Plan Your Way Success

14th March, 2009

Plan Your Way to Success and Increase Sales

If you are like many salespeople you hit the ground running without doing much planning or having clear objectives for the next quarter much less the next twelve months.  However, successful salespeople get organized by setting aside time to focus on their goals and establish clear objectives. Strategic planning based on setting goals is not a complicated process and it doesn’t necessarily need to take a lot of time.  However, in order to be organized, it’s important to start with clarity around what you want to accomplish.  Steven Covey refers to this approach as “Beginning with the end in mind.”

Many salespeople like to fly by the seat of their pants or “wing it” because they are uncomfortable with details and specifics. They are typically “big picture” focused thinkers, liking concepts and ideas, creating a vision, and setting strategy. While big picture thinking can set the goal, its achievement is in the details. Details are where the rubber meets the road: they separate action from words! Actually, being successful as a salesperson requires a strategic (big picture) perspective as well as the ability to manage the details. It’s important to create a vision for yourself. In addition, it’s essential to create a specific and realistic plan to accomplish your objectives. By being specific with account and territory planning, for example, you will able to identify the resources required and pinpoint potential difficulties before they become insurmountable problems. Proactive planning demonstrates your ability to plan what you need in terms of time, money and resources to accomplish your objectives, versus simply running your territory in “reactive” mode. This is the foundation for being successful in sales.  If you’ve been in sales any length of time you’ve probably heard the saying:  “Plan your work and work your plan.”

Clients often ask: “How do you prioritize, when it feels as though there’s 48...