Set Up 2023 for Sales Success

As I prepare for my 2023 sales kickoff events with clients, I’m noticing a lot of common themes in my recommendations. These are things that should be revisited regularly but are often taken for granted.

If you invest the time (and the thought) in these elements, and if you’re disciplined in your execution, 2023 will likely be the best year you’ve ever had.

Identify and commit to your goal

Most of you reading this are told what your quota is going to be for the year, so that’s not much of an issue. Some of you are even able to negotiate it down a little bit, which is a feat in and of itself.

Most importantly, you need to be able to commit to it, and believe that you can attain it. So many sales reps dismiss their annual expectations right off the bat and are disengaged for the rest of the year. That’s no way to do your best work.

Start the year off right. Believe in your ability to hit that number, and commit yourself to achieving it.

Dig into your current accounts and identify potential

One of my favorite exercises every January was always to run through my top-performing accounts and look for potential wallet share expansion. I knew where they were buying from me and where there was still opportunity. New products would become available, and I’d already have a list of potential users. This becomes a pool of accessible revenue that is a lot easier to win than it would be from complete strangers.

This simple exercise is often overlooked. Don’t skip it. Seeing a number in black and white on paper is a reality check that will often make you feel better about hitting that number you just committed to. At the very least, it’ll lay the groundwork for what you need to do outside of this list.

Don’t have current customers? Do you start from scratch every year? There’s a special place in sales heaven for people like you. Just move along to the next section.

Create a list of potential accounts

Even if you can make your number this year from current account management, that won’t be sustainable for more than a year or two. You have to plant seeds that can grow into profitable, fulfilling customer relationships for years to come. That means you have to identify people you know you can help.

There’s more to this exercise than just sorting through data and filtering a list from a computer program. It’s easy to get carried away and make these lists too long. That means you won’t be able to work them with any consistency or follow-through.

My friend Mike Weinberg stresses this in New Sales. Simplified. “Your target list must be finite, focused, written, and workable.”

In short, there are limits to your new business development efforts, and you’d better get real with them very quickly. There are a lot of sales reps who are pie-in-the-sky thinkers at the beginning of the year, especially when they think about some new tool that’s going to help them sell at scale.

Do you realize what you’re scaling? How are you going to sell effectively to 1000 people at a time when it’s a challenge to be consistent with 10?

This becomes particularly poignant when you realize how often you must reach out to your prospects to gain real momentum in your process. Most sellers give up after the second or third call or message. To make matters worse, those calls are often two weeks apart.

Current research says you need to be prepared to reach out 10-15 times over the course of a quarter. If you’re selling a tech solution, your cadence should be double. Most of you reading this aren’t prepared for that amount of messaging, let alone an enormous amount of leads.

List your most valuable target accounts, those you believe would be the best fit for your solutions. Cut that list off after 20. Anything beyond that can wait until next quarter when you do this exercise again. If you put these 20 into a five-over-four cadence, along with prospecting into your current accounts, you’ll be revving a nice engine for growth.

If you’re one of those sales angels that only tackles brand-new business opportunities, your number will likely be higher than 20. 40 is a good place to start, but anything over 80 would draw my suspicion. Unless you’re in a highly specialized role with a ton of tech support, it’s really hard to consistently follow through with prospecting processes for that many contacts for an extended period of time.

Divide your lists into groups and map out your cadence

I’m a visual learner, so I like seeing things laid out in front of me. It’s helpful to see how things look in real life. It gives you a different perspective on the amount of work you’re signing up for, as well as where it all fits.

If you’ve got 20, or even 40, accounts to call on to grow this quarter, with the cadences I’ve referenced in the past, that’s ten calls a day you’ll be making. It doesn’t sound like much until those calls yield meetings, research, proposals, more meetings, etc. Essentially, that work creates more work, so don’t sell it short!

All of this work can be done in a couple of hours

Do it on your own, or spend some time in your next team meeting to give your team the space to do it. It’s important.

While it’s not the sexiest of activities, this is the hard work that most sellers won’t do that will make the rest of the selling much easier. I know you’re rearing to go, and you want to be as productive as possible as quickly as possible, but let’s make sure all of those efforts are most likely to pay off.

Speaking of things that really pay off…

Have a vulnerable conversation with your best customers

This is coming up time and time again with my clients. It’s so simple that it’s easily overlooked.

Ask your best clients why they do business with you. I’ve outlined this conversation several times, most recently right after Thanksgiving. The framework is there; you just need to be willing to do the work.

This brief conversation has a couple of immediately tangible benefits.

• First, you realize what’s most important to your most important clients. You’ll learn where to spend more time, as well as where you can spend a lot less (this should be a real eye-opener).

• Second, you get ideal messaging to find clients just like them. In a time when your messaging needs to be sharper than ever, don’t overlook this bona fide shortcut.

• Third, if you lead the conversation right, it’s a slam dunk to ask for referrals and introductions on the tail end of it. Selling doesn’t need to be as hard as you’re making it.

• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, conversations like these depend on the relationships you have with your customers. Nobody loses. Ever.

It’s a beautiful thing. Try it.