Guest post from Marylou Tyler, author of Her latest book, Predictable Prospecting.
Missing your sales quota is awful. Which excuse do you use?:
- My quota is too high
- Its really slow right now
- Ill get em next month
- I didnt have enough leads
Staggering Stat: Over 45% of sales reps fail to meet their quotas.
(Source: CSO Insights)
Its awful to miss quota. Especially when its tied to your monetary well-being.
Here are 4 steps to keep you from bungling your quota.
Step 1: Check Your Mindset (and Message)
Look here and to get your head in the game. Mindset matters.
For messaging, look over all your sales conversation materials making sure every piece asks and answers these 3 questions your buyer has:
- Why should I change?
- Why now?
- Why with you?
Step 2: Remove gunk from your sales process
Your sales process & leadgen might need a tune-up:
- Leads are stuck waiting for a first contact
- 40% of scored leads should move to the next sales stage, or out, each week
- 15-20 companies, max, should be in the waiting-for-first-contact stage
- First contact initiated, prospect has gone dark
- Increase your number of touches
- Poke, prod, and challenge
- Vary your call times
- Engage at high, low, and lateral levels to start conversations
- Lead quality is suspect
- Know your waterfall (step 3).
Step 3: Know your waterfall
Know these metrics to consistently make quota:
- W scored leads (leads that have engagement), produces
- X meaningful conversations that advance the sale forward rather than leak out, yielding
- Y discovery/fit conversations, for
- Z opportunities
Step 4: Change Your Habits
Habit is the #1 lost component for consistently making quota.
Aim for 3 daily metrics:
- 50: # of e-mails sent
- 5: # of meaningful conversations
- 10: # of daily referral requests from your network
Habit trumps inspiration. And, the best part, is habit is a learned skill.
Bonus Step: Iterate and Improve
Continually look for ways to improve these four steps and watch your quota issues dissolve. The small, consistent changes you make will pay off in big dividends for you.
Marylou Tyler is the bestselling coauthor of Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com. A successful trainer and consultant, she advises Fortune 1,000 companies on how to improve the sales process, specifically the assembly, activation, and optimization of the outreach sales channel.