
6/17/2024-Whadya mean, you’re not killing it right now?
Published on
Skill
All sellers dream of selling a product that a monkey could move.
It’s more likely you’re selling something that requires strategy, creativity, and a whole lotta elbow grease. That’s a good thing because you’re better off if you’re chugging hard and battling for every inch. You won’t build muscle and scar tissue unless you feel the heat daily.
Whether you’re "shooting fish in a barrel" or constantly digging in the dirt, you need to master goal setting. It’s the universal force that drives sales success.
Do
There are ten business days left in the quarter which means it’s time to wrap up your Q3 goals.
By EOB today, make sure your account goals and skill goals for the quarter are locked-n-loaded; make sure you include specific measurement metrics too.
Which of your top accounts needs a specific goal to stretch you? Is "Grow ACME by 20% In Q3" a big enough goal?
And which skill do you want to improve? Probing? Listening? Qualifying? Revenue projecting? Objection handling?
Write ’em down!
A goal without a timeline is just a dream.
Goals are essential, but measurement is the glue. To become good at goal-setting, you must use the SMART measurement framework.
SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Against each goal, write a few sentences for each SMART criterion.
The most straightforward criterion to complete is the last one, T for Time-bound. Since these are 90 days goals, your deadline is already set as the end of Q3. To better help your attempts to complete your SMART work, ask yourself, "Specifically, what does success look like for each of these goals on September 30?"
The S in SMART is for Specific – and that speaks for itself.
Measurable is crucial because if you can’t measure your goal, how will you know you are successful? Create metrics for success that you can use to understand progress.
Achievable refers to those above of creating goals you can hit yet will push you a bit too. This part is a little art vs. science.
And Relevant is simply making sure your plan aligns with your job function and what your department is doing in the big picture.
Setting and working towards goals is not hard, but it can be intimidating because of the fear of failure. However, nobody anywhere said goals should be unreachable. The truth is just the opposite. Goal setting is about establishing accomplishments that can be attained. Success, not failure, is the objective. You can expect there will be some failures. (You don’t close every deal, do you?) Nevertheless, failure is what makes learning so valuable.
Oomph
In this clip from the cult-classic Office Space, Peter describes how he works – or in his case, how he doesn’t work.
He makes a good example of where you DON’T want to be given today’s theme on goal setting.
Here’s a good goal setting mindset:
1. Thinking about goals: gooood!
2. Writing goals down: NOW you’re talking.
3. Measuring goal achievement regularly throughout the quarter: WHOA baby! You go…!
Quote of the day
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars." Les Brown
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars." Les Brown