This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of Security Business magazine. When sharing, don’t forget to mention Security Business magazine on LinkedIn and @SecBusinessMag on Twitter.
Since most companies follow the calendar for their fiscal year, I thought October would be a perfect time to discuss how salespeople can catch up on their annual performance goals. With about 80% of the year in the rearview mirror, salespeople who are behind or barely holding on might feel a bit stressed.
To help with these next 60 to 90 days, here are six things that salespeople should (and should not) do to catch up on their annual goals:
1. Don’t stress out about it.
This is easy to say, and nobody can make the shift from being anxious to being calmly focused simply by reading those words. However, with a different mindset and persistent determination, one can slowly calm down. Stressing out causes salespeople to do whatever they have to do to feel better instead of focusing on their goals. Being stressed can also promote bad decisions that can hurt performance and reputation in the long term. Finally, customers sense stress a mile away and it usually smells like desperation to them. The result is either rejection because they don’t want to work with someone who is desperate or very bad deals that can put the salesperson’s company in a bad spot.
2. Understand how many real selling days are left in the year.
If I were to ask someone how many selling days were left in the year on Nov. 1, the answer would likely be something like 40 days – eight or nine weeks minus some days for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. In reality, salespeople cannot rely on any activity happening the week of Thanksgiving or after Dec. 15. Salespeople have about 25 or so total days of selling throughout all of November and December.
3. Eliminate or push all opportunities with less than 50% chance of closing.
With 25 real selling days left, all closing and accelerating effort needs to be directed toward a finite number of named opportunities that have a good chance of closing. The 50% mark is not as important as the concept of focus, so for some, the number could be 30% and others could be 75%. The point is that salespeople must make sure to focus efforts on a named list of the highest probability opportunities.
4. Start conversations now.
Salespeople must let their high probability opportunities know that they plan to receive their orders before the end of the year, and these conversations need to happen now. Customers get frustrated with salespeople stalking them the last three days of the month/quarter/year. There is an opportunity to differentiate by having a calm discussion a few months ahead of time, and scheduling a plan to ensure the order is processed in time. Even if an opportunity has not yet been won and there is still competition, this conversation needs to happen now.
5. Ask for a favor.
Creating a sense of urgency always sounds like a terrific plan, until it isn’t. For example, threatening a customer to order soon or not be guaranteed delivery in a timely manner backfires more times than it works. Salespeople should give up the idea of creating fear, and simply ask for a favor. People want to help other people. Customers might ask for something in return, but that is ok. Once there is a conversation, there is a higher probability of winning.
6. Don’t lose balance in activity.
Many salespeople will focus all their time and energy toward closing a few opportunities and enter the next month or quarter with an empty pipeline because they stopped planning, prospecting, networking, and nurturing their current relationships. For salespeople who are behind, there will naturally be a need to focus more time on closing sales, but it shouldn’t be so much time that it becomes unhealthy for the long-term.
Chris Peterson is the founder and president of Vector Firm (www.vectorfirm.com), a sales consulting and training company built specifically for the security industry. Use "Security Business" as a coupon code to receive a 10% lifetime discount at www.vectorfirmacademy.com. To request more info about the company, visit www.securityinfowatch.com/12361573.
