Why Tactical Sales Execution Will Kill Your Year

Q3 is coming to an end.  With only four months left in the year, your sight is focused on the prize.  You have a good idea about where your individual opportunities stand.  To hit your number, how do you prioritize your efforts as a whole to get the most return? 

Not having the correct sales strategy is one of the largest indicators of missing the number.  SBI research reveals that 39% of the time, sales teams have no strategy at all.  Even with a strategy in place, this is the time that tactical execution starts to eclipse it.  Effort and action take over and planning goes out the window.  Don’t let this happen to you.  A little strategy and focus can go a long way to ensure your energies are rewarded.

Any ‘A’ Player will tell you that opportunity prioritization is a key to success.  You have probably already ranked your accounts on certain criteria.  Is this gut-feel, or is there some science behind it?  Have you refocused your efforts as the end of the quarter…and the year approaches?

Three steps to setting yourself up for success as you round out the year:

1.  Prioritization is all about recognizing the factors that will impact your results.  There can be different inputs depending on your industry and type of sale.  The first key is to identify the factors that are relevant to your situation.  They could be things like:

• Revenue amount
• Probability to close
• Effort to close
• Relationship in the account
• Probability of future revenue
• Customer timeframe to purchase your offering

   

And the list goes on.  Identify the factors that have the highest probability of influencing the deal.  Ensure that your criteria affect all of the open opportunities you have.

2.  The next step is to determine how much each of these factors matter.  Each factor must have a weighting to normalize the opportunities.  For example, how would you prioritize the following situations?

• An opportunity with a high upside but will require a lot of effort to close.
• An opportunity with a lower upside, with a moderate effort to close.
• An opportunity with a low upside, has a low effort to close, and has a high probability of further revenue.

   

There is no set answer unless you know how much each of these factors should weigh.  Utilizing the Avoid Tactical Thrashing Tool makes this a simple process.  Determine the top influencing factors, assign a weighting, and the tool calculates the rest.  If you are working with a team, have each member complete this exercise as well.  The more input available, the better the calculation.

3.  Once you have ranked your opportunities through the algorithm, you can develop tactics.  Focus on the top-scoring opportunities and de-prioritize others.  Determine the timeframe, and what needs to be accomplished.  Create your tactical approach and determine the timeline for each action.  

In a perfect world, we would be able to dedicate as much effort as needed for each opportunity.  Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.  Download the Avoid Tactical Thrashing Tool to maximize your end-of-year efforts.  Use it to prioritize next year’s opportunities as well!