The final quarter of 2018 begins in a few days.
For all intents and purposes, 2018 sales performance is baked in. There is little you are going to be able to do right now to level jump sales unless you made bold strategy executions a year ago.
Unless you make decisive action soon, 2019 will be largely baked in as well.
Dramatically drive sales in 2019.
Development and adoption of any sales acceleration strategy take time and commitment.
It also takes time to play out.
Take your sales talent for example. If you committed to adopting a sales personality test coupled with a job benchmark and sales hiring scorecard, it would take at a minimum of 6-9 months to see a meaningful bottom-line impact.
Consider:
- Selection / Hiring - It takes 2-3 months to advertise, interview, select and hire the best sales talent.
- Onboarding - It takes 3-6 months to onboard that sales hire to "cruising altitude".
If you intend to level-jump sales in 2019, what you do RIGHT NOW matters.
Keep in mind that Sales Wolves - those who consistently sell in the top 20th percentile producing 80 percent of sales - typically onboard much faster than non-Sales Wolves.
Sales Talent is not enough. You also need to ensure your salespeople are adopting sales systems best practices like CRM, scripting, time management, etc. This cannot be optional.
Your sales team also must operate in a sales culture of accountability.
If you only focused on just one strategy.
The single, most impactful sales performance improvement strategy is to select, hire, onboard and coach the best-of-the-best salespeople - Sales Wolves.
Sales Wolves are the precious few salespeople who possess the talent and the mindset to consistently perform in the top 20th percentile. I recommend filling your sales team with Sales Wolves.
Adopt a Sales Wolf selection/hiring strategy. Then layer in solid sales systems and you will increase your potential to dramatically improve sales in 2019.
Keep in mind... Every every single non-Sales Wolf on your team...
- Represents missed sales revenue and margins.
- Is constitutionally unable and/or unwilling to follow essential sales systems.
- Dilutes your sales culture.
- Damages Customer Value.
Decide.
Take bold action. Do it right now.
"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt.
