In our previous posting, we identified that most companies forget to build any “execution” into their business plans, financial plans, marketing plans, and sales plans.  Most sales and marketing professionals are very good at telling others what they want to do and hope to do, but terrible at telling others what they are going to do and when it is going to be completed. So, let’s develop your execution plan to merge with your other plans for next year.

Including Others: Nobody likes having a list of things handed to them to do and being given goals that seem unachievable.  You need to include the people that will be completing the necessary activities in this planning process.  It will help you understand what their capabilities are, identify the potential skills gaps are for you to invest in training or hiring another person, and it will help everyone understand what you are trying to accomplish and what their roles will be.

Setting Goals: We will start with the end in mind by first setting a goal of what exactly needs to be accomplished. What does success look like when we look back at the end of the year? Do you have a financial goal or a non-financial goal for next year? Are you targeting a specific sales goal (as an organization or individually) or do you want to launch a new product/service, hire a key employee, buy a new piece of equipment, build an inbound marketing function, enter a new market, on board a number of new customers, or break ground on your new building?  It does not matter what the goal is, but you need one, upon which, to align all of your resources and activities.

Reverse Engineer Success: Picture the instructions you laid out in front of you this past weekend to assemble that new TV stand, mount the stand alone wine rack, or install that kitchen sink faucet.  What are the key things that have to happen in order for you to get this done? What are the milestones that have to be met and what are the deadlines?  What tools do you need? What needs to happen step by step to get the job done?

Example 1: Let’s use an example of gaining 10 new clients next year: If your close ratio is 10%, you will have to pitch to 100 targeted prospects. If only 50% of your prospects let you pitch to them, then you will need 200 targets to meet with.  If only 50% of targets meet with you, then you will need 400 targets. If only 50% of prospect turn into targets, then you will need 800 prospects……See where this is going? You will need to look deeper then at how many leads you need, where those leads are going to come from, and how you are going to reach them. You also may want to look at the quality of leads you are chasing to be more efficient.

Example 2: How about hiring that new key employee as an example.  We will assume that you are not going to hire someone first and then start to find business to keep them busy and pay for them.  Define how much additional business you need for that position to add value to your efforts and then plan the steps that it will take in reverse order to get there.

Assign Duties/Accountability: Go back to our goal of gaining 10 new clients.  We now understand how many leads we need and maybe where they are going to come from. But however, we have not created the plan to contact them and convert them into clients. What are those key activities that need to be completed? How are we going to market to these leads? Who is going to contact these leads? How are we going to contact them?  When are we going to contact them? What happens if we don’t contact them? What is going to prevent us from contacting them?  Having your sales team develop their own plans will help keep them focused on what they need to do and help identify what support will be needed to keep them doing the right activities.

Develop Leading Indicator Metrics: Most sales management efforts are still like using a rear view mirror to drive forward.  Just tracking the activity from last week is not going to help you but looking at the results from last week will….and make them public for all to see! Again, go back to our goal of gaining 10 new clients.  Everything sales people do should be focused on growing their sales funnels and moving opportunities through their sales funnels…..that’s it!  Anything else needs to take a back seat, be automated, or be delegated to a support role.  With this in mind, how many meetings does the sales person need to have with “new” prospects per week?  How many new opportunities do we need to identify per week?  How many pitches do we need to make per month?  Focus on the metrics that will guarantee success based on your numbers.  If they are not met, then you can start asking questions about what is not happening based on best practices/training and what needs to be changed (coaching 101).

Release the Hounds:  No time like the present.  One useful line I remember from one of my coaches was “Every day that passes is an opportunity lost”.  So there is no time like the present to start focusing on what you need to do today to ensure your success in the future.  If you have a 6 month sales cycle and you do nothing today to grow or move opportunities in your funnel, guess what you can guarantee six months from now?

Execution will be the key to achieving your goals next year and following years.  If you need help developing an execution plan or if you would like a copy of our Integrated Sales and Marketing Calendar to help keep everyone on task and on time, please contact us and we’ll get a copy of it to you.