For those of you who track your sales activity (an admittedly small group), now is a great time to analyze the activity you collected last year to determine if your current level activity will get you to the undoubtedly higher goals that you have set this year. Is your closing rate high enough? Are you scheduling enough appointments? At the current rate of uncovering qualified opportunities will you be able to write enough business to meet the goal if your current close rate holds? Is your average sales high enough? You should have enough data to answer all of these questions (if you don’t that is a whole other issue and you should start collecting the data).
If the analysis shows that you will not be able to hit the goals for this year at the current activity level, you will have to make some changes. Here are some possible remedies:
• Make more calls and talk to more people
• Qualify harder to eliminate quoting deals you know you have a low probability of winning.
• Stop calling on smaller clients to increase your average sales and increase the time you have to work with more profitable prospects.
• Improve your sales skills by reading a book, getting a coach or taking a course.
• Do all of the above.
