Adding the How to Your Sales Goals

(Blog #16 in the ongoing series derived from a book Harris DeWese wrote several years ago—“A Year of Selling Profitably.”)

In my previous blog post, I asked you to write four to six sales objectives for the balance of this year. Perhaps you already had those objectives and you were committed to achieving them. If so, I hope you wrote them out again and recommitted to them.

Remember, the objectives had to be quantifiable.

You may have wondered why I only asked for just a handful of objectives. Most of us mere mortals can only remember (put our arms around) a few objectives.

The fewer the objectives, the more apt you are to attain them. I learned that the hard way (like so many things that I have learned over my long and painful life). When I was young and actually had energy, I committed to more than 60 objectives for the year. My boss laughed at me and implied that by June 1st I would be a complete basket case and ready for a strait jacket.

Well, of course, I laughed back at him for challenging my ambition.

On February 1st, I waved good bye to him as the guys in white jackets came to give me strong sedative and gently place my quivering body in the back of an ambulance. I can still see my boss holding my plan in one hand and waving good bye with the other.

Now that I’ve made the point about limiting your objectives to a few attainable targets, I want to discuss the methods for pursuing the objectives. Those methods are called “strategies.”

Strategy is one of those words that big-shot CEOs, consultants and MBA professors like to throw at us. They try to make the word seem to be something exotic. If not exotic and complicated, then sexy.