I’ve been in sales my whole life, and have studied the process infinitely. The process is receive my projections, work all year long (sometimes up until 5 p.m. on 12/31) to hit my goal and get my bonus. Only to have to turn around and do it all again the day after New Year-Argh! I hated that.
When I was put in the position to be the guy who handed out the projections, I chose to do it differently. Oh yes, the end results were the same, my sellers had to hit their goals, but my process was different. I taught them to hit their yearly goal early. By teaching and living the truth that “Selling is a Numbers Game- Pure and simple. I knew it as a seller, and I especially became cognoscente of it as a sales manager.
My sellers each had their own ebb and flow. Some were more gifted than others when it came to presentation. Others knew how to prospect. And some were stellar “closers”. Collectively I saw a pattern X # of presentations = X dollars towards my bottom line. If the goal was 10 million dollars and I had 10 sellers it wasn’t always divided up equally. Some were more advanced than others. But the bottom line was I knew how many sales it was going to take to get there. For example if the average sale was $50,000 I knew I needed 200 sales. And if our average closing ratio was 20% I was going to need 1000 excellent presentations. So what did I do? Stack ALL 1000 presentation up to be presented in first quarter (Or as close as possible). My 10 sellers would have to give me a plan on who they were going to see, and from that, who they were going to present, and by when. And “My goal” was to get the 1000 presentations finished by the end of January. In theory, my YEAR would be made in first quarter. That never happened but I can tell you what did.
My sellers made it into a game, it was fun, they realized the value of the presentation, and strive to get their part done. By Feb 1st I had 50% of my year made. April 15th 65%, and by August 1st 80% and I was 100% home by mid-November. The sales atmosphere was contagious. My production and support staff knew everything that was going on. We got everyone involved. It was fun and the math don’t lie.
Go get it!!!