Guaranteed Sales Success in 2010

By Tony Cole, President & CEO of Anthony Cole Training Group

There are no guarantees in life or in selling. Yet we look for one each time we buy and so do our clients. Shouldn’t we, as salespeople, be looking for guarantees too? Guarantees that we will reach our goals? Regularly, we witness great salespeople overcome the odds, the economy or the competition to be successful. Haven’t you always wondered how they do it?

They do it by committing to certain vital activities which they execute with discipline and passion. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the road to guaranteed success in selling is entirely up to us and our efforts. But there are certain “crucial elements” that we must have, such as desire to succeed and commitment to do whatever it takes, that will hold us accountable to the vital activities.

 Here are steps to Guaranteed Sales Success in 2010.  If you do these things, you will succeed.  Guaranteed!

1. Take time to establish non-negotiable, personal goals. Your personal goals. Not business goals. Not the company’s goals. Set timelines for accomplishing these goals and sharethem with people who care about you. Share them with someone who will make sure you are doing everything possible to succeed.
2. Build a success formula that will translate your personal goals and the associated income requirement into an action plan. When executed, this plan will act as a roadmap leading you toward your goals. Track your business activities to find the critical conversion ratios from one sales step to the next.
3. Each month compare your actual sales activity results against your success formula assumptions. Adjust your activity if you are falling short. 
4. Report your sales activity results weekly (we recommend sales team huddles) to someone who cares enough to congratulate your successes and coach your failures.
5. Understand that missing an activity target by just 1% is still failing.
6. Once you identify gaps in your performance, reach out and get professional coaching from someone who can help, not coddle, you.
7. Take responsibility.  Don't blame the economy, the competition or your company for failure.  You are in control of your own outcomes, good and bad.
8. Manage yourself to success.  Do not let yourself get sideways with tasks and activities that make you feel good at the expense of the hard stuff like prospecting. Prospecting is the job. It is what separates you from account managers.
9. Celebrate your successes and study your failures.
10. Always be seeking information and avenues to improve your skills.  If you don’t have a stack of great reading materials, develop that list.  

Now is the time to start this process.  Many salespeople have a sales cycle that is longer than 30 days.  What you do today determines your success in the next 30 days.  So start now to guarantee your success!

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