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Guest post by: Lee Salz Become an Author

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The beginning of the calendar year marks a relationship milestone between sales people and their managers. It's the issuance of annual quotas! One by one, sales people meet with their managers and are assigned their annual goals. With a handshake and hope, each sales person sets out on a New Year quest for success, but something is missing from this recipe. When we talk about the attributes of great sales people, one of the items at the top of the list is "goal-oriented" inferring that these people run through walls to meet targets. While we say that, we don't connect all of the dots necessary to leverage the true power of this attribute.

At one of the spectrum is an annual quota and, at the other end, is a hard working sales person. But, where is the bridge connecting these? In most cases there isn't one, but rather both management and sales people keep their fingers crossed hoping that the hard work translates into quota achievement. Sometimes that works, but not often enough for sales leaders (or their sales people) to sleep well at night.

The missing element is what I call a Sales Success Plan Model. This model shows the sales person the key actions with corresponding activity levels that leads to quota achievement. The model addresses:

•Average sale size

•Number of sales needed to achieve revenue quota

•Number of proposals to generate a sale

•Number of meetings to generate a proposal

•Number of leads to generate a meeting

Given your organization, I'm sure you have more to add to the list. The activity levels are assigned to weeks of the year so that the "goal-oriented sales person" has a clear focus of what needs to be done and when...leading to the achievement of the annual goal.

"If I get 4 meetings with new prospects per week, I'll have 2 proposals out and I'll will win one. I do that, I hit my numbers for the year...and that new car is mine!"

Before you present quotas to your sales people, prepare Sales Success Plan Models which create roadmaps to achieve the goals. Use your CRM and reporting systems to make sure your sales people stay on track for success.

See you next time on the Sales Management Minute.

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