Sales
July 13, 2021

3 Tips To Consistently Hit Your Sales Targets

Sales people live and die by months and quarters, and the constant battle against quota can lead to many sleepless nights if everything isn’t going to plan.

By
Barry Moroney

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Unfortunately, many sales targets are created on a whim to fit a magical number conceived by business owners without much data and understanding of what it would take to achieve those seemingly impossible targets.

If you are struggling with your sales targets or want to push for 150% instead of 100%, follow the three points below to give yourself a stronger foundation for success.

Keep Filling Your Pipeline When The Going Is Good

Every sales person in the world has been guilty of this at some point in their career. It is very easy to get complacent with a fat pipeline and think that you have more going on than you handle. Also, most sales people hate prospecting and will look for any excuse to avoid having to do it. Don’t lie, you’ve been there.

In the short term, this won’t hurt you as it might take a few months to close out everything you have, but as a long term strategy, pausing your cold outreach whenever your pipeline seems healthy can be detrimental. The highest performing sales people in the biggest and best organizations understand this and consistently add the same amount of prospects to their funnel every month, regardless of whatever else is happening. This is the difference between smashing your targets or just meeting them in a good quarter and meeting your targets or failing miserably (and potentially losing your job) in a bad quarter.

Find The Best Approach For You

You can read 1,000 articles written by people like me telling you that you need to “do this and this”, but the reality is that every business is different and requires its own approach. For example, if you are selling a $100,000+ solution, it is essential that you focus on quality over quantity with a very personalized approach to each prospect you contact. However, if you are selling a $500 product online, this method is not likely to be the most suitable for you. Though you will increase your chances of closing deals with these companies, the customer acquisition cost will not be sustainable in the long run as you will be spending too much time on each prospect. In this case, a more automated and scalable approach to a mass audience would be required as volume needs to be the number 1 priority.

Once you have a good understanding of what the best way forward is for you, create a long term plan (at least 3 months) and stick to it until you know for sure whether it works or not. Giving up on a sales strategy after a few weeks won’t teach you anything; the worst case scenario from every campaign should always be that you learn what doesn’t work.

Don’t Waste Time With Time Wasters

Regardless of their intentions, if a prospect does not fit your Ideal Customer Profile, be very careful of your time with them. We have all been guilty of taking a prospect as far as the finish line because we thought we could get the deal done, but then having looked at it objectively, realised that they were never going to be able to find the required budget.

Unless you know that they can really benefit from what you have to offer and have the reserves to pay for it, put them on some kind of automated sequence. If they want more information, schedule an introductory phone call and be very clear about pricing from the outset. It might seem a bit cold at times, but this type of lead will usually burn more of your time than those who actually end up purchasing - only to collapse at the 11th hour. 

Needless to say, this should only apply to inbound leads. If you find yourself asking yourself these kinds of questions with any of your outbound prospects, you need to go back to the drawing board with your buyer personas and outbound sales strategy.

Need Help?

It is one thing to be aware of the best practices when it comes to outbound sales and it is another thing to implement them. A lack of time and resources is usually the enemy of effective cold outreach and that is where Leadable comes in. Book a call with us today to see if we can help your sales team to consistently hit their targets.

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