Are you up for a summer challenge?

As we enter into the summer season of sales we find our customers and prospects flitting in and out of the office on vacations and other extended time-off.  As a salesperson, you can accept this as slow time or take action and challenge yourself to grow your business.  One of my favorite personal mottos is, “Your business today reflects your activity 3-4 months ago, and your activity today will reflect your business 3-4 months from now.”  It is up to us to choose our path and direction.  It is easy to accept what is deemed normal and ordinary, or we can move beyond and challenge ourselves.

I recently posted another statement that goes like this, “Set more lofty goals to ensure you take more lofty actions.”  When you set goals, are they made to meet the minimum requirements?  Have you considered setting goals where everyone around felt was impossible to meet?  Here is a little insight on my thought process on goal setting.

It is always good to set a goal and then take appropriate pointed actions daily to ensure you meet the goal.  It is much easier to be consistent everyday towards meeting your goal than it is to attempt to accomplish everything for a week, into one day.  It is not all about the stress of trying to catch up with what you should have done earlier in the week, but setting reasonable and attainable daily goals and be successful on an everyday basis.

If the goal is to sell 100 widgets ask yourself, “What kind of activity and action would it take to sell 500, 1000, or even 10,000 widgets”.  I have been in many sales situations where the perceived impossible was attained through consistent daily actions and activity.  It is all about working hard, but is all about working a lot smarter than working harder.  Work hard, but place your focus and primary efforts on working smarter.

You most likely know what you need to do to meet the goals set in front of you.  If you call on so many customers, compose so many proposals and conduct x amount of meetings, there is no reason you should not meet your goal.  I am not sure of your equation, but the last time I checked, a good rule of thumb is to have at least 5x your forecast number in your pipeline to meet your target number.

When you set a lofty goal you force yourself to think outside the box.  What would have to be done, what resources would be involved, and what kind of revenue would need to be generated.  As you are working with your customers and prospects, keep your lofty goal in mind.  You will become more aware of the kinds of opportunities that need to present themselves, and look for ways to make them happen.  So if a customer wants to buy 100 widgets, you may need to uncover why they should buy two or three times that many, and justify the benefit for their business.  By the way, the term for this technique is selling.

One statement I lean on every day is, “It’s not, why can’t I do it, but how can I do it.”  When you look at lofty goals, don’t tell yourself, “I can’t do that” but challenge yourself and say, “How can I do it?”   What do I need to do? What has to happen for me to meet that lofty goal I have set in front of me?

Here is a lofty summer exercise for all of us.  Take the goal that is currently set in front of you and turn it into a lofty goal.  Blow that number up where you could connect up a few ropes and walk it down the Macy’s Day Parade route.  Think about what would have to happen for you to meet that goal.  What would your company need to do, what kind, and how many customers would need to close to meet that goal.  Think about what that would mean to you personally, and how it would make you feel.     

Understand that some goals appear to others that they could never be completed. Uncover how they can be accomplished, and then you will have that solid foundation to work with, and build on, to achieve your goals.  Make every customer contact count and identify opportunities in everything.  Happy selling and may all your lofty goals be met.