Are you hitting your targets? If not, you aren’t alone: Only an estimated sixty percentof reps hit their quotas.
Sales is a challenging field. At times, it can feel like the odds are stacked against you. After the twentieth unsuccessful cold call or the third canceled meeting, you might be ready to tear your hair out. However, with the right practices, you can drive massive profitsand meet your quotas over and over again.
This post will give you five best practices you can use to drive sales and level up your individual skills in 2023 and beyond.
If you’ve been in the sales game long, you know that change is the only constant. If you want to succeed in sales, you need to keep an eye on shifting industry trends and ensure you aren’t driving away prospects by using outdated tactics and strategies.
So, what are some sales trends for 2023? Here are a few you should keep your eye on:
As an individual sales rep, it can feel like you don’t have much power to leverage trends or drive sales. I beg to differ. The only person responsible for your success in sales is you. You can make a significant difference in your organization and your sales numbers with the right practices.
My number one best practice for driving sales is to master your mindset. Sales can be a challenging industry. You may find yourself struggling to handle rejection and maintain your focus. To overcome this, you must embrace an indomitable mindset.
You can build an indomitable mindset by rejecting things that don’t serve you or your success and focusing instead on:
When you nail down these five focuses, your mindset will be strong enough to overcome any number of rejections or challenges.
You’ll also want to ensure you’re leveraging a one-up mindset. When you have a one-up mindset, you set the conditions for success for yourself by gathering information about your prospect and creating value for your prospect.
In many cases, multitasking is the death of productivity. This hard truth is why organizing your schedule is another best practice that can help you drive sales. The best way to organize your schedule is by utilizing calendar blocking.
You should block out time on your calendar for two types of tasks:
Mastering your calendar and taking charge of your weekly and daily schedule will help you use your time more efficiently, selling more in less time.
Your leadership or management team likely has organization-wide metrics and KPIs they track to keep tabs on the success of the sales team as a whole. You should also track your own, individual sales metrics if you want to drive sales and increase your individual close rates.
When you set personal goals, you can gamify your sales efforts by keeping score and competing with your past self. This practice helps to ensure you’re always improving and growing.
Some metrics you may want to consider tracking include:
The easiest way to find success is by repeating the actions of successful people. This truth is why the fourth best practice on my list for driving sales is to find a mentor.
Is there a more experienced rep or sales leader in your organization who you can approach to ask for guidance, direction, and feedback? If so, this contact could become an invaluable source of knowledge and advice for you.
If you don’t have anyone you can approach for mentorship, you can also learn from the advice of sales professionals in the form of sales books, podcasts, YouTube channels, and more.
The last thing successful sales reps do to drive sales is seek training opportunities. You’ve likely attended a sales training or two in your organization. Perhaps you’ve attended the kind of training where you’re ushered into a conference room, then left four hours later unsure if you’ve gotten any value out of the experience.
This is not the type of training I’m talking about.
Instead, you should seek opportunities, programs, or seminars that can provide you with actionable insights and usable skills.
My Sales Accelerator can help you become your team's revenue growth leader by providing instant access to hundreds of lessons, scripts, and workbooks that can help you level up your mindset, strategies, tactics, and more.
Following these five best practices will help you take your sales to the next level and set you up to be a top performer in your organization. However, best practices alone aren’t enough to help you reach your true sales potential. The only way to make significant strides in your sales goals is to leverage the knowledge and teachings of more experienced sales professionals through training.
I offer a training program for individuals called the Sales Accelerator. This program will teach you the skills, mindset, and insights you need to embrace a modern sales approach and crush your targets.
Check out my Sales Acceleratorand start winning more deals today!