A constant question in sales. The number: how far off are you from reaching your number goal? How complete is your pipeline? Will you make your number, or will you not?
While the goal of every salesperson is or at least should be blowing past your number, I have an excellent remedy to relieve the tension and uncertainty surrounding reaching the number goal.
It is straightforward as most of life, but it requires not just simple discipline, focus, and dedication but doing the challenging tasks consistently and early when you don’t feel like doing the chores.
And that complex task is to start filling that pipeline the moment you clear the decks and book everything you can at year-end. So yes, Q1 is not the time to be relaxing, especially for those who emptied their pipelines and those with long product sales cycles.
It used to be a reasonable pipeline goal that was 3x revenue. That is no easy task and must start on day one. Why? Depending on your territory, you will use various sources to fill this pipeline, probably both customer future needs and prospects’ wants and need.
Start prospecting call write to connect. Just do it and start early. Of course, only some deals close in the timeframe you want, and sometimes you get lucky, and bluebirds fly in. However, it is undisputed that prospecting early with a focused, concentrated effort will reward you next year-end.