Hellooooo January....3 Things! |
Your Annual Skill Check-up. |
Hellooooo January...3 Things!
It’s agreed; January can be a ‘female dog’. This article will not pander nor rationalize, it will offer a simple plan that guarantees you get off to a good start this month. We’ve all had a good rest, but it’s time to hit it hard again. Good news for you: do the following three things this month and you will set up strongly for a productive year.
1. Get on the phone. No matter if you manage managers, or manage sales personnel, or manage a book of business….pick up the phone and call your clients. Be that maniacal salesperson that is deep inside you and start calling your clients…ALL of them. Old and new. Ask them how the break was. Ask where they went on vacation. Ask what happened at CES or if they’re going to SXSW. Whatever you do, just get on the phone. Everyone is waking up this month so you might as well take advantage of it and get on the phone. In so doing, you’ll probably get on their calendar and you might even get an assignment (a verbal RFP would be nice, eh?). Research shows most business buyers are 84.9% more apt to pick up the phone and have a small chat in the first few weeks of January then in other months. (Don’t ask for the source of this research - just pick up the phone, someone on the other end will answer!) One more note: “get on the phone” does not mean send emails.
2. Install a review process for the year. If you already have a system set in place, then that’s great, your job now is to promote the expectations and communicate how the process will work to your team. Get your peeps thinking as early as possible in the month about what the quarterly expectations are so the month of January doesn’t slip away into a black hole. On the other hand, if you have nothing formally planned on the books, then draft your rules, create your tools, and communicate the process to everyone. The point is to start communicating clearly and early in the year about performance expectations. (Core 6 Management Advisors has time-tested methods and tools for both account and individual skill review methods that are proven to work…give a call if you need help.)
3. Create January goals. You probably have Q1 and perhaps even 2015 revenue (and non-rev) goals set, but if not, GET THOSE OUT ASAP. (Someone once said a rep without a quota is like a day without sunshine…or something like that.) Set some additional goals just for January that focus on behaviors and actions. Engage your group and team and make it democratic. Make the process and some of the goals fun. Try to make them reasonable to reach because you want folks around you to feel successful early in the year. Establish some individual and group goals. Whatever you do, get some January goals written down and then bring in some pizza on February 1 when ya hit ‘em all!
Of our 365 opportunities to be professionally productive this year, delete 104 of them for weekends. Then, take out another 6 for various holidays, and perhaps another 15 for vacation and sick days and we’re left with 230 days of productivity in 2015 (give or take). January has 20 full business days that is equal to 9% of the year, etc., etc. You get the point. Make January work!
Happy New Year.
1. Get on the phone. No matter if you manage managers, or manage sales personnel, or manage a book of business….pick up the phone and call your clients. Be that maniacal salesperson that is deep inside you and start calling your clients…ALL of them. Old and new. Ask them how the break was. Ask where they went on vacation. Ask what happened at CES or if they’re going to SXSW. Whatever you do, just get on the phone. Everyone is waking up this month so you might as well take advantage of it and get on the phone. In so doing, you’ll probably get on their calendar and you might even get an assignment (a verbal RFP would be nice, eh?). Research shows most business buyers are 84.9% more apt to pick up the phone and have a small chat in the first few weeks of January then in other months. (Don’t ask for the source of this research - just pick up the phone, someone on the other end will answer!) One more note: “get on the phone” does not mean send emails.
2. Install a review process for the year. If you already have a system set in place, then that’s great, your job now is to promote the expectations and communicate how the process will work to your team. Get your peeps thinking as early as possible in the month about what the quarterly expectations are so the month of January doesn’t slip away into a black hole. On the other hand, if you have nothing formally planned on the books, then draft your rules, create your tools, and communicate the process to everyone. The point is to start communicating clearly and early in the year about performance expectations. (Core 6 Management Advisors has time-tested methods and tools for both account and individual skill review methods that are proven to work…give a call if you need help.)
3. Create January goals. You probably have Q1 and perhaps even 2015 revenue (and non-rev) goals set, but if not, GET THOSE OUT ASAP. (Someone once said a rep without a quota is like a day without sunshine…or something like that.) Set some additional goals just for January that focus on behaviors and actions. Engage your group and team and make it democratic. Make the process and some of the goals fun. Try to make them reasonable to reach because you want folks around you to feel successful early in the year. Establish some individual and group goals. Whatever you do, get some January goals written down and then bring in some pizza on February 1 when ya hit ‘em all!
Of our 365 opportunities to be professionally productive this year, delete 104 of them for weekends. Then, take out another 6 for various holidays, and perhaps another 15 for vacation and sick days and we’re left with 230 days of productivity in 2015 (give or take). January has 20 full business days that is equal to 9% of the year, etc., etc. You get the point. Make January work!
Happy New Year.
Your Annual Skill Check-up.
Just as the article “Time To Assess Your Financial Fitness" in the January 2 NY Times grabs our attention, so too should we pay attention to our individual professional skill set and where we stand. Now at the year’s beginning is a good time for a diagnostic check on your skill set, and more importantly, your plan to further develop your learnings.
To say our world is fast and competitive is an understatement, which means there’s always room for more individual skill development and more learning about how best to perform.
Just like medicine or the tax code, skill development is an enormous subject, yet the point of our discussion now is to encourage and stimulate your thinking regarding the subject, not to solve it all (impossible anyway). In that light, here is a brief primer you can apply to begin your thought process about your personal skill development plan*:
1. What are the specific skills needed to perform strongly in your current job in 2015? (Be sure to think hard about those skills you didn't need last year but definitely will need this year.) List as many as you think are relevant, and then rank them by importance. (It’s ok to equally rank a skill.)
2. How would you rate your abilities per each skill? (To go further, you may think of those you know in similar jobs and think about how you compare.)
3. What support or training can you expect from your Manager or company regarding your development areas? What are things you can do on your own to continue your learning?
4. What are the skills necessary for the job you desire after you perfect the one you currently have? (If you do not know what those skills are, then you have some research to do to better understand whether that’s the next and best job for you.)
The discussion surrounding individual skill development is a very broad and complex subject. Yet the odds are most of us aren’t constantly thinking about our plan to develop our skills. And of course, the worst trap is thinking that we will naturally evolve and learn as we go. Real skill development first requires thought, then the development of a plan, and then the work itself.
* Oh yes, it would be very easy to slap an acronym against this catch phrase: personal skill development plan. But based on the author’s sincere and deep passion for this subject, there will be no such degradation applied here.
To say our world is fast and competitive is an understatement, which means there’s always room for more individual skill development and more learning about how best to perform.
Just like medicine or the tax code, skill development is an enormous subject, yet the point of our discussion now is to encourage and stimulate your thinking regarding the subject, not to solve it all (impossible anyway). In that light, here is a brief primer you can apply to begin your thought process about your personal skill development plan*:
1. What are the specific skills needed to perform strongly in your current job in 2015? (Be sure to think hard about those skills you didn't need last year but definitely will need this year.) List as many as you think are relevant, and then rank them by importance. (It’s ok to equally rank a skill.)
2. How would you rate your abilities per each skill? (To go further, you may think of those you know in similar jobs and think about how you compare.)
3. What support or training can you expect from your Manager or company regarding your development areas? What are things you can do on your own to continue your learning?
4. What are the skills necessary for the job you desire after you perfect the one you currently have? (If you do not know what those skills are, then you have some research to do to better understand whether that’s the next and best job for you.)
The discussion surrounding individual skill development is a very broad and complex subject. Yet the odds are most of us aren’t constantly thinking about our plan to develop our skills. And of course, the worst trap is thinking that we will naturally evolve and learn as we go. Real skill development first requires thought, then the development of a plan, and then the work itself.
* Oh yes, it would be very easy to slap an acronym against this catch phrase: personal skill development plan. But based on the author’s sincere and deep passion for this subject, there will be no such degradation applied here.
* Selling.2.YES...why the name?
Everyone has their funny names they designate for companies, pets, girlfriends, etc., and certainly "Selling.2.YES" might raise some eyebrows too. The title of the newsletter is derived from one of my favorite mantras: to qualify as a true professional seller, you must have the ability to turn a "no" into a "yes". Only when you as a sales person can show that you can fight through obstacles are you able to proclaim that you are indeed, a sales professional, a designation reserved for those truly worthy. Selling.2.YES is merely a play on that concept representing that the true professional rep is someone who knows all aspects of selling in order to get to the order! Selling.2.YES. Fun, eh? Or maybe not. You're free, of course to decide, or write me. But I'm sticking with it! -MH