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Weekly Business Development Tip
2006 Goals versus 2006 Behaviors
At the start of a New Year, I would expect that you are thinking about your goals and objectives going forward. More often than not, when thinking about goals, business owners and sales professionals simply say "I want to grow my business by 10%...I want to grow my business by 20%." There seems to be a focus on overall gross revenue rather than the activities and actions that will be required to achieve these numbers. If you say, "I want to grow my business by 20%", the statement does not detail in any way how you are going to achieve the objective.
Imagine the design of a new house. Although, you might have a vision of what the house will look like in its entirety when completed, in reality, the actual construction begins from ground up with a foundation. Growing your business successfully has the same requirement. You need a foundation. You need to build your sales effort one brick at a time. Each brick in this analogy refers to the business development activities that you are engaged in on a daily basis.
When considering the vision for your business this year, instead of focusing on percentage of gross as compared to last year, I'd like to suggest that you focus on two other numbers: (1) the number of qualified prospects in your hot leads database versus the number of unqualified prospects in your database and (2) your conversion rate – once you qualify a prospect, how many of these people actually become clients? At the end of the year, your success will be directly related to the activities and behaviors that you were engaged in during the previous 365 days as compared to a non-specific vision to achieve certain growth numbers.
When you think about your goals for this year, please ask yourself are they SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ATTAINABLE, REALISTIC, TIMELY AND SHARED WITH A SIGNIFICANT OTHER? For each goal that you have, can you answer the question, WHY do I want to achieve this goal? Are your goals written down or are they simply ideas floating around in your mind? If you cannot answer yes to these three questions, you might want to go back to the drawing board.
My case for taking your business to a higher level is not a complicated one. Want more business...go find more qualified prospects. Better than 50% of the battle is getting there. You won't be selling anything if you cannot get in front of new prospects.
Please answer the following questions:
- Do you believe that you don't have the time to prospect for new business?
- Do you hate prospecting?
- Do you believe that contacting prospects by phone will never work in your business?
- Are you tired of the ups and downs in your revenue stream?
- Are you sure where your next opportunity is coming from?
- Is your sales funnel (i.e. sales pipeline) empty?
- Are sales exceeding expectations for your company?
Yogi Berra said, "The future isn't where it used to be." Is your future where it used to be? "Sales" is not rocket science or brain surgery. Sales is about discipline, accountability and your behaviors. Consider your closing ratio. How many prospects must you be in front of to close one sale? Is it 2? Is it 5? Is it 10? Do the simple math. How many new, qualified prospects do you need to be in front of to be able to make a trip to the bank? Focus on daily achievements not the daily grind.
"Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort."
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt
P.S. Your e-mail address will never be shared. If, for any reason, you don't want to receive my weekly sales and business development tips, just let me know and the emails will vanish from your life immediately.
Good selling!!
Ken
Ken Levine
Impact Business Solutions, Inc.
508-845-8849
SELL MORE BY SELLING LESS
www.impactbussolutions.com
Call toll free: 877-845-8849
