Think back to the first week of January. Remember how fresh and ready you were to conquer the world this year? Remember the optimism and excitement? On top of your sales goals, maybe you were going to lose weight or improve your golf game or spend more time at home. Whatever it was, you were excited and had a plan.
Well, here we are … the halfway point. How are you doing? More important, what are you going to do during the second half of the year? Below are three steps designed specifically for sales professionals to optimize their second half performance.
- Block off two hours. DO NOT SKIP READING THIS. Most people will just assume these exercise will get done sometime during the week. They won’t. You’ve got a number to hit in July, you have fires to put out this morning, and no one cares about your second half course correction like they cared about your 2015 goals last December. If you don’t set aside two hours and block yourself off from the world, it won’t get done.
No time? Wake up two hours early – yes, if that means 3:00am, then wake up one morning at 3:00am. Skip a night of relaxing in your hotel (if you don’t have energy after a long day, jump in the pool and then head to a Starbucks). Get up before everyone else in your family this Saturday (meaning the 11th, not next Saturday). Whatever it takes, block off two hours and get away from everyone. BTW, it may only take you 45 minutes, but plan for two hours.
- Modify your goals. If your goal for new customer acquisitions this year is 80 and you’re sitting at 10, then expecting a 7x jump over the first half is unreasonable and unproductive. Determine reasonable and challenging goals for the second half of the year, and don’t worry about the numbers you set last December. If you’re ahead of the pace, modify your goals to be greater than they were on January 1. (If there is nothing you because your sales goals are established by your company, then have a candid discussion with your boss about your desire to improve and set reasonable goals for H2.)
- Reduce your goals to specific weekly activity. The second half of the year is anything but predictable. Decision makers and influencers are on vacation in July and August, everyone is catching up in September, and forget about any predictability after Thanksgiving. Look at the second half in 26 unique time frames… 26 unique weeks.
For example, if you’ve modified your goal to performing 130 demos in H2, then determine week by week how many you should do. Maybe your goal for demos per week between now and Labor Day is four, between Labor Day and the week before Thanksgiving is 7. After Thanksgiving until the December 18th is 5, with nothing projected after that. This adds up to 135, which will give you a little buffer.
So, when are you going to block off two hours? You have to do it by this Sunday the 12th! Good luck and tear it up these next six months.
