Sales Anonymous - Step 1

Step 1: Admit that your sales numbers are not where you’d like them to be

The first step in the sales recovery process begins with a personal admission to oneself that your sales numbers or goals are not where they should be.  This begs the question of whether or not you ever had a sales number or goal to begin with?  Success in any endeavor, including sales, begins with the end in mind.  I’d like to you to take a moment now and think about how much money you would like to make over the next year starting from this date.


$ ___________________________
(My personal financial goal)


There’s nothing like a writing a number down that gives one a sense of the realness of selling.  As you wrote the number down you may have had these thoughts running through your mind:

“This is a dumb exercise?”

“Let me skip this step, I’ll come back to it later?”

“What’s a good number?”

“That’s what I’d like to make but I don’t know if that’s realistic?”

“I don’t want to write something that’s ridiculously low (or high)?”

“Can I really make that much money?”

“Is that number too high?  Does it make sense?”

If these questions sound familiar, than guess what, you’re a normal human being!  Writing down our personal goals may at times seem like a dumb and futile exercise.  You can claim that you know how much you want to make a year in your head so there’s no need to write it down.  But on the contrary, there is a very important psychological need for writing down your financial goal.  Seeing the number written down and committed to paper gives the goal a more tangible feel creating a ‘pull’ effect on your abilities to fulfill that number.  Your conscious and subconscious minds are now fully aware of what you need to make happen.

Most of us resist the need to write down a financial goal convincing ourselves that it isn't necessary.  The reality is that we resist because we are afraid of running the risk of being held accountable.  When a number is written, a financial goal, the shades of success or failure retreat into black or white.  You either hit your number or you didn’t!  There’s no escaping the clarity of the obvious.  You hold yourself accountable!

Working the Numbers Backwards
Now that you have a financial goal, do some math to figure out how you’re going to achieve that number.  Start by noting how much you’ll make, in terms of commission, on an average sale. 

For example, if you sell a gizmo that cost $2,000 and per sale your commission is 25 percent, then your commission is $500 per sales (.25 x $2,000).  If your annual financial goal is $60,000 then you now know you need to make 120 sales ($60,000/$500) to hit your goal. 

A hundred sales in year seems intimidating at first until you break it down into more palatable and reasonable sub-goals.  Instead of 120 sales a year, break it down into monthly sales.  A hundred and twenty sales a year divided by 12 months gives you 10 sales per month that you’d have to achieve to meet your annual goal.  Ten sales a month comes out about to roughly two to three sales a week.

 
Now it’s your turn.  Run your numbers:

(1) Annual financial goal:  __________

(2) Average commission per sale:  __________

(3) Number of sales per year needed (1) divided (2):  __________

(4) Number of sales per month needed (3) divided by 12:  __________

Having no financial goal in selling is the equivalent have flying a plane with no navigation system.  Yes, you’re moving, but towards what?   The often-cited dictum of ignorance is bliss is absurdly wrong!  The saying should be rewritten to more accurately reflect its meaning, “Bliss is ignorance”.  Not knowing is not the answer or solution to a problem. 

Only through knowing can you correct your own course of action.  Imagine for a moment a airline pilot saying, “I don’t want to know if we’re headed in the right direction or not.”  Absurd?  Yes!  You not having a financial goal is equally as absurd!  Run your numbers!