Any sales quota can be achieved, but it requires deep discipline and diligence. Consistent sales performance can never be achieved by winging it or putting in minimal effort.
If you avoid making these 6 common mistakes, you will make your quota this year and every year.
1. Not having a specific quota plan that is granular enough to inform execution – target clients, product solutions and sales methods that will be used. It’s one thing to have a target; it’s another to know specifically how you intend to achieve it. The devil’s in the details.
2. Not learning from mistakes and trying something new. If an approach isn’t working, abandon it as soon as you see that results aren’t coming in the way you had intended. Hanging on in hopes that things will change is foolish. Cut loose your ineffective ways fast or be prepared to see success fade away.
Try different approaches until you hit on one that works. Quota success often depends on how often you switch your methods to find one that works.
3. Chasing “yummy incoming” – requests others make of your time that take you away from your plan. Any distraction sucks up your attention and momentum. Yummy might be fun to do, but represents a huge risk to achieving your quota. Stay focused and resist the temptation to chase stuff that is not in your plan.
4. Applying pressure tactics to make a sale. Remember that the quota isn’t the end game; providing a relevant and compelling solution to a client is. Trying to force fit a product into a client problem to make progress on quota may appear to put you ahead, but it will eventually come back to haunt you.
Don’t allow quota pressure to influence you to do the wrong thing for the client. Stay true to your sales values; don’t be tempted to stray.
5. Not understanding client needs at a deep level; relying on a superficial knowledge to generate sales. You have to do your homework on each client you are targeting; there’s no fast track way to avoid it.
If you don’t invest the time to understand their secrets you will never earn the right to continually attract their business.
And it’s not about “needs” anyway. You need to discover what clients want, desire and crave if you want to unlock their sales gate.
6. Copying what your other sales colleagues do, thinking it will work for you. Sure, this might apply to practicing the basic sales fundamentals but it won’t enable you to deliver amazing results.
Consistently making and over achieving quota is more a function of how you are different from your colleagues in terms of what you do and how you do it. Copying them and their methods makes you one of them; just another member of the boring sales herd.
To be a “quota champ” you need to do much more than efficiently practice the art of sales. It requires more than learning; it requires investing your heart and soul in your clients and in developing a sales brand that is unlike any other.
What actions have you and your team taken to successfully achieve quota? Leave a comment and let us know!
Pipeliner CRM empowers sales teams to consistently make quota.Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.
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