Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend off and one of the harder Mondays on the calendar. Re-entry into a normal week is always a bit rough, but hopefully you used your time wisely and got some rest and relaxation and you are now ready four our sales meeting and to tackle the second half of the year.
This is a big week. And no, I don’t mean that like when I used to work for someone who would say the week was “critical” every single week. I mean this actually is a big week for those of us on the sales side of things. This week, we get to look back and see what we did and did not achieve in the first half of the year as it relates to annual goals you set for yourself.
If you just read that last paragraph and thought to yourself, “I didn’t set any goals or benchmarks for my year” shame on you.
Sales is a numbers game, you have heard that many times. And you should know all of your numbers. You should also judge yourself by those numbers. It truly amazed me as a sales manager how many sales reps didn’t know their own numbers. They weren’t aware how much they were selling, pitching, closing ratios, new clients, not a thing. Some didn’t even understand how exactly they were paid. I don’t know that I have ever met a great seller who wasn’t intimately aware of their current numbers, their target numbers and most importantly the gap between the two.
We should be somewhat numbers obsessed in our business. Everything should relate back to your own financial goals. That is why it is important to look back at this time of year and see where you are in relation to the benchmarks you set in order to hit those numbers. Right now, you still have time to do something about it, but you will run out of time in a hurry.
You should have things broken down to the point where you know exactly how many people you need to reach out to in a day in order to hit your numbers. You should know exactly what it is you need to ask for in order to close the right amount of business to hit your goals. In which case you can then grade your days, weeks and months based on the numbers.
You can do something as simple as taking your sales total for the first half of the year and dividing it by the number of clients you had. What is your average client spending? How many new clients at that amount of spend do you need to hit your total sales goal for the year? If you find the number to be daunting, you know you might have to look for larger fish so you can ask for more money. After all, you control who you go after and the amount of money you ask for.
How much of what you do are you tracking? The more you track, the more you can break down everything into smaller pieces rather than looking at one big, massive number. All of you should be tracking the number of presentations you make and comparing it to the number you close, thus figuring out your closing ratio.
If you know you need to sell $1,000,000 to make your financial goal and you have tracked and found out you close 1/3 of the presentations you make, you know you need to ask for at least $3,000,000. Looking at that big number might scare some people who would think it looks like too tall of a task. However, if you think about asking for about $60,000 per week it seems a lot more reasonable.
Now, perhaps more importantly, how much outreach do you have to do in order to get the number of meetings it will take to make enough presentations to close enough sales to hit your goals?
You can truly get psycho with the math, but this is your livelihood – you know, this is the part where people say, ‘sales is like having your own business.’ If it truly is your own business, you would know the numbers inside and out.
Getting back to the start of July and 3rd quarter, for those that have been tracking, they can use that math to figure out the rest of the year and also put some thought into where it is going to come from. Are there upsell opportunities to current clients and if so, about how much can that lead to? What is in progress now that is likely to close? Now, the math can be used to figure out what a true gap looks like you will need to go out and get from new business or past clients.
I have always been a person who likes to visually see goals. If there is a number I need to hit, I like to have it written down somewhere in front of me. If it is something I am wanting to buy, I like to have a picture of it up in front of me. I also like to have pictures of my family up around where I am working to remind me what is most important. It is a strategy I highly recommend to others.
Take a few moments this week and look back at the goals you set for the year. Know the position you are in now while you can still change things if need be. Perhaps you are on the right track and the year looks good, congratulations and keep going. If you are behind, figure out why and then what you need to do, mathematically, in order to save your 2024.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
