6-25-2014
Almost all of us spend quite a bit of time on our computers, tablets, and smartphones. It?s common knowledge that it?s a good idea to turn them off and restart them every now and again, right? Give it a chance to completely shut down, just for a moment, and then start it right back up. The experts tell us that by doing this, we will increase a device?s performance level and be more satisfied with the output.
It?s also a good idea to restart your sales strategy from time to time. The goal of the sales restart should be to help the sales effort to achieve maximum performance and reach the desired sales output.
One of the challenges of sales these days is that there are so many things you have to do in order to be truly successful. Most sales organizations start their year off with solid plans that have been looked over and presented up the line for approval. These plans are well thought out and typically have in them the key performance indicators, with next steps that should have you prepared for almost every thinkable situation. With all that preparation, it seems impossible that you could ever get off course. But it happens.
The problem: The sales plan is now six months old.
The sales plan you built was created six months ago, and since that time a lot has happened. Not everything is playing out exactly the way you built it into the plan. For example, your competition has become more intense, there are new competitors that have entered your format, and you have suffered from some unplanned account attrition. Now you find yourself putting your plan off to the side because you are focused on the urgent matters at hand.
It?s time to restart your sales plan. Because you have become so focused on the urgent, you?ve paid little or no attention to the important. In general, one of the difficulties with not paying attention to the important is that it doesn?t hurt your revenue performance in the short run. It might not even affect you this quarter, but it will in the long run.
It?s kind of like never taking the time to turn off your computer and restart it at the end of the day. The fact is that it won?t hurt performance today, or even tomorrow. But after a few days, your computer is not running as fast as it normally does, and from time to time the entire thing is locking up and freezing. You start to become concerned that things you are working on could get lost and you will have wasted a lot of time. Now go back and read the last sentence again. Hard to tell if I?m writing about restarting your computer or the need to restart your sales plan, right?
Everyone knows that there is never a good time to restart your computer. You?re always too busy to take this important but not urgent step.
Today is the perfect day to restart your computer, and the same is true with your sales plan. I encourage you to find the time today to pull out your sales plan and look at it closely. See what is in there that you are still doing and that is actually working. Determine what you are not doing when you know you should. Take a look at where you might need to make adjustments ? and then make them.
Don?t fall victim to the urgent and forget about that sales strategy you built. As the saying goes, more of the same will just get you more of the same. So what?s stopping you from doing it today?
The Next 90 Days
Once you have restarted your sales plan, you?ll want to make sure you set a date on your calendar in about 90 to do another sales restart, or perhaps just a minor reset. Commit to evaluating what is working and what needs to be adjusted. It?s this type of commitment to restarting that will ensure that your sales machine performs consistently at a high level for a long time to come.
Matt Sunshine is EVP of the Center for Sales Strategy.
E-mail: mattsunshine@csscenter.com
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