By Jeffery Gitomer
Sales Moves

Every sales person has a quota, and for most, it looms at the end of the month. Figure out a way to make it in your first week instead of your last week.

Quotas are arbitrary numbers mostly set by people who can’t make sales, people who concentrate predominantly on “numbers.”

Most salespeople who can’t make their quota either lack selling skills or a deep belief in what they sell. If this is you, get more skills or change jobs.

You know what to do. So why don’t you do it?

Here are eight reasons why you don’t hit your numbers: (The answers are provided in parenthesis).

1. You don’t know what your numbers really are. (Start backwards: How many prospects does it take to get an appointment? How many appointments does it take to get a sale?)

2. You are not working consistent numbers. (Make time to set appointments and do follow-ups.)

3. You’re on your own and don’t know how to do it. (Poor sales training. Get some soon!)

4. You’re lazy. (Find new employment.)

5. You have poor work habits. (You can change them with thirty days of doing it differently.)

6. You have a bad boss. (This is no reason, or excuse, to fail if you are determined enough to succeed.)

7. You have no or ineffective information documentation. (Get a laptop and do it yourself.)

8. You have a low, poor or unfair compensation package. (Change jobs.)

If you’re struggling to make quota, consider this: Suppose your quota were double and you had to make 25% of your quota each week instead of your whole quota on the last day of the month, which is what you’re doing now. Could you do it?

Sure you could, on one condition. Your pipeline has to have enough prospective sales in there to make that happen. Let’s say your quota is $50,000 a month in sales ($12,500 a week), your commission rate is 10% and your closing ratio is 25%. In order to make your $50,000 quota in a month, you must have $200,000 worth of sales in your pipeline, or at least $50,000 in any given week.

Let’s break it down further. Let’s say it takes you three calls to get one appointment. So if it takes you four appointments to get one sale, it will take you 12 calls to get to one sale. See how easy it is once you break the numbers down? If you’re not lying about your numbers then making your quota is only a matter of filling your pipeline by working your own numbers.

To keep your pipeline full, it boils down to your work ethic and your self-discipline. How good are they? How consistent are they? Without them, you should consider another job, because you won’t make it in sales.

Here are the numbers-rules-of-thumbs to keep your sales pipeline, and your wallet, full:

• Make 10 new prospect calls per day.

• Make 10 new appointments per week, preferably by Monday.

• Make 10 follow-up calls per day.

• Make one strong face-to-face presentation in the morning and one in the afternoon.

• Take prospects or customers to breakfast or lunch four times a week.

• Take your boss to lunch once a week.

• Attend at least one business networking function per week.

Have something memorable to give your prospects, be it new information, good ideas or creative ad specialties, so that they talk about you in a positive way after the meeting.

Oh, and keep detailed sales records in some kind of database. If you don’t record what you do each day, your ability to follow up is nil.

Go back to the best week you ever had and look at the numbers that made it happen. I guarantee if you work those numbers every week, your sales and earnings will soar. All it takes is self-determination and hard work. Oh, that.

Most salespeople don’t make quota because they don’t have enough in their pipeline, and the reason you don’t have enough in your pipeline is because you’re not working hard enough to fill it. If it doesn’t go into the pipe, it’s never going to come out of the pipe. That’s why they call it a pipeline.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling, is president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.

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