Sales

Achieve Your 2017 Sales Goals with this Workbook

January 23, 2017

It’s a new year and you want to make it your best yet. You want to make a change for the better simply to step up your game. Despite the reasons, despite the timing, you’ve got a lot to look forward to, assuming you know where to go from there.

Be smart, make money. Sometimes it really is simple. At least that was Master Yoda’s take on things when he uttered his famous Star Wars line “do or do not…there is no try.” In sales, that is about as clear-cut a guideline to success as you can get.

So once you make the decision to ‘do,’ what happens next? More often than not, the story ends there. There are any number of reasons people fail, but lack of focus and direction is among the most common.

1. You Won’t Write Them Down

Research on the success rate of those who write their goals down versus those who don’t is murky. Statistics range from 80 to 97 percent of people who are more likely to fail because they didn’t write down what they sought to achieve.

Sources as reliable as Harvard University claim the main reason why three percent of a graduating class in 1979 made significantly more money 20 years later is because they wrote their goals down.

Despite the variation, the truth is clear. As many as 97 percent of us are doomed to fail from the start because we missed one of the most important first steps anyone can take.

Multiple studies have been discussed in the business realm in recent years supporting the validity of the concept of success being linked to writing down your goals…. but, you’re better than that, right? YOU don’t need to write your goals down.

2. You Won’t Make Them SMART

Mapping out your goals in a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely way is considered a gold standard method of goal-setting. Beyond being easy to understand, SMART goals have been changing the goal-setting landscape for more than half a century.

How you opt to put pen to paper is almost as crucial as writing it down in the first place. While many business plans outline a vision, goals and steps to get there, it’s what happens every day that brings a plan to life. More often than not, this is where success to this point gets tripped up. It’s easier to see the big number without being able to see the individual steps, a hurdle that can result in a trying game of catch-up that often ends in defeat.

In one study, Dr. Edwin Locke determined 90 percent of the time, the practice of using SMART goals resulted in higher performance than less specific goals. But don’t worry, the hope and wish goals you have, even though you didn’t write them down… you got this.

3. You Won’t Stay on Track

What do those numbers mean for you? What does writing it down and being SMART mean for your sales quota? For your business? For your life?

Everything.

Most importantly, once you’ve put the effort in to lay a firm foundation, the time is now to stay on track. No two sales people are the same, nor are their businesses or strategies. Yet there are tried and true tools anyone can use to go the extra mile toward the finish line.

Let’s Get Started

In order to develop the specific behavioral steps needed to hit your goals, we need to begin with the end in mind. Being that this is a sales goals exercise, I hope (assume?) one of your goals is an income or revenue number. In creating your roadmap, we will start with the income goal you want to achieve and work backwards with the math to determine the activities you will need to perform on a consistent basis. If you find the numbers and ratios off a bit, start conservative and you can adjust once you begin to track more accurate data.

Goals

My desired pre-tax income or revenue goal for 2017 is: __________

My annual base salary is: __________

The incremental income I need to meet my desired pre-tax income goals for 2017 is: __________

Facts

The average value of my sales contract is: __________

The percentage of commission I am paid on each sale is: __________

My average commission per sale is: __________

New sales I need to make over the course of the year to achieve my desired pre-tax income: __________

Sales Activities

On average, I have to send _____ proposals to get a closed deal.

In order to send one proposal, I have to have _____ discovery calls (first meetings).

In order to schedule a discovery call (first meeting) I have to reach out to _____ prospects.

Work Schedule

How many hours per day do you truly work? _____ (be honest)

Not including weekends, how many vacation days, sick days, or holidays do you anticipate? _____

Roadmap

We know you want to make a change. We know you’ve got a lot to look forward to this year. That’s why we created the 2017 Sales Roadmap to help keep you on track and accomplish your specific sales goals. The worksheet above was one exercise from the Roadmap. You can download the full action-oriented workbook and let us guide you through the rest of the steps to make this year is your best ever.

You know what it takes and now you have the tools – so, don’t let anything stop you.

Founder

Jim Brown has led two companies from $1M to more than $10M and one from $1M to $0. He now trains salespeople through the Sandler Sales System and hosts a weekly podcast where he talks with great sales leaders and high performing individual salespeople about the Behaviors, Attitudes, and Techniques that have led to their success.