“You do these five things, and you’re going to set yourself up for success this year and the year after, and the year after.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 1691
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: We’re doing the countdown of the Top Tips of 2023. Here’s #7:
You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jeff Bajorek is here to help us get going after the first long weekend of the year. Here he is:
Jeff Bajorek: It feels like 2023 got off to a sleepy start this year. It’s almost like no one went back to work until their kids went back to school. But even if it feels like you’re a little behind the eight ball right now in January, there’s still plenty of time to get really good work done. And I’m going to give you five things that you can do right now to make 2023 your best year ever.
First and foremost, I want you to commit to your goal. Chances are, if you’re listening to this, that someone told you what your sales goal was going to be for this year. That means that you may not believe what they told you. Well, you need to believe what they told you. You need to find a way to get behind it, or you need to find a way to negotiate it down to something you believe in. The sale begins and ends with belief, your quota begins and ends with belief. You believe that you can hit it the next year. You’ll believe you can hit it again.
The second thing I want you to do is look into your current accounts and identify potential wallet share increases. Every time I’ve done this, I have recognized that if I need to grow, say, $100,000 this year in revenue, there’s probably 200 or even $300,000 worth of wallet share expansions in my current best accounts that I can go and get. I have the inside track, I have the relationships, I have the access, I have all of those things that are so hard to acquire. But if I’m overlooking those opportunities, I’m making it harder on myself to hit that number. And look, if I only need to grow by 100 grand and there’s 300 grand in new wallet share expansion in my current accounts, I only need to pick off a third of it. When you start looking at it that way, your number looks a lot easier to hit, and that is not a bad thing.
Now, I do want to talk about new logos and new accounts because, look, you can’t grow on existing accounts forever. So we do need to blaze new trails, conquer new lands, so to speak, and certainly win new business. What you need to do with these accounts is identify who are going to be the best ones for you, who are going to be the ones that look closest to your current best accounts, and more on that in a couple of minutes. But make sure this list isn’t just the next thousand people that come up in some software search that you’re using, right? Just because you have a total addressable market doesn’t mean that every single one of those accounts is going to be someone you should pursue. This list should be finite. It should be something you can work on, because you’re going to need to reach these people very regularly, probably more often than you are right now and for a longer period of time than you are. So think about people who are going to resonate with the message that you have, with the problems you solve, and then probably cut that list down by quite a lot, at least for the first quarter’s worth of your outreach.
The fourth thing I want you to do is divide those lists into groups and map out your cadence on the rethink the way you sell podcast in season three. I talked about a five-over-four cadence where you’re reaching out to these accounts at least once a week, five times over a month, or 15 times over a quarter. You’re going to need to map this out and plan it out and know you’re not going to be able to make 100 calls to every single one of these accounts every single day. So be realistic about your outreach, but also recognize that it’s going to have to happen more often and for longer than you’re probably thinking right now. And if you’re in the tech industry selling software to salespeople to people who sit in front of their computers all day, you’re probably going to have to double that cadence. It’s probably going to have to be 15 outreaches over six weeks instead of twelve. It requires a lot of prep work in order to make that kind of a cadence sync.
Now, the last thing that I want you to do, and this is something that is really difficult to do, but it really shouldn’t be, is have a vulnerable conversation with your best customers. Ask them why they bought from you the first time. Ask them why they continue to buy from you. Ask them to be specific. Get vulnerable with them so that they’re willing to be vulnerable with you. And if you’re really feeling frisky, you can ask them if they know someone who might appreciate the same value, or even if they’re willing to make an introduction. The hidden benefit of these kinds of conversations is that when you’re willing to get vulnerable with them, they’re willing to get vulnerable with you, and your relationship grows. Not only do you get brilliant information to be able to go and find others just like them, I mean, like specific language, but everybody grows together, everybody feels better, and that relationship is tightened. You do these five things, and you’re going to set yourself up for success this year and the year after, and the year after.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Jeff, a transcript of this tip, and a sneak preview of something that Jeff is working on along with Mike Simmons, Larry Long Jr., and Scott Leese, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1437. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!