Sep '19 Selling.2.YES

September 2019

What kind of a year did you have?

For the most part, the “selling year” is over for most of us... by now you know what kind of year you’re having. But if you only judge your year through a financial lens, you'll limit your potential for short and long term career success. To continue growing, you’ll need to take stock of the year in a serious way by completing a skill development appraisal on yourself!

You might feel fantastic about this year if you grew your patch in a significant way – and certainly you’ll feel giddy when the accompanying commission check arrives – but if you want your personal arrow going up and to the right year after year after year, you have to reflect on this past year and understand the correlation between your actions and the results you achieved.

The best news here is this exercise I recommend is really simple. It takes some thought, and perhaps some editing, but it only requires you to complete three specific sections. So when you’re ready to focus your thoughts on your skill performance this year, open a blank doc on your laptop, and write across the top, “How I Did in 2019”. Then, write these three topics down…

1. What am I most proud of?
Write down anything that you want that comes to mind regarding your achievements in 2019. Certainly you can start with things like, "I exceeded my goal by 19%", but ultimately you'll want to focus on your performance, not just your results.

Was it an expert sales move – some sort of a technique or approach that you applied on an account that you moved the needle? Or was it a particular account you developed methodically and smartly? What about a big obstacle that you overcame at work (…some kind of a thumb-in-the-eye obstacle you removed through calculated actions)? It is entirely up to you what you choose to claim as the things you are most proud of throughout 2019. Now is the time to enthusiastically pat yourself on the back! Be proud…go ahead and list everything that makes you smile.

2. Which of my skills improved the most?
Write down as many skills that you can think of which you saw improvement and growth during the year. To help, here are some skills you may want to think about for your list: qualifying, negotiating, probing, objection handling, and perhaps a bunch of good communication skills like verbal, email, listening. Feel free to also list traits…how about empathy and patience to name a couple? Be as specific as you can in terms of when and where these skills (and traits) moved the needle…on what accounts did you use these skills? …with which individual clients were you more empathetic thus developing deeper engagement and personal trust?

And certainly, don’t limit your appraisal to external customers….what about your internal customers with whom you work inside the walls of your company each day? Here in this section you should focus on the exact skills (and habits) that yielded positive results and achievement. (Hint: if you’re having trouble completing this section, you probably weren’t focused during the year on how your specific skills drove results. Sorry to say, but your success this past year was not because of your good looks and charm!) It's quite okay if you haven't been thinking consistently of how your skills drove results, but think of how much more success you could have had with increased concentration on your skills! And this is why we're doing the exercise now!

3. What could I have done better?
Now that your thoughts are flowing it’ll be easy to waive the magic wand and go back in time for some “do-overs”. If you had the chance to have “that meeting” again, what would you do differently? If you could re-do that part of the conversation with your key client back in April, how could you improve upon it? Again, be specific here. Do you see trends? Are there patterns of your behaviors and actions that reveal development areas that you need to address? Of course, you can’t turn the clock back, but thinking about the chance for do-overs gives you insights to developmental focus areas for next year.

* * * *

Clients who take this task seriously ask me the same thing: “how long should each of these sections be?” My answer is always the same, “first, it depends how many insights you can reference, and two, success is based on how honest you are with yourself”. It's not better if you write more; it’s great that you’re doing the exercise! It’s even greater if your appraisal is specific and helpful to your insight on how to work on your skills.

To do the exercise properly, it might take you three or four edits of the doc over the next few months...which is why you’ll want to start it now. Start it today, put it aside for a week….rinse/repeat. It may help reviewing your 2019 calendar to remember specific sales meetings, as well as interactions with customers, peers and managers.

As you see, this exercise does not address what you’re going to do about this insight…that comes later. Let’s just start with writing down some honest thoughts and having the courage to appraise your year in terms that will help you have another good year!

Good luck. And as usual, reach out if you want to chat ([email protected])!

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Selling.2.YES

September 2019

What kind of a year did you have?

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