - nada - zero - zilch! During the next two years I did not come close to achieving any of my goals! In fact, I wasn't even making enough money to pay my bills. I had to keep tapping credit cards to make ends meet, and I was going further and further into debt. I finally became so disgusted that I threw away the books and tore up my pages of written goals. I decided that, from that point on, I would focus on my daily activities. In other words, I would work hard to do the right things at the right time, each and every day. If I accomplished that, I figured that I would at least be able to pay my bills and not go any further into debt. I became a fanatic about prioritizing my activities. I would ask myself at least 20 times a day, "Am I doing the single most important thing I could be doing right now to make a sale? Can I push off what I'm doing right now to before or after selling hours, and use this time to do something that I can't do before or after hours?" Do you know what I discovered when I started asking myself those questions? I discovered that I was not prioritizing my daily activities very well. In fact, a lot of the time I was just responding to requests whenever they came up. For a salesperson, that's suicide. After all, time is the only inventory we have! Because of my new focus on doing the right activities at the right time, I started asking people when they needed the things they were asking for, and why they needed them then. Frequently we came to the joint conclusion that the tasks were not as time-sensitive as the original request made them appear to be. I could push off many tasks to late in the day or early in the morning. That gave me more time for prospecting and qualifying opportunities during selling hours. Yes, I worked a lot of ten to twelve hour days because of the amount of work that I pushed off to before and after selling hours. But, you know what? It was worth it! After one year I had increased my income by approximately 45%. I could finally pay all of my bills each month, make more than the minimum payment against my credit cards, and still have some money left over for fun. The second year I doubled the prior year's income and achieved the six-figure income that I had never approached when it was one of my written goals. I was able to pay off all of my credit cards, make a down payment on a new car, save some money, and begin to enjoy "the good life". Conclusion If setting goals has worked for you, by all means, keep doing it! However, if you have been less successful that you want to be in achieving your goals, try the alternative approach that is described in this article. Focus on your daily activities. Ask yourself 20 times a day, "Am I doing the single most important thing that I could be doing right now to make a sale? Can I push off what I am doing right now to before or after selling hours, and use this time to do something that I can't do before or after hours?" Be honest with yourself when you answer these questions, and hold yourself accountable. Become a master at prioritization. Switching your mental focus from goals to activities could be your path to success, just like it was for me! Copyright 2005 -- Alan Rigg Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don't Perform and What to Do About It. To learn more about his book and sign up for more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020performance.com.
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Coaching Ideal Clients - Who are They and Where Do You Find Them? Ideal clients are the ones who are perfect for you. They are the clients who understand your offering, are happy with your services, are willing to refer you to their friends, return for repeat appointments themselves (where appropriate), who pay their bills on time, who show up on time for their appointments, who give you 24 hours notice when they need to cancel their appointment. Quiz: What Kind of Sales Shoe Are You? Have you ever wondered what type of saleswoman you are? It doesn't matter if you run your own company or sell for someone else it is extremely important to know what your style is. What does The Sales Diva mean here? Well let me throw my high heel on my desk here and I will explain. Increase Your Selling Confidence 1. Be on time. In fact, arrive a few minutes early, so you can mentally prepare for your sales presentation. When you arrive on time, your professionalism shows your prospects that you value their time as well as your own. Sales Strategies: Its Not Who You Know - Its What You Know We are all in sales. We all selling in every role we have. Whether you are in sales, marketing, home business, looking after your kids, dentist, athlete or whatever your chosen field is you sell. When you are "selling an idea" or pitching a business proposal or offering a product or service it is all selling. You can choose to avoid it or be good at it. Have you ever met natural sales people and admired them? Have you wondered how they do it? It is simple you just need to be in the "know". Sales Tips from Sales Masters Youre Hired... I Think I'm not a fan of "The Donald" and I had never seen his hit show until last week. Bernadette, my wife, seems hooked on "The Apprentice" and makes a habit of watching every Thursday while I usually go off to our den to read a book. Each week, she encourages me to watch - and each week I decline. I keep telling her she is probably the only person over 35 to be interested in his show. "Oh, I think you'd be surprised," she tells me. Curiosity and How It Effects Your Business Proposition The first 15 seconds of your approach are the most important seconds of your entire sales presentation. You must instill curiosity in the mind of your prospect. It is a form of interest. As people, we are curious by nature. Curiosity wants to be informed. This state of mind is just where you want your prospect to be in at the beginning of your sales talk. 9 TIPS: Dont Sell Me - Persuade Me We all have something in our past we believe someone "sold" us. It might have been a lemon yellow car, a skimpy skirt or a purple tie. We bought it because -despite our gut feeling - we thought we were doing the right thing. We wanted to please the salesman - and we believed that person knew more than we did. Until we got home. Follow-Up Marketing: How to Win More Sales with Less Effort A study done by the Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happens on or after the fifth contact. If you are a small business owner and you are only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all the business you are losing. Making Sales is Easy When You Learn How to Make Friends Friends buy from friends. Why? Because people trust that their friends will go above and beyond the duties of a typical salesperson. They know that their friends will give them friendly, honest help and provide them with the product that is perfect for their needs. In return, these people develop into loyal customers who are happy to support their friend's business with continued sales and referrals. Growing Sales Through Creating Connections Your mission as a business owner is to develop a marketing strategy which offers your potential clients/customers a way to improve their situation in a certain way, solve a problem, provide more value, or open new opportunities for them which will motivate them to pick up the phone and buy from you. This requires that the focus of your marketing plan be placed on your customer - NOT ON YOU! Taken from The 90 Day Marketing Marathon Blunders from A to Z these ten powerful tools will support you in creating meaningful connections with your clients/customers and providing real time solutions to their challenges of the today. Peak Performance One of the best books I have ever read is a 1986 classic written by Charles Garfield; Peak Performers: The New Heroes of American Business. Garfield spent nearly twenty years trying to figure out what causes some people to excel to amazing successes, while others bask in the glow of mediocrity. Woo the Buyers Limbic Mind or All Your Sales Efforts are Wasted If you've driven yourself crazy trying to figure out why so many customers get away, relax. You can't figure it out because... It's not logical. The impulse that makes people buy from one business instead of another is no more logical than the baying of an elk's mating call. In fact, it works exactly the same way, through the limbic system. In Sales You Get What You Expect If your mind is set, you will be unable to change your mindset. For example Christopher Columbus... The Dos and Donts of an Elevator Pitch The dreaded question: "What exactly does your company do?" It's a simple question, but do you find that every time you answer it you give a different answer? 5 Ways to Increase Business Sales by Contacting Your Existing Customers One of the best ways to increase your sales and one that won't cost you a lot or take a huge amount of time is by selling more to your existing customers. This can be a lengthy process and expensive to win over a new customer between advertising, sales calls, and approvals. With existing customers the process can be much quicker, smoother, and less costly. Less is More: Quick Tips to Improve Your Sales I'll be brief. If not I'll negate my own point. Got time to read a 12-page essay on sales improvement? You want to get back to making sales and money. Let's go then. Selling Yourself - Its Not About You I recently found myself suffering from a lousy cold; all the coughing, snuffling and sneezing symptoms which send other people running for cover. How to Sell a Feeling To be totally in tune with the needs of your customers or prospective customers you have to listen to them. Listen to them it sounds easy enough to do but not everybody gets it right. What you must always bear in mind when you are selling something is that you are not selling an item or object you are selling a feeling. What You Can Learn From The Movie Business Maybe everything you need to know you can learn from the movies. A friend of mine is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Over a glass of wine, we were discussing his business and the nature of the beast in Hollywood. He's a boy from Canada who gave up his much-loved Honda, his life savings, and his broadcasting career to move to Los Angeles to attend the American Film Institute. Not an easy feat in your mid-30s. After 8 years of hard work he is now becoming the new discovery of LA. He said the most difficult thing to adjust to was all the talking.
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