Yup – that’s a red maple leaf that crossed my path during my Labour Day travels. It’s a colourful reminder that … it’s September. And whether or not you live where leaves become yellow, orange and red, it’s still the final four months of 2015. Now is the time to “crunch” the numbers, make sure you are on track to meet your revenue goals. Because if you’re not, you still have time to make a change and make things happen.
My colleague, Greg Poirier of CloudKettle, wrote a wonderful post about this a few weeks ago and I encourage you to read it. The list of questions he provides is invaluable. Knowing your own stats and revisiting them regularly are vital to success.
But … I happen to know (and so does Greg) that many salespeople and entrepreneurs don’t do the math. I’m going to continue to encourage (or hassle) you to do your math because knowing your sales statistics is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself, your company and your career.
Whether you have all your statistics today or not (and please … keep working towards creating and maintaining your own numbers), you can still maximize your revenue this Fall by answering three questions:
1) To reach my year-end revenue goal, how many new clients do I need?
2) What do I need to do to find, and work with, these new clients?
To answer the first question, simply look at this year’s revenue to date (or include several years if you wish) and divide by the number of clients it took to create that revenue. That gives you an “average” value of a client. Then look at the revenue you need to reach your 2o15 goal. Subtract the revenue you’ve already confirmed for the remainder of this year (work with existing clients). What’s left is the revenue you still need to create. Divide this number by your average value of a client and … this is the number of new clients you need to be working with by the end of the year.
While some of the revenue you still need to create may come from existing clients, when you aim to generate it all with new business, you put yourself in a position to exceed your goal. And that would be fun, right?
To answer the second question, look at your existing client list. What did you do to find and work with these customers? What do all of your clients have in common? How can you consistenly replicate your actions to connect with and confirm new business?
You see, you already know how to attract and keep new clients. But only about 80% of you are doing it consistently. Which leads to the third, and perhaps the most difficult, question:
3) Why aren’t you doing what you need to do to reach your revenue goal?
I encourage you to sit quietly with this question right now. Listen to, and be honest about, the answers that emerge. Perhaps you need help. We live in an age with lots of resources from virtual assistants to professional coaches who are there to support us in reaching our goals. Perhaps you are afraid – of the phone, of networking, of putting yourself out there. You know what – that’s okay. I’ve never met a great salesperson or entrepreneur that wasn’t familiar with fear. It’s part of the job and you can move past it to reach your 2015 goal. Or maybe you need help with marketing automation, or a customer relationship management (CRM) system? Experts are available to assist you in these areas as well. (See Greg above)
What’s so great about Fall? It’s the perfect time to identify where you want to be on New Year’s Eve … and create a plan to get there. But you need to get started right now. If I can help in any way, let me know.
Enjoy your phone work everyone!