“If you don’t have a plan for yourself,
you’ll be part of someone else’s.”
-Unknown

We are now three weeks into 2010, which means your sales plan should be in full swing. If you haven’t made one yet, let’s give you some tips to makes sure you are on the right track. In order to make your plan work, you need two components. The first is a Strategic Objective that includes the larger goals you want to accomplish. Those goals might include becoming your company’s top sales performer. Another might be to grow your business by 20%. Whatever those Strategic Objectives are, it is important that you match them up with a very specific Tactical Plan. These are the smaller milestones that will help you get to your larger objectives. If you are in sales, you need to do the following:

1.    Determine exactly how much product you need to sell each week
2.    Determine how many live sales presentations you need to deliver each week to reach that sales goal.
3.    Determine exactly how many prospecting calls each day it will take to reach the sales presentation goal

For example, if you need to sell 5 of your focus products each week to reach your yearly goal, you may have to present to 10 prospects each week. To get those 10 presentations, you may need to prospect with 20 new potential clients. Which means you need to make 4 prospecting calls each day. Once you have that number in your plan each day, let it HAUNT you! Don’t end the day until you reach that Tactical Objective.  By breaking down your plan to a measurable daily number, you will have created a plan that sets the course to making you your company’s top sales performer. See you at the TOP!

People fall down, winners get up, and gold medal winners just get up faster.

-Bonnie St. John

Bonnie St. John lost a leg at the age of 5. Several years later, she would go on to become the first African-American to win an Olympic medal in skiing as she was awarded a silver and two bronze medals in the 1984 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria.  This week on my radio program, I asked Bonnie to tell her story about how she won the Silver. She said, “I was leading in the slalom after the first run. Then in the second run, I slipped on an ice patch and fell down the hill. I thought for sure this would cost me a medal, but I got up and continued racing.  Several other competitors hit the same patch of ice and also fell…even the one who eventually won the gold.  The only difference, however, between her and I, and the Gold and the Silver, was SHE got up faster…and THAT won her the gold.”

So what about your business? In this tough year, do you feel like you have “slipped on a patch of ice?” Well if so, NOW is the time to get up…and get up FASTER than your competition. Because there is only one gold, and it’s either going to you or them.

Here are three ways to get up faster in your business:

•    Get out of bed 30 minutes “faster” and earlier each morning.  Then use that extra time to learn something new about your Product, Industry or Competition.

•    Stop procrastinating! It’s time to quit talking and start doing. Write down a list of high value activities that might be painful but necessary to make you famous in your company then schedule time each day to do those things.

•    Network and Cold Call more than the competition. If you are speaking to 10 accounts each day, pump it up to 15 accounts each day.

And remember, the common fuel to “getting up faster” is URGENCY. Make your body feel it, then help others use it to make decisions more quickly. And by this time next year, you will look back on the autumn of 2009, as the greatest FALL of your career…the fall that couldn’t keep you down.

“Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non performance can always be explained away.”
-Harold S. Geneen

Tuesday while driving home from family vacation I spotted a diamond behind the counter of a gas station register. While I walked into the 15×15 ft tiny room that held only a cooler and two racks full of snacks and candy bars, that “diamond” (otherwise knows as Jack according to his name tag) was delivering a dazzling performance. He leaned over a small microphone that could be heard through the speakers at the gas pumps and enthusiastically announced, “Hope your day is going great! For the next 10 minutes ONLY we have a buy two candy bars get one free special! Come on inside and treat yourself!”

Then as I approached the counter to pay for my daughter’s bag of pretzels he smiled and said to me, “Those pretzels might make you thirsty. Right now you can get two 16 oz Cokes for only $2.22.” I walked out of that store spending slightly more than I had planned but got an opportunity to watch a top performer in action. I had never seen somebody work a cash register and a mic with such passion. As I walked away, I wondered how many additional sales he created each day, month, or year just by LOOKING for additional sales opportunities with EVERY customer. Is there any doubt this sales HABIT will produce significant and sustainable results? Of course not!

So this week, be like Jack! Let NO prospect leave you without you having tried to sell and serve them more. So go for the add-on sale! Ask for the referral! And make it a HABIT. Because the only difference between Jack and the average “non-performing” salesperson is he knows the formula to becoming a Diamond. It’s to LOOK for diamonds in every prospect he sees.