The sales industry continuously evolves, and the most successful salespeople grow with it. One vital part of this evolution is setting goals for the new year.
New Year’s Day is the perfect time to start learning new skills and refining old ones, creating an effective action plan for the upcoming year.
In this article, we’ll share five practical New Year’s resolution ideas for salespeople to help you develop personally and professionally in the upcoming year.
1. Improve time management
Working in sales can quickly become overwhelming, from prospecting and lead qualification to cold-calling and client meetings. Without an organized approach, it’s easy to get behind on customer follow-ups or let priority tasks fall through the cracks. Proper time management techniques can provide a healthy structure amid chaos.
Tips to achieve this goal
Here are some time-saving principles you can use to declutter your professional life and make it a happy new year:
Limit email checking. Many salespeople keep their email open 24/7 and constantly switch between it and the task at hand. This habit is distracting and counterproductive. Limiting your email checks to two or three times daily lets you stay focused and keep your mind organized.
Stick to one task at a time. You may think that making a follow-up call while drafting an email to a different client makes you more productive. However, Asana found that app switching led to missed deadlines, wasted time, duplicate work and loss of focus. Sticking to one task at a time is better for your workload and brain.
Schedule your day. Prioritize activities, reserve enough time for each task, avoid stretching yourself too thin and maintain a healthy work-life balance (more on that later).
Applying these tips will make it easier to succeed in sales this year and beyond.
2. Simplify your sales activities
A more productive year means a more efficient sales cycle, and one way to increase efficiency is by streamlining your sales activity goals. Sales cycles that include 10 to 15 steps can likely be trimmed.
Tips to achieve this goal
As a first step, ask yourself:
Which activities matter most to deal progress?
Can I simplify any of my activity goals?
Can I combine any of these activities?
Focusing on the essentials will shorten your sales cycle while maintaining or improving your close ratio. It will also reduce ambiguities in your sales process, making things clearer at the start of the year.
3. Know your customers better
Many personal goals for the New Year involve relationships. The same should hold true for salespeople. Converting a prospect into a customer often relies on the strength of the seller-buyer relationship, which hinges on how well the seller knows the customer.
Build that relationship through consultative selling, which centers on creating lasting, meaningful customer connections.
Note: Advances in technology have made connecting with customers easier in many ways. For example, you can now hop on a Zoom call for face-to-face interactions instead of waiting for in-person opportunities.
Tips to achieve this goal
To get to know your customers better this year, approach each conversation with the mindset that prospects are people. Converting them into customers involves understanding their motivations, objections and desires.
Ask the right questions and actively listen to the prospect’s answers. Find out their priorities, what matters to them and how they define success. When possible, get insights into their personal lives so the connection goes deeper than work.
Active listening will help you develop a trusting rapport and better understand customer needs.
One prospect’s reasons for buying (or not buying) will often differ from another’s, and what worked with your last customer may not work for your new one. The better you know the customer, the better you can tailor your solution to their unique situation.
Want to Learn How to Influence Your Prospect’s Buying Decisions?
4. Understand what’s working and where you can improve
If you’re serious about increasing productivity in the new year, you must know why a sale happened the way it did. The more you understand the “why”, the easier it is to quantify wins and losses.
Tips to achieve this goal
Getting a better understanding of sales involves both analyzing numbers and talking to people. These strategies work best:
Study the metrics. Sales is a numbers game, which means analytics are vital. Before a campaign starts, analyze which products, buyers, sellers and markets will likely yield results. After the campaign ends, gather internal data (and client information where available) to ensure you understand what went right (or wrong) and why.
Record and listen to calls. Sometimes, a spontaneous idea on a call can be the perfect solution to a company or client problem. Record calls to ensure you don’t lose those great ideas and use them as a resource when you’re stuck.
Talk to colleagues. Your coworkers working in the trenches are an invaluable resource for insights. Bounce ideas off each other and brainstorm to improve campaigns and learn new sales skills.
Ask the customer. Interview past prospects to see why you won or lost deals. Knowing why your target audience did or didn’t make a purchase will help you create more effective sales strategies.
Gather as much information as possible to make this year’s campaigns successful.
5. Focus on work-life balance
Modern employees have prioritized overall well-being, with a renewed focus on self-care and work-life balance. Setting better boundaries can help you stay healthy, avoid burnout and meet personal objectives.
Tips to achieve this goal
Restoring this balance doesn’t have to be a dramatic process. Take small steps to manage stress while prioritizing physical and mental health. For example:
Avoid checking email after work hours unless it’s an absolute emergency.
Take time away from the screen for a half-hour walk during the day.
Check in with friends, family members and loved ones via text or social media. A reasonable amount of scrolling and screen time helps you stay connected.
Listen to a podcast unrelated to work or a personalized music playlist.
Get the recommended eight hours of sleep per night.
Note: Set goals outside of work to ensure you invest in your personal life. For example, support personal interests by making time for a new hobby.
Give your self-improvement goals a fresh start by breaking last year’s bad habits. Positive changes to your personal growth will also help you become a better and more effective salesperson in the next year.
Final thoughts
New Year’s resolutions focus on goal-setting, and so does sales. If you’ve been procrastinating these changes, use the tips above to boost your personal and professional resolutions.
The key to good resolutions is going into the new year with the right mindset – one of intention and specific plans. Prioritizing measurable outcomes will help you succeed, whatever time of year you start.
