7 Ways to Get Your Sales Action Plan Back on Track and still Crush 2016!

It’s six months into 2016, you’re lagging behind your sales plan, and it’s becoming a growing concern. But unlike most sales people who blame weather, economy, distractions, traffic and whatever else they can think of, you’re looking for ways to get back on track to still crush 2016.

• How do you make this happen and turn the trend upwards towards meeting and exceeding your 2016 goals you ask?
• How do you regain control of your own results and destiny?
• Where have you made some mistakes along the way?
• Have you identified your deficits?
• Have you identified the areas of opportunity?
• Based on your initial 2016 goals, where are you sitting right now relative to your goals?

You should be able to tell exactly how many units or dollars you’re behind, and what your percentage of target relatively speaking is. If you can’t tell where you stand like a lot of sales people I know and most of the bottom 80% achievers, there’s your first problem. You do not have a clear sales action plan as a foundation or reference, therefore you’re either scrambling to get things back on track, experiencing a greater deal of frustration in trying to figure things out, or have given into the concept of I’ll do as much as I can.

It doesn’t have to be that way, take action now with the following 7 steps and still crush your 2016 targets!

Here are 7 tips that top sales performers and I use to get back on track and achieve better than expected results;

1. 1. 1. Re-evaluate and See it for what it is; whether you’re ahead or lagging behind on your year to date targets, it’s important to constantly have a handle on where you stand. I see this as a huge issue with many sales colleagues as they may talk about an action plan, but never actually implement and follow one that’s sustainable yet constantly wonder where they stand let alone what’s required to get back on track. If you desire reaching any goal, you must first envision it, and build a foundation from which to, monitor daily, weekly, monthly in order to have a chance of achieving it. A sales plan is a crucial tool for all salespeople, but few salespeople have or use one. Now that you’re into Q2 it always a great time to re-evaluate your personal goals and to set a plan for the remainder of the sales year. It’s now time to think and dream much bigger than you planned before in order to meet and exceed your goals!For my personal sales goal of 200 vehicle deliveries this year, I have a clear plan broken down monthly including seasonal variances and other basic matrices factored in. At the end of Q1 I was tracking 2.6 units behind my average monthly goal which if continued would leave me 31.2 units short, or achieving only 84.4% of my personal target. I will have none of that, and knowing where I stood gave me all the answers I needed to put a plan in place to get back on track towards crushing my 2016 target.
         • Have a constant growth mindset towards you goals.
         • Create your own personal sales plan including strategy and tactics to help you achieve them.
         • Absorb the best tips and growth ideas from other successful people.
         • Devise a plan of to solve up to 10 times the problem, to achieve much bigger results, i.e. make 10 X the follow-up calls, 10 X times the contacts or emails.
      2.   Think Big! As the Nike commercial says, Just do it! The alternative is failure. Thinking big creates bigger goals that pulls you and define your purpose. It’s easy to get annihilated after a bad week or month if you don’t have a greater purpose or goal pulling you through to your end result. Your big goal must be clear enough that a bad week or month does not cultivate lack of focus from your main goal.After having a below average February I did not let it define me because I already knew I would crush March and held myself accountable to the results. According to Tony Robins now it was time for me to practice more disciplined daily rituals and “turn my should’s into must”
         • After your evaluation in step 1 is complete, establish a renewed more aggressive sales action plan to not just achieve, but to surpass your previous goals. In short, think bigger than you were before.
         • Your personal sales plan should include strategies and tactics for acquiring new business, as well as growing your existing book of business.
         • With this bigger goal for the next 6 months in 2016, break down your immediate to short term goals first for June and July completing Q2, then your long term year-end goal.
         • Establish what resources will be required to make sure this happens for June and how can you replay that success plan for July?
         • Get ready now for some hard work, self-accountability, determination and focus!

• Focus: Now that your BIG goal is clear and you’re holding yourself accountable, you must tune out all the outside noise with laser like focus. Get rid of or avoid anything that distracts or does not contribute to your achieving or exceeding your goals. According to the late Steve Jobs “focus is not about saying YES, focus is about saying NO”

1. 1. 1. • Say NO to constant distractions from coworkers’ and friends that drain your focus, creativity, momentum and productivity.
         • Say NO to undisciplined habits like constant checking of social media sites that waist more time and provide no real value to your greater goals.
         • Say No to doing too many tasks at once and focus on knocking off your goals systematically or one at a time by priority.
         • Say No to having too many gadget’s smartphone, iPad’s and dingers going off around you.
         • Say YES to a desperate obsessive focus and resourcefulness for achieving your June Goals.
         • Say YES to finding out the best ways to spend your time that generates more productivity and positive results.
         • Say YES to following more of the habits you’re good at that brought you success before. According to Jim Rohn “success leaves clues”, so seek out and follow previous success clues.
         • Only Say YES to action’s that contributes to your achieving your goals and NO to everything else!
      2. Hard work. Be prepared to put in the time. These are direct examples from my achieving the results I did this May 2016 of 24 retail Lexus vehicle deliveries;
         • Set standards and not wants to have measureable results.
         • Get to work on the right projects, objectives and the right clients for the time.
         • Work on your philosophy, attitude, and communication with those directly involved in your success plan such as your direct managers.
         • Work harder on yourself than you do on your job to become more valuable to the company and increase your self-worth.
         • Work on offering value added solutions for your clients, and at cultivating relationships with them that bring you referrals.
         • Work on arriving early to organise the day and getting a head start.
         • Work on staying late, sending out that extra email, or making a few more calls.
         • As Howard Shultz of Starbucks said, “you cannot take a breath” you have to eradicate the human behavior of relaxing” even when you’ve had a great month or two.

1. 1. 1. Take Action: “Rituals is where the Power is”. (Tony Robins). Results materialise with consistent rituals and action. The action comes as a result of planned strategy and direction as well as the tactics used to execute the plan.Whenever I have had much better months than others I’ve looked back and accessed the actions that led to my success. Here are some action rituals I practice that will keep your momentum going through 2016;
         • Each evening access the success from that day to determine what you may have done better or how to improve your efficiency and results for the next day.
         • Arrive most mornings up to an hour early to avoid even more distractions and plan your day ahead by reviewing and sorting files and tasks in order of priority.
         • Set daily goals; number of existing contacts to either call or email.
         • Set daily goals; of new contacts to keep a consistent stream of inquiries coming at all times and to build your base.
         • Commit to systematic and progressive follow-up ritual that provides value added solutions to your clients.
         • Have a defined strategic and tactical approach before making the contact.
      2. Personal Development. Never give up on growth. Read as many books as you can. Studies show over 80 percent of sales people have never read one sales book. Most have never attended a training seminar or invested in any type of personal development but wonder why they struggle from month to month. According to Warren Buffet, “the best investment is in yourself”.
         • Start building your personal development library of reference tools today. Invest time in informative, books, magazines, cd’s, videos, speeches etc.
         • Don’t be complacent with what you’ve achieved. Growth through learning will be your competitive leverage.
         • Invest time in developing and understanding your personal plan to include hav­ing thorough conversations with your sales manager’s and colleagues about expectations, and how you plan to achieve those goals.
         • Invest time in community involvement and networking: The key to your sales success is to build your own portfolio of potential clients through networking rather than just waiting for potential business coming through the door or from sales calls.
         • Invest in your personal cost effective branding or marketing strategies to differentiate yourself.

1. 1. 1. Failure; never take failure too seriously to the point of complete discouragement. I’ve learned through many failures some very valuable lessons, the first of which is sometimes failure is a part of success. You really only fail if you let failure get the better of you to overcome and try again.

1. 1. 1. • Learn from your mistakes and don’t see it any worse than it is.
         • “Don’t be embarrassed about failure if you’ve tried everything, but see the adversity as a challenge. Use it as an example” Richard Branson.
         • People are remembered for they succeed at, not what they attempt.
         • Push yourself to a point of nervousness sometimes. “If you’re not feeling a bit uncomfortable, you’re not pushing hard enough”. Joel Osteen.

EVEROLD REID is a Lease Renewal Advisor at Lexus of Oakville with over 26 years’ experience working in retail automotive industry, advertising and real estate marketing initiatives across North America. Throughout
his career, he developed a set of proven best practices that propelled him to become a consistent top performer in fast-changing and competitive markets.

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/everoldreid
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