I would be remiss not to mention that 2020 and 2021 were years of challenges and resilience. While we saw plenty of people in our industry find success personally and professionally, we know the journey wasn’t always easy. This pandemic brought the industry to its knees.
Chances are you have made some hard decisions in the last two years. You’ve had difficult conversations with your employees, your vendors, your bank, some conversations that you thought you would never have. Most of us continue to figure out what’s ahead and how to best position ourselves and our businesses to handle it all.
But—we are here—we’ve made it through one of the most difficult times that our industry has seen since the Great Depression in 1929.
Our industry will recover from this crisis—no question about that. We already see the light ahead of us; weddings are back, corporations are slowly returning to their events.
Setting goals
The struggle to make sales goals the best they can be and continue is one that every company faces. As such, developing a plan for sales growth as an ongoing activity can improve your sales and sanity.
A practical, profit-driven sales team is more important now than ever before, with most companies in dire need of recouping the losses from 2020.
You’ll likely need to reevaluate the team’s sales goals and introduce innovative tools, techniques, and strategies to get them on a winning path.
Transform to perform
- Determine your company’s goals. Start with historicals.
- Assess the market potential
- Evaluate your sales team
- Define your compensation structure
- Reward (realistic) stretch goals
- Meet bi-weekly with a salesperson
Ask your salesperson
- How confident are you in your ability to achieve this goal?
- What would it mean to you if you were able to attain these objectives? How can I best manage and support you in achieving these objectives (personally/professionally)?
- How do you prefer to be recognized for a job well done?
- What could jeopardize your attempts to achieve these objectives?
- What kind of framework do you need to put in place to make sure you’re doing the right things every day to help you achieve your goals while avoiding distractions?
- How can I keep you accountable for your goals in a positive way?
Salespeople thrive on structure; they want to know what is expected of them, how they can make more money, and whether it is a fair system.
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The importance of individual sales goals gives your salespeople personalized attention, so they can perform at their peak. Achieving sales volume goals for a business is one of the greatest challenges any owner faces.
Shift accountability to your team
A lot can be said about feeling like one “owns” ones’ work. If your employees don’t feel empowered in your business, they’ll become nothing more than passive order-takers who drop more failures on you than successes. A great leader is one that can delegate work, set expectations, step back, and hold their team members accountable. It’s your responsibility to create a culture where your employees are equally responsible for their successes and failures! Once you do this, your team will be more engaged, and you will have more time to grow your business.
Tracking
A steady stream of revenue is one of the most coveted assets in the business, and the pandemic has made us hyper-aware of this fact. Tracking and accountability is a lot more than holding salespeople responsible for their sales. A sales manager’s job is to coach each sales team member to their fullest potential.
In-depth 1-on-1 sales tracking sessions should be done in person with each salesperson every other week. This conversation takes about 20 to 30 minutes and focuses on goals, pipeline, meetings, and proposals. It is also a way to address issues a salesperson may be facing.
A meeting that neglects to define what achievement looks like and the reasonable action steps expected to arrive there is not a productive use of time. By holding routine meetings, you’ll have the ability to spot issues, such as the following, early on.
- How much money is out on the street in proposals?
- How qualified is the event on a scale of 1–5?
- Where are they in the sales process?
- What’s their definitive next step?
- What’s their current closing ratio?
Employees resign a position when income, culture, degree of difficulty, or management practices are not to the salesperson’s liking. One of the most crucial things a leader can do is motivate their team. Employees who lack direction are more likely to fail and suffer, unclear of what to do next or how to achieve their full potential. While no one can truly motivate others, a good leader may have a significant influence on individuals and support their drive and achievement.
Building a motivated team that actively prospects and sells the brand will be the single most crucial factor for success into 2022 and beyond. This is the perfect time for a fresh start, new concepts, new procedures, and new accountability.
