The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » Goal Setting

In a recent interview, I was asked what companies can do to ‘boost their close ratios’ within the specialty retail market. Here were the questions as well as my responses.

Question: What are some common mistakes you see retailers make with regard to close ratios?

Response: Quite often a common mistake is simply not managing their sales numbers on an individual basis or not managing them accurately enough to provide a realistic picture of where they are and what they need to change or adjust regarding their selling efforts and approach. But the problem goes even deeper.

At the core, the real mistake is not accurately accounting for the activities they need to engage in throughout their day. All roads lead back to time management. So if you find that you’re not getting through all the tasks you need to in the time you’ve allocated for it, then there’s a strong chance you are suffering from unrealistic planning or you’re doing something else that you didn’t plan for nor account for in your daily schedule. As such, designate separate blocks of time for all your daily activities and responsibilities so that it doesn’t interfere with your selling efforts.

Finally, lack of follow up or follow through in their sales process. Many simply lack the sales acumen and selling skills they need to boost their sales such as effective follow up, asking the right questions that would create more selling opportunities as well as qualify the opportunities that make the most sense to invest your time in.

Here’s a list of questions that will assist you in discovering the ideal career for you. Create it first, then attract it. Have fun with this! In other words, don’t get hung up on what you think is feasible, available or possible. Just create what you want most.

After reviewing my clients’ responses to these questions, it’s interesting how many of them answered the questions. They answered many questions about how it was or how it is in their current job rather how they want it to be. Remember, answer every question from the place of how would like it to be and create the vision of what you would like your career to look like.

1. How many hours in a typical workday?
2. What is your desired salary?
3. Who are the people you are working with?
4. What type of clients do you want to serve?
5. What type of product/service do you want to offer?
6. What is your day filled with or what type of activities you are responsible for?
7. What type of industry?
8. What is the level of autonomy?
9. What type of growth opportunities exist?
10. What kind of supervisor do you want to work with (if any)? What’s that person’s management style?
11. What are your co-workers like (if any)?
12. What benefit/incentive package is offered?
13. What type of environment/corporate culture do you thrive in (fast paced, stressful, relaxed, quiet, etc.)
14. What are you passionate about?
15. What type of career would be a reflection of who you are?
16. How does your career complement your lifestyle?
17. What are the demographics of your clients and co-workers?
18. What are your strengths and talents that you would like to orient your career around?
19. What do you do great?
20. What don’t you like to do?
21. What needs to be present in order to make a smooth transition and be financially responsible with the least amount of risk or error?
22. Who do you have in your circle of influence to support you through this transition? (family, friends, coach, etc.)
23. Who do you need to be (or become) in order to achieve, create or succeed at this?
24. What are the fears or limiting thinking that’s keeping you from moving forward without hesitation?

The Top Radical Resolutions To Create Your Best Year Yet!

With the dramatic changes in our economy and in our society, it’s no wonder that many of us are asking ourselves, “Now what do I do?” while looking for more order and certainty in an uncertain world.

The New Year brings the opportunity for change. For many us, it’s the time to think about resolutions. Often these resolutions are the same ones that we make every year or the ones we only stick to for a few weeks.

If it’s ever been a struggle to create what you want most in the New Year or to keep to your resolutions, consider that your goals and the strategy to achieve them may not serve you best.

Resolution is defined as, “The process of reducing to simpler form.” Which brings us to the paradox of resolutions: instead of simplifying our lives, we wind up dumping more tasks, goals or projects on our “to do list” thinking that by achieving more, our lives will be more fulfilling and successful in the New Year.

To make and keep your resolutions with the least amount of effort, start with upgrading your attitude and your strategy to achieve greater results. To begin, here are ten resolutions that will enable you to maximize your potential and manage your life.

1. Quit Tolerating. To attract new and better opportunities and results, first clear out what’s clogging up your life to create the space for the better stuff to show up. List the things you’re putting up with that limit productivity, cause stress and waste time and energy. Then determine what needs to happen to eliminate these tolerances. If you no longer accept being dragged down by unwanted events, problems or other people’s behavior, you’ll stop wasting time managing situations that shouldn’t be there anyway.

2. Play Your Game. The best game to play is the one where you make up your own rules. If you’re encountering resistance in reaching some goals, chances are it’s either something you really don’t want to be doing, an old goal that may not serve you or you’re operating from someone else’s agenda! Take the time to discover what YOU truly want by aligning your goals with the priorities in your life rather than the “Shoulds.”

3. Create A Winning Routine. Busy with tasks that consume you? Feel that you’re fighting the clock? Design a weekly routine that complements your goals so you can focus on the activities that support your objectives and enhance your lifestyle. This includes planning for the unplanned as well. Develop a healthier relationship with time by underpromising on personal/professional deadlines so that time becomes your ally instead of your adversary. To develop a highly effective routine, get organized, eliminate distractions, reduce stress, and manage your tasks in order to reach and exceed your goals, check out Keith’s ebook, Time Management for Sales Professionals at www.ProfitBuilders.com.

4. Have Fun. Let’s face it; this isn’t our practice life! Are you doing the things that bring you the most joy? Find time every day that’s yours. Shift your binoculars around to magnify your achievements rather than what you didn’t do. Otherwise, when’s the big payoff?

5. Deepen Your Learning. While we attract what we need to learn, we often resist the lessons. If similar problems keep reappearing, we missed the lesson. To accelerate success, learn from every experience and person in order to grow and move onto a new and better path.

6. Expand Your Vision. What does your ideal life look like? The fact is, we never grow past what we feel is possible. Let go of your current perceptions that are inhibiting your ability to explore greater possibilities and achieve more. Clarify what success looks like in every area of your life (career, relationships, health, environment, etc.). It’s a lot easier to create something great when you know exactly what you’re looking for. Besides, it’s your canvass. What masterpiece do you want to create?

7. Transcend Your Beliefs. The Korean memorial says, “Freedom is not free.” This holds true for our thoughts as well. Old limiting beliefs often keep us prisoner, preventing us from creating greater successes. Your outlook determines your outcome. So if you believe, “The past is responsible for the quality of my life today,” “Success requires sacrifice,” or “This is as good as it gets,” consider challenging these assumptions and replacing them with healthier ones that would better serve you. Upgrade and direct your beliefs without them controlling you. (Otherwise, we’d still believe that our flat Earth is the center of the universe.).

8. Do Complete Work. You don’t have to achieve every resolution at once. Instead of stopping and starting something, pick one thing you want to change, create or finish and commit to seeing it through to completion. Then move on to the next project. Otherwise, consider that you may be an adrenaline junkie and love the rush associated when working on overdrive. To prevent sporadic results and a pile of unfinished projects, get off the adrenaline train and start creating the momentum that produces consistent, long lasting results.

9. Focus On the Present. Although planning for the New Year is productive, during our quest to achieve more we often lose sight of what is occurring today, preventing us from enjoying the hidden gifts or treasures that are already present in our lives. Keep focused on what is occurring now as opposed to what happened yesterday or what will be in the future. Live for today while planning for tomorrow.

10. Fear-less. Much of life’s decisions are governed by fear. Every year we want more but fear prevents us from taking risks, so we continually produce similar results. We resist what we need to learn the most, preventing growth by staying within what’s familiar and safe. Resisting the fear of the unknown paralyzes our efforts to create greater opportunities for ourselves. Realize that you cannot fail, you can only produce unexpected results; results that you can grow from in order to create new possibilities. And only personal and professional profitability can evolve from new possibility. To accelerate your evolution, embrace fear. Since fear is the negative assumption of the outcome, shift your focus towards the positive outcome or what you DO want to manifest, instead of what you are looking to avoid.

11. Amplify Your Awareness: Our society is recognizing more and more that there is greater pleasure in simplifying one’s life, as opposed to filling it with chaos, to-do lists, goal setting, or trying to keep up with overloaded schedules that result in keeping us buried in trivial tasks. We want less clutter and more clarity to see the magnificence life offers right front of us. To become more, desire less in your life. Awareness is evolutionary since it’s derived from a deeper connection to truth and our authentic self, and truth is the gateway to inner peace. When you have the ability to tap into this higher level of awareness, then and only then can you live a richer and rewarding life without struggle, resistance or sacrifice. Growing back to where we came, to a more simplistic form, (a child) will re- ignite and amplify our senses and our passion to explore the wonders within our lives.

12. Choose to Be Fully Accountable-For Everything! Life works a whole lot easier when we do what we say we’re going to do. Having a personal coach in your corner builds in this kind of focused discipline and accountability that allows you to honor all of these resolutions and create the life you want to live today. A coach becomes your accountability partner and helps you tap into the most powerful tool we have at our disposal - The power of choice. However, there is no choice without awareness (#11). Awareness creates choice. To tap into your fullest potential, exercise choice. Otherwise, you’ll feel confined or powerless to make changes, allowing situations, circumstances or other people to influence you. Choosing to become fully accountable for what we draw into and manifest in our lives creates the space for our personal evolution to occur.

13. Express Your Authenticity: The two fundamental parts to each person, the Self and Ego battle for the drivers seat in our life. The ego makes choices concerned with the outside world and achievements, defining who we are by what we have or do. The self makes choices based on our values, strengths, and passions. The ego can be the elusive thief of your true identity. The self is the authentic reflection of who we are and what we really want. It is the self that is satisfied in the present, without being attached to future accomplishments the ego needs to make their life worthwhile or held back by past events/regrets in our life. When we authentically express who we are, (not who we think we are) we can share ourselves with others, without the fear of being vulnerable. You’ll notice how much deeper your connection with other people becomes when you shift the focus away from yourself and onto others. And you’ll add value to people’s lives naturally, without effort or sacrifice, often a result of the ego’s self- serving agenda. To evolve and live a richer, more fulfilling life, focus more on who you who you are, rather than what you do.

So, are you ready to make 2008 a spectacular year? Below are some questions and exercises I encourage you to take on to prepare for your best year yet including setting your goals, doing a year end review and setting yourself up for extreme success!

Here’s your challenge. Think about the goals you want to achieve next year. Are you ready to play BIG? Want to raise that high bar another foot? What’s at stake for you if you achieve these goals this year?

Here are several questions to explore. Remember, every day is a new opportunity to redesign your life and live way want to live!

***********TIME TO SET YOUR 2008 GOALS!***********
NOTE: If you need me to send you the Attain Now Goal Setting Program to help you not only set your goals but develop the strategy to achieve them, let me know.

1. What would be unreasonable, yet extraordinary for you to achieve this year? (Dream BIG!) Create your goals in the following areas: (Don’t feel you ‘need’ to have one in each category. Just the ones that are important to you; the ones you really, really, really want!)

a) For yourself (personal goals, finances, relationships, well being, etc.)
b) For others (family, friends, clients)
c) In your career/business (skills, competencies, performance/productivity milestones, etc.)

2. What are you willing to do beyond what you’re currently doing to achieve that?

3. What are you willing to give up in order to achieve that? (Old beliefs, ineffective actions, ways of being, diversionary tactics, etc.)

4. Who do you need to be to achieve this?

+++++++++++YEAR END REVIEW++++++++++++++++++

Have you taken the time yet to acknowledge your successes this year? Otherwise, when is the big payoff? Here are some quick exercises to take on so you can pat yourself on the back for your achievements. You really did GREAT things this past year!!

1. What did you create/achieve/complete this year? HINT: When answering the questions a-c, look at your finances, business, relationships, health, well being, career, happiness, environment, upgraded beliefs/peace of mind, hobby, skills, performance, etc.

a) List what you are happy about achieving/creating and why it’s important/what it means to you.
b) List what you’d like to change or what didn’t turn out as expected.
c) List what you’ve left incomplete and want completion on.

Once you’ve listed your responses to #1, evaluate each response by asking the following question:

A. What lessons have you learned from this experience or by creating/completing this?

Here are some examples:

I’VE ACHIEVED:
* I strengthened my relationship with my children/family/friends/spouse/significant other.
* I began saving at least 10% of my income.
* I’ve doubled my sales volume.
* I set stronger boundaries for myself and now have more time for me.
* I approach my career in a way that serves me best.
* I’ve created my perfect client base, company procedures, etc.
* I’ve become stress free!
* I can now best manage my time using a weekly routine that keeps me highly productive while maintaining balance in my life.
* I’ve developed systems that help me achieve my goals (management, selling, marketing, business, etc.)

I’VE LEARNED:
* Being lighter about oneself opens up the possibility to have more fun.
* How powerful the freedom of choice can be.
* Setting specific goals, developing a vision and a strategy actually made me much more successful in less time!
* How important the people in my life are to me.
* To live more in the present.
* Taking care of myself allows me to take care of others with less effort or sacrifice.
* There’s no such thing as mistakes, just unexpected results that create opportunities for growth and learning.
* I’m fully accountable for the opportunities I create and each day is perfect (even when its not!)
* Trying to control things has its high costs and letting go/being flexible brings in new possibilities.

I WANT COMPLETION ON:
* Several tolerations that I’m putting up with that cause stress and need to be eliminated.
* The relationship I had with my partner/boss/friend/family member, etc.
* The projects that I’ve started around the house.
* The (selling, marketing, contact management, prospecting, leadership, professional development, communication, self care, life balance, customer support, staff development, etc.) system I started to create.

+++++NEW YEAR THEME AND VISION++++++++++++++++

2. Create Your Theme For The New Year: This is the year of …? Fill in the blank. (Strong relationships, well being, peace, happiness, great health, an abundance of fun, stress free living, reserves, overdelivering, etc.) Your theme complements your vision and enables you to prioritize what you want this New Year to look like. What’s the one thing you want to stand out most when you look back at the end of the year? Keep it short, maybe one or two sentences, tops.

3. Get your routine in order. (I.E. my book, Time Management for Sales Professionals)
4. Revisit your vision statement as well as your goals and place them as a recurring reminder in your CRM software so they are top of mind rather than collect dust.

Wishing you extreme success!
Keith

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Excerpt from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing the Sale by Keith Rosen. Reprinted with permission by Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Release Date, January, 2007. Visit www.guidetoclosingthesale.com.

A client I had worked with about a year ago recently emailed me, requesting some time to talk. When we finally got on the phone together, it was apparent why.

Miki was a seasoned executive recruiter. She hired me initially because her sales were down and thought a coach might be able to give her the extra guidance and motivation she needed to get out of this slump. (She was right.)

After three months of coaching, Miki was back on top, the top fifth recruiter out of about 200.

Well, recently it seems as if Miki’s numbers were sliding again and instead of waiting, she immediately reached out for help.

“Keith, I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, I know we haven’t worked together in about a year and for a while I was doing great! But for some reason, I’m feeling stuck again.”

“I’m glad you reached out as soon as you noticed that something was off. Lets do a quick diagnostic and see how things are running.”

“Sure.”

“So, if you were standing on a 100 foot balcony looking down onto your entire sales process, where do you feel the breakdown is occurring; when attempting to get the appointment, when presenting, closing, or following up?”

“Well, I’m using your template for cold calling and that continually works great so the leads are pretty consistent. And the presentation seems to go just fine. So, I guess closing the sale is where I’m stumbling. If I were to look at what’s taking up my time now, I have a handful of proposals out there waiting to be closed. And the prospects I’m meeting with are just not closing; for whatever reason or excuse they give me. The proposal stage and their decision making process seems to drag on indefinitely.”

“So, you’re getting in front of the right people, you feel that your presentation flows well and that you are doing a good job establishing a rapport and relationship with your prospects. However, you feel that these prospects should be able to make their decision faster as it relates to buying from you or not, is that what I’m hearing?”

“Yes, Keith, that’s right.”

“Miki, in the spirit of exploring every possibility and not to step over anything, are you still using the sales process that we put together?”

“Oh yes, of course!”

“You are. Good. Then lets take a quick look at a few things you’re currently doing. Miki, do you remember when we developed your pre-closing and reconfirmation approach to include at the end of your presentation?”

“Um, yes.”

“Are you still asking those five pre-qualifying questions before you discuss your pricing? You know, those questions that ensure you’ve addressed every concern they have, while confirming that your service is something they can clearly benefit from?

Silence. Then, Miki responded quietly with, “Hmm. No, I forgot about those.”

“Well that’s good news! At least we’ve uncovered one critical step in your process that you’re not currently doing which has proven to be very effective. Once you start asking these questions again, you will notice a big difference in your performance. In addition, you won’t be wasting your time drafting proposals and following up with unqualified prospects who you shouldn’t be following up with in the first place.

And what about the questions we developed to defuse the objections you hear? I know that you were running into the “send me a proposal” and the “I have to talk this over with my board” and the infamous “that’s a lot of money” objection. The rebuttals we developed were squashing and preventing these objections consistently, remember?”

“Yes, I most certainly do remember, Keith. I especially remember that when I used them, these objections weren’t getting in my way! The problem is I totally forget about those rebuttals as well! How weird is that?”

We ended our call a few minutes later after I coached Miki and her memory on what she needed to reconnect with in her selling approach. Not surprisingly, she emailed me a week later about a few sales she was able to close as a result of doing what she needed to do again; the basics. Miki got back to the basics of what made her successful.

Interestingly, while I identified certain things that Miki clearly needed to change for the better, it was nothing she hasn’t tried, created or done successfully before. Her real enemies were success, complacency and time.

Whether we’re in a slump or selling like a pro, when something is always going on we become blind to it. That includes becoming complacent or often blind to the good things in our life as well as the bad. Of course, this does not exclude the productive behavior and actions we take in addition to the unproductive ones. We sometimes forget what has worked for us, what has specifically contributed to our success; the things that have become habitual. And when something becomes a habit, it’s now working in the background of our lives, being done without conscious attention. We no longer have to think about doing them. Therein lies the danger.

Tip from The Executive Sales Coach:
Here’s an elusive diversionary tactic to consider.
If you continually forget everything you’ve learned, then you can always claim that you have adopted and utilized what you’ve learned. And if you continually feel that you’re using everything you’ve read, heard or seen and nothing is working, what a wonderful opportunity to look outside yourself and blame your poor performance on everything except you. After all, you’ve tried and done everything, right? In your mind you have the validation to support such a claim, which is really an excuse in disguise. So, if you forget about it, then you are always right (and never accountable). Get it?
When coaching someone out of a slump who has all of the right components to succeed, most of the time it’s the basics which have been ignored or forgotten that contributed to the breakdown. The basic questions we ask, the presentation we deliver, the process we’ve developed that has successfully worked time and time again. Some how, some way, we get sidetracked, distracted or seduced by something we perceive to be better (or worse), like a new selling strategy or approach, status quo, even our attitude. Consequently, we mistakenly change what was clearly identified as an approach or mindset that was working well.

The next time you experience a selling slump or you feel that sales aren’t coming to you as easily has they once did, go back to the basics. Instead of doubting yourself and your abilities, see what you need to be reminded to do consistently again in your selling approach. Look at the engine that drives your sales. You may notice that the only thing needed may be a quick tune up to enhance your performance. It’s all in your control.

A client of mine called me the other day, sounding all stressed out. She was feeling more pressure to get everything done both at home and at work.She said she keeps a to do list but as you can imagine, there are still things left over that go uncompleted at the end of each day. She felt a sense of achievement only when she was able cross of an item on her to-do list.

A client of mine called me the other day, sounding all stressed out. She was feeling more pressure to get everything done both at home and at work.

She said she keeps a to do list but as you can imagine, there are still things left over that go uncompleted at the end of each day. She felt a sense of achievement only when she was able cross of an item on her to-do list.

She was hard core result driven and we needed a quick redirect in thinking.

“I love that feeling of  crossing something off on my list,” she declared.

“What about the process?” I asked.

“What about it?” she responded. If I cross something off, I know I’m being productive.”

“Do you feel that way during the process?” I inquired.

She did not.

“Take an activity you engage in every day. It could be cold calling, selling or even going to the gym. So, when you go to the gym, once you’ve reached your ideal weight or your ideal sense of well being, do you stop going?”

What if you focused more on the process and the activities that your engaging in on a daily basis. After all isn’t that ultimately what defines you and your lifestyle. What you do each day? Consider this:

Let the action be the reward and not just the end result.  This will enable you to become more process driven rather than result driven. Results are based on action not the other way around.

Evolution if fluid. Time is fluid.  It’s not meant to have a stopping point. Yet we put superficial expectations around our life on ourselves and on others, which builds a wall between where we are now and what we need to break through to get to where we truly want to be; preventing us from engaging in the moment, enjoying the present and mastering each moment in time.
Let The Action Be The Reward

Rather than having the result be your reward, let the action be your reward. Here’s why. Once you have outlined a path and a success formula to follow (For example if you are a salesperson: X # of calls produces X # of prospects which produces X # of sales), allow the doing or the process to be the reward and where the pleasure resides, not just the end result. This way, you can be responsible for your future goals without having to worry about them.

If you continue your quest with your eyes focused on the finish line, you’ll miss out on the journey. Therefore, be careful not to hook yourself onto the future so that you can enjoy the process of reaching your goals today. Knowing when enough is enough each day and the specific activities you need to engage in provides you with the freedom to trust the process you’ve put in place.

After all, there’s always more to do. There’s always more that can be done at the office, at your home or in your life; another call that can be made or another email that can be read. Exceeding your monthly sales quota and maximizing the potential of your team will be the result of the cumulative efforts you make and the activities you engage in every day.

 When you’re mindful of the process, you now have the opportunity to recognize and celebrate your accomplishments on a daily basis (even the little ones) rather than pushing for or waiting until the “End.” (And when does that happen?)