I know you are working on ending the year strong. Your sales manager is encouraging you to pull the last couple of deals across the line. But this week, many people will be taking time off to spend with their families and friends, which means your contacts might not be at work on Wednesday and Friday. If this is true for you, it’s a good time to start building your plan to succeed in 2024.
Reflect on 2023
When you have the time, sit down, and reflect on your 2023 successes. Start with the deals you won, something that will help remind you of the positive events that often seem less powerful than the negative ones.
While reflecting on the past year, look at your losses. No, this is not a punishment, reliving the lost deals one more time. Instead, assess each loss and consider what you would do differently in the future. These lessons will help you perform better next year.
What Did You Learn in 2023?
Take the time to make a list of lessons you learned this year and how they will help you in the future. It’s easy to learn something that will improve your results in sales, sales management, or your personal life. This can be difficult if you haven’t written notes when you learn something important.
I have once again learned that large companies tend to have many more problems, often presenting more difficult challenges than smaller clients. I have also learned that sales leaders are still avoiding helping their teams improve their sales effectiveness and win rates. I need to make a better case. What are your challenges and how can you overcome them?
What Do You Need to Learn in 2024?
Every so often, a salesperson will tell me how many years they have been in sales. Most of the time, they have experienced the same year repeatedly. You don’t want the next year to be a repeat of the last unless you’re packing for the President’s Club.
Maybe you need to work on creating greater value in sales conversations. Or perhaps you need to lead your clients by gaining the commitments that prevent stalling or getting stuck. See The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the 10 Commitments That Drive Sales.
If it were up to me, I’d want you to learn to be One-Up, the salesperson who knows more about the client’s decision than they do. Now and in the future, you will need to be an expert on the decisions your contacts make, not just an expert on your company and your solution. See Elite Sales Strategies: A Guide to Being One-Up, Creating Value, and Becoming Truly Consultative.
Your Goals and Ambitions
With these first few prompts out of the way, meditate on your 2024 goals and ambitions. You don’t want to wait until the year starts to identify what you want to accomplish, both professionally and personally.
Aim for three major goals. When people list many goals, they often fail due to a lack of time, energy, and attention. Having more goals isn’t better than accomplishing the few that will transform you in a meaningful way.
Eat Their Lunch
I’m not sure what happened, but suddenly, Eat Their Lunch has surged back into popularity. The research is clear that there will be less demand for everything in the next two decades.
I wrote Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition in 2017 and published it in 2018. The book did quite well, and the renewed interest now means some sales leaders and reps are starting to recognize the need to displace competitors and steal their dream clients.
Eat Their Lunch is unique. It is a book about competition and value creation. Because of the high interest, we will provide a master class on the strategies found in this book. My experience in sales was, and still is, selling a commodity. I was lucky to sell a commodity, as it taught me to differentiate myself in sales conversations, the secret to my success in sales, and the education I needed to do what I do now.
You Need Time to Get Ready for 2024
On Wednesday and Friday, do your best to start preparing for the next year, and seize the opportunity to start fresh. The only thing you should want to repeat is not repeating last year. Even if you only have an hour to start working on 2024, the head start is worth it.
If you want help improving your sales results, take advantage of this new offering called the 107 Club.
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