Planning

Mike Montague, director of community engagement at Sandler, interviews Brian Moran, best-selling author, on How to Succeed at the 12 Week Year.

Mike Montague interviews Karen Meracle on How to Succeed at Performance Planning.

Mike Montague interviews Dr. Oleg Konovalov on How to Succeed at Creating a Compelling Vision.

Whether you are a sales leader responsible for an entire team’s performance or a single salesperson looking to hit your income target, Sandler’s KARE tool is a simple, powerful resource well worth spending some time with in Q4.

Sandler V.P. of Online Learning, Mike Montague, interviews Matt Pletzer on How to Succeed in Succession Planning.

Listen Time: 23 Minutes

January is coming. As a leader, this may mean the implementation of strategically necessary change initiatives that affect the sales team in 2019, such as the restructuring of territories or the revision of the team comp plan.

Sales superstars plan before going on a sales call. They script out what questions need to be asked and the most effective way of asking. Every prospect has a unique situation with unique problems. Do you/your people know how to effectively pre-call plan?

Welcome to Selling the Sandler Way, with your host Dave Mattson, the president and CEO of Sandler Training. He is a five-time bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and consultant to hundreds of international organizations. In this show, he talks to other Sandler trainers about the Sandler selling system.

You’ve thought it out, gotten motivated and set a lofty goal for your sales and performance this year – so you are all set, right? Not so fast; setting the goals is just the beginning. Careful planning now can help you beat the odds when it comes to your sales goals and ensure you have the successful year you are planning for. Setting the right goals for the New Year is a great start. In a recent post, we covered the best way to set obtainable goals that are SMARTER – using a specific format designed to ensure your goals are measurable and attainable. Whether you use this system or take a different approach, the things you do in the first quarter will have a big impact on your outcome at the end of the year.  

Every sales professional dreads making cold calls. By following these steps, all anxiety and agony can be removed from the equation of cold calling.

Winning at sales takes planning. More specifically, you need to plan SMART. Look at it this way:

We’ve all experienced the frustration of setting a goal and not reaching it. New Year’s resolutions stand at the top of the list. Projected sales growth for an upcoming quarter comes to mind.

Planning. Seems easier to say than to do. As sales people, we talk about planning, but few of us plan well. We just go into sales calls wishing for the best. That’s called winging it. The big no-no.

Every salesperson around the world has met stalls and objections when calling on potential buyers. Just as many salespeople have witnessed the wide repertoire buyers have for introducing stalls and objections.

At times, sales people run into snags when preparing their personal strategic plan for the New Year. They know what they want to say, but find it difficult to put it into words. If that’s you, then why not try something different? How about using pictures to express your strategic sales thinking?

A salesperson without a thought-out organization system is a salesperson who will consistently be below the half-way point on the sales chart.

Are you setting goals? People who are exceptional know what they are supposed to do and why they are doing these things every day.

The year will be exactly what you make of it…nothing more and nothing less. You have a choice: you can develop lofty goals; you can develop play-it-safe goals; or you can simply let things happen as they may (which means you’ll likely find yourself playing a part in the accomplishment of someone else’s goal).

You’ve hear the old saying, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity…” but how often are you preparing for or thinking about adding value to a client relationship?

Never leave a meeting or conversation without a clearly defined next step in the calendar with a prospect. How often do we follow that rule? Frequently, next steps are up in the air.

As the first quarter comes to an end, it’s appropriate to review your department goals and measure your progress. Will your sales team hit the quarterly benchmarks for your department’s strategic initiatives? Have they made significant headway? Or, have they fallen behind already?

Find out when the timing is right, and be there.

Purposely leave the conversation “unfinished.” Choose a relevant topic or two that needs “further exploration,” and suggest that it can be accomplished at the next meeting. Or, mention an idea or a concept you wish to share…during the next conversation.

There are always a couple of quick sales ready for the picking. Do you want to pick the quick ones or reap the entire crop? Companies who pick the quick ones manage to scrape by month to month. Companies who reap the entire crop prosper beyond imagination.

Follow the plan and consistently make money.

You do know where your time goes. You have to decide if you want your time to keep going there.

If the easy tasks take three times as long to accomplish, why not just start with the hard ones and increase your income?

Salespeople are not wise to the ways of great sorcerers and for that we can all be thankful. Sorcerers are known for exotic blends, flash powder, potent broths and a willingness to pluck the eyes out of living things. Sorcerers spend an inordinate amount of time consulting the bones, looking to see what the future holds - which usually ends up about half-right. There's every reason to believe that consulting those dried up old bones might be about as successful as the "winging it" strategy employed by many sales amateurs.