Disciplines & Distractions: 3 Simple Disciplines to Overcome Year End Distractions

During the month of December, most sales representatives are too focused on hitting their sales goals for the year. To do this, many reps often apply more transactional selling to get the job done, as a short-term solution with little emphasis on customer needs. I feel that December is an ideal month to begin planning for 2018 and into 2020 by setting goals, conducting an ideal profitable analysis and scheduling consultative business review meetings with your customers.

Here are 3 simple customer-focused Disciplines that you can use to overcome work-related Distractions, and help you prepare for the new sales year.

1. 3-Year & 1-Year Goals:

Distraction: Your boss or your customers are too focused on the NOW and achieving sales goals for the current year that it becomes your focus too. They aren’t thinking of how to strategize to achieve their goals in the new year and beyond.

Discipline: Do not wait until January to strategically plan your goals – the time is now! Block the time within your schedule to plan your goals for 2018 and even 2020, and next year at this time you won’t have to worry about this distraction.

2. Ideal Profitable Analysis:

Distraction: You may have many customers that you oversee, even some that are fastidious. This may leave you feeling too busy to complete an Ideal Profitable Analysis, which can help you to determine the customers that provide the best return on your invested time.

Discipline: Pull all of your client sales reports for the past 2 years to complete an Ideal Profitable Analysis. It only takes 1-2 hours to complete, and it is so worth the time! You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to identify where you should be spending most of your time, and who you want to do more business with in 2018 and 2020.

3. Business Review Meetings with Top Clients:

Distraction: One distraction that we all face is the build-up of emails we receive. Plus, it can take several back-and-forth email communications to reach a final answer.

Discipline: This is an ideal time to schedule business review meetings with your top customers. Don’t rely on email to talk about performance and deliverables. Business review meetings provide an excellent opportunity for you to be consultative by asking great questions and offering solutions to help your customers accomplish their KPI’s and future sales goals.

In a competitive sales environment, there will always be a number of distractions to face, but these can be overcome by establishing customer-focused sales disciplines. How will you implement these 3 easy strategies to finish out the year on the right foot, so that you and your customers get off to a fast start in 2018?