Sales Training 5 Ways To Exceed Your Sales Goals

Hello friends, Ryan Dohrn here, founder of Sales Training World, and thanks so much for stopping by to participate in this webinar we're calling 5 Simple Ways to Exceed Your Sales Goals. And I hope that you're going to absolutely love this. I think you're going to find that I'm different than most trainers that are out there because I actually sell and coach each and every day of the week. You know, a lot of sales trainers out there, honestly, they haven't sold anything but themselves in the last 15 years. And that's really what makes our programs at Sales Training World and at BrainSwell Media very, very different. So BrainSwell Media is a company I started about 10 years ago. Sales Training World is brand new. We're gonna have online events, we're gonna have a live event that I'd love to tell, tell you more about that. And of course, we have all kinds of great information that is online. So thrilled to have you here. And participating in this webinar. Little bit about me. Over the course of the last 25 years, I've been in the sales and marketing business, having worked for some of the biggest companies out there— the New York Times Company, the Walt Disney Company, and so many others. And I sell every day. I have 2 software projects that I sell, 2 media projects that I sell, an event that I sell all the sponsorships for. I'm knee-deep in sales every day, as well as traveling around and speaking at sales conferences and and offices and businesses just like yours all the time. All right, at the end of this webinar, free to you, my free gifts to you. I'm going to give you a free invitation to the Sales Training World private online event. This is going to be invitation only. The only way that you're going to be able to get access to this private event is if you contact me, and I'll tell you how to do that here in about 20 minutes or less. Okay, I'm also going to give you a free tour of Sales Training World. I'm going to walk you through all the important places you need to go. To find the information that you need. In addition to that, I'm going to give you free access to me for an hour-long coaching call. I promise you no sales pitch. Okay, I'm a sales guy, no sales pitch. I'm going to give you a free coaching call. Now keep in mind, that's about a $400 value to you. So if you want to take advantage of that, I'm going to tell you how here in just a couple of minutes. All right, let's get started. We've got 5 tips and I have a bonus tip for you. So let's get started. Tip number 1, understanding that to be a raging sales success and exceed your goals— I'm not talking about meeting your goals, I'm talking about exceeding your sales goals. Tip number 1, eliminate random patterns. That's right, I said it, eliminate random patterns. Now, don't confuse things that are urgent every day with things that are important. Urgent doesn't necessarily mean that it's a higher priority than something that's important. See, here's what happens all too often in sales land. And like I said, I live in sales land every day. Okay? Every day is treated like it's a brand new day, and it doesn't have to be that way. It really doesn't. In sales land, we live within certain structures. Now granted, the vast majority of our time is spent babysitting. I totally get it. 100%. Totally get it. But what I want you to understand is if you identify the patterns in your life that are completely random and you actually dedicate time to those tasks that you think are random, you're always going to get more done. So let me just be clear on that because it's so important for you to feel me and understand how I roll with this point. Okay, in sales land, we want to have time blocks on my calendar. Every day, I want to dedicate a time block to prospecting, a time block to customer retention, a time block to proposal follow-up. I don't want to do these things at random times throughout the day. I want to eliminate random patterns. I want to prospect at times that are perfect for my clients. Not perfect for me. I want to work on retaining clients on a daily basis. I want to work as hard to keep that business as I did to get it in the first place. So identify those random patterns. If they're important, not urgent, if they're important to your sales process, then turn them into a time block and commit to them every day. The last piece is use your calendar or your CRM tool to keep you on track, whatever it is that you're using. As a CRM tool, you need to love it. You need to live it. You need to understand it. Get the training that you need. Fall in love with your CRM tool. I'm here to tell you today that every salesperson I know that's a raging sales success, every one of them, they use their CRM tool every day. So don't think— maybe you're an old sales veteran out there, and I can teach old sales dogs new tricks. I'm telling you right now. The simple fact is love that CRM. Fall in love with it. It's so unbelievably important. Alright, let's move on to tip number 2. If you have questions, head on over to SalesTrainingWorld.com and click on the Contact Us page and drop me that question. We'll get those answered for you lickety-split. Alright, tip number 2. Understand that sales is a numbers game. Duh. Pretty obvious, right? Well, why is it that people tell me all the time, Ryan, Sales is about relationships. I'd rather make 5 quality phone calls than 50 sort of good phone calls. Folks, it's important to remember that sales is a numbers game. First of all, relationships are critical. I get it, absolutely get it. But if you spend all your time on relationships, you're not going to work enough numbers to close enough deals. Break down your numbers into bite-sized pieces, would you? So for example, rather than stare at a $200,000 goal for the month, break that down. Then create a plan of attack in smaller pieces. How many widgets do you need to sell? How many proposals do you need to write? How many meetings do you need to have? Take that number and break it down into bite-sized pieces. You've heard the old, old tale. The fable, how do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time, right? So because of that, you really need to know your call-to-close ratios. Please make note of that. You really need to know your call-to-close ratios. What does that mean? How many prospecting calls do you need to make before you get a meeting with somebody on the phone or in person? Doesn't matter. How many phone calls do you need to make? Then once you get a meeting, are you presenting your ideas on the spot or do you have a flaw in your system? Are you always consultative and then coming back with a proposal? I don't know that that works very well anymore. Once you presented a proposal, how many deals are you closing? That's your call-to-close ratio. See, some people that I coach, you need to be working 50 active new clients at any given time. Some of you need to be working 100. Some of you are awesome. You only need to be working about 25. So really, what are your call-to-close ratios? We'll talk about prospecting on another webinar. So if your goal is, say, $20,000 and your product sells for $10,000, then you need to close 20 deals. Simple math, right? Now, I'm not all that great at math. I'll be honest with you. But I know if I close half the deals, Okay, then I need to prospect 40 clients. See, a lot of you, what you do is you don't prospect enough. You don't make enough calls. What you do is you look at that $200,000 and you say to yourself, well, if my product is $10,000, then I need to close 20 deals. I'm gonna prospect 20 people. Folks, you have to understand, it just doesn't work that way. Not in sales land. Yes, it does. Now, if someone can say to you, if they can say, oh, you know, you know, Ryan, I can close 100% of the deals. Just get me in front of somebody. I typically don't find that typically to be the right scenario. Typically, I close about half the deals, so that means I need to work 40. Sales is a numbers game, people. Do you know your call-to-close ratios? Don't guess. Don't guess. Instead, use math to your advantage. Get out that good old-fashioned calculator and figure out how many people do you need to prospect to reach your actual goal. Are you prospecting enough? Sales is a numbers game. So important for you to understand. Now, one of the processes that I teach, you can read it in my book, Selling Backwards, is called the Big 50. What's the Big 50? The Big 50 is my plan to prospect 50 clients to get to 10 meetings where I present 8 great proposals and I close about 4 deals. I'm closing 50%. Well, Ryan, that's really not that good of a closing ratio if you're only closing 50%. Listen, if you want to try to beat me at that and you can close 60, 80% of your deals, maybe you're doing something different, or maybe you've read a book that says you can do that. But quite honestly, what I find is that most sales organizations are flawed. What they do is they work really hard to get somebody, you know, to present them a demo or to show off their product. And then what they do is they write a proposal, and then they chase people down for weeks, if not months. Consultative selling isn't dead, it's just been revised. Consultative selling doesn't mean that you get on a call and ask questions and then leave. Consultative selling can happen right on that call, right on that sales call. It doesn't matter whether you're selling a car, software, or whatever. It's how you handle it. See, what I try to do is get as many meetings as possible. Then I get in front of people, I present ideas right there on the spot. Those ideas may not be perfect. We might need a tweak on those ideas, but I want to get buy-in right away. Right away. All right. On to tip number 3. Identify repeatable patterns of success. Identify repeatable patterns of success. You know, last year there were things that went right for you. At least I hope there were. Did you identify those things, write them down, share them with the greater sales team, and then them. It's called rinsing and repeat. Find things that went right. What were the subject lines you used in emails that went and really got you a reply? What did you write in that email that got you a reply? What time did you send that email that got you a reply? Identify those things and repeat them. Now, maybe more importantly, identify things that did not go right and do not Repeat them. It seems simple, right? Then why do so many people in sales land repeat things that do not work and they hope for a different result? I'll tell you why. I know exactly why this happens, because from birth you've been taught if you work really, really, really, really hard, you can achieve anything. Sorry to be the doomsday guy today, but Unfortunately, if you continue to do the wrong things over and over and over again, guess what you're going to get? The exact same thing you always got. You know, the example that I often use is if I sat you in a rowboat with 2 oars, you know what a rowboat looks like, right? It's got 2 oars stuck in the sides. And what you do is you row those oars together and then you move the boat forward. But if I take away one of those oars, You can row as hard as you want and you're going to go in a circle. See, old-fashioned philosophy would say, if you really paddle hard, you will eventually get somewhere. No, you won't. You just won't, my friends. You just won't. What you have to do is change the pattern. See, sometimes when things aren't working, you need a change of perspective. You need to pick up that ore out of its little cradle there. You need to put that ore in the water in a different way. You need to change perspectives. You need to change your plan of attack. Working really, really hard is awesome. I do it every day. I work 7 days a week. I swear, 24 hours a day sometimes. So important for you to understand. You really have to understand that you need to work smarter. Now you need to work hard also. But the smart can't replace the hard and the hard can't replace the smart. Just remember that working hard at the wrong things is going to get you nowhere. So if you're not sure where you're off in your sales process, that's where a sales coach comes into it. That's where sales-training-world.com comes into it. Come to the website, learn, sign up for the free newsletter, hire a coach, myself or a member of my team. You know, we've got folks that have coached in every sector of business you can think think of, and they're there to help you on a regular basis. All right. Tip number 4, understanding that you need to set focus points if you actually want to achieve your goals. So what does this mean? After you make a list of your goals, you need to set a path to achieve those goals. These are the things you need to do in order to reach that goal. So think of it as a ladder. Okay? You've got a ladder. And your goal is at the top. What does each one of those rungs represent of the ladder? Each one of the steps on the ladder, it represents the little micro things that you need to do in order to get there. Let me give you an example. Say you want to grow your sales revenue by 75%. It's kick butt, right? That's awesome. Good for you. Great. So what is that number? Okay. Say it's $100,000. Don't say I'm going to grow my sales revenue by 75%. Come on. That number is not arduous, but it's sort of like, huh? What does that mean? Okay. Say the number, $100,000. Awesome. So what are the 3 things you need to do to accomplish that? I'm just making these up, giving you an example. Perhaps you need to clean up your CRM tool. Maybe you've got all kinds of crappy data in there. Maybe you need to get up and get to work at 7:00 AM every day. Or get rolling. Maybe you need to stay late. Perhaps you need to get, perhaps you need to get some sales training. Maybe you need to hire a coach or whatever. Perhaps you need to rewrite your sales templates that you're using to prospect. Maybe you need to practice a little bit your sales calls. Maybe your sales calls suck. Maybe that's why you're not reaching your goals. So it's not just about setting a goal. Setting a goal is awesome. You know, a lot of people talk about it. A lot of people spend their whole life trying to figure it out. What they're missing is the micro steps, the focus points that'll get you to that goal. You have to set focus points if you want to successfully exceed your goals. Without focus points, goals are dreams at best. So what you really want to do is you want to get specific. You want to set yourself a path to that goal, not just stare at the goal itself. All right, how do you do it? I've got 2 whiteboards in my office. They're 3 by 5. They're turned vertically. They're up against my desk so I can get to them easily. They're not attached to a wall. And I write out my goals at the top and then I put the steps underneath of those. And as I check those steps off, that's when I begin to see success. I'm goal-oriented and I'm wicked successful and I want you to be as well. So you need to set focus points. All right. Tip number 5, then our bonus And then we'll get to all the free stuff that I'm going to give away. Tip number 5, you need to set goals that are realistic. Set goals that are realistic. Heard a guy on the plane the other day, he said, you know, I need to lose 50 pounds. I said, 50 pounds? Holy cow. That's like 5 Butterball turkeys. 50? Are you sure? Well, you put it that way. So I'm not, I'm not trying to be rude. Let's say a 10-pound turkey. She might have a Thanksgiving, Very rarely do you buy 20-pound turkeys. Now my mom did sometimes, but usually it's a 10-pounder, 12-pounder. So you're going to try to lose 5 of those? How about this? Why don't you set goals that are realistic? How about losing 10 pounds? But then what are you going to do to lose that? Those micro points. What are you going to do? Those focus points to, to meet that goal. You just set goals that are realistic. In sales land, all too often the goals we set are unrealistic. Let's be honest, some of the bosses' goals that the bosses set are unrealistic. That's a whole nother webinar dealing with managers that are just unrealistic and crazy and wacky. You'll enjoy that webinar. We'll have that one coming up pretty soon. How to deal with managers that are just jerks. I've had a few. All too often, the goal you set is just too large. There's a couple things you can consider. One, If the goal you've been set or has been set for you is unrealistic, break it down, break it down into manageable chunks, and then create those micro points and achieve those goals and have some victories. You know, no victories in life, that really sucks. It's just not fun. I mean, not having any victories is just, ah, God, it's just not fun. Everybody wants to win now and again. For all you managers that are watching this webinar, come on. Set some goals for us so we can win. I'm not talking about sandbagging. I'm talking about stopping these baloney things like stretch goals. Come on. Set my commission and set my compensation such that if I'm under goal, I make a certain amount. If I'm at goal, I make a bigger amount. And if I'm way over goal, like I'm blowing the doors off this place, man, blowing the doors off this place. I want a huge, huge commission jump. I mean, I really want you to set up a system where I will knock the ball out of the park, get here at 6:00 AM and not leave till 10:00 PM. Now I'm all about a work-life balance. Don't get me wrong. I'm exaggerating for effect. And just like Mark Twain did in so many of his books, right? I mean, this seems simple, but the number one offense of New Year goal setting is this. And I say this as a sales training coach all the time. I very often cut my clients' goals by as much as 35 to 50% because they're so unrealistic. Trust me, get realistic. If you don't control your own goals for sales, not a problem. What you want to do is you want to take that goal and break it down into bite-sized chunks. All right, you can do it. I have faith. All right, here's your bonus tip for the day. You ready for it? Get a buddy. Get a friend. Your boss is usually not your best accountability buddy. But accountability is critical to your long-term success in exceeding your sales goals. It's critical, people. It's critical. Think about it. When do you lose the most amount of weight? Alone or with a friend? Almost always with a friend. When do your muscles get really, really big? When you have a trainer or when you do it on your own? Usually when you have a trainer. If you're going on a road trip and you're going to drive from New York City to LA, is it better to have a buddy with you or do it all on your own? Some of you might say, well, depends upon your buddy. True enough. But you're almost always going to have a better road trip if you get 3 or 4 people that are going to go with you on that trip. So let's review our tips one more time. It's pretty straightforward, pretty simple, but you need to put them into action. Tip number 1, eliminate random patterns. Figure out what those patterns are. Eliminate them, or even better, turn them into time blocks. Understand that relationships are important, but sales is a numbers game. What is your call-to-close ratio? Are you working 50 people, clients, to get to 10 meetings where you can present 8 great proposals and close 4 deals? I'm gonna bet probably not. Probably not working enough numbers. Tip number 3, identify repeatable patterns of success. Look for success and repeat it. Look for success in your team and repeat it. Identify things that are not working and get rid of them. Get them out of your life. Setting goals is awesome, but without the micro steps, without the focus points, you're never going to be a raging success in exceeding your sales goals. Set your goals, make them realistic, but if your boss controls them, break them down. Into smaller bite-sized chunks. Be realistic and you'll have success. And then find a friend, huh? Not just get a dog. Okay. Get a buddy, an accountability buddy. That would be a colleague. It might be your wife. It might be your partner. Whatever the circumstance, you need to get a buddy. All right. So where do we grow from here? What is sales coaching all about? Well, I sell my time 6 hours at a time and you can use those 6 hours in 6 days, 6 weeks, Or 6 months, unlimited emails between the calls, any topic, no holds barred. I've probably run 3,000-some salespeople through this program. It's going to cost you $1,750. But if you're watching this webinar, if you reach out to me at ryan@brainswellmedia.com, it's $1,200. So it goes from $1,750 to $1,200 if you reach out to me by email only, ryan@brainswellmedia.com. Now my email address is there. You can follow me on Twitter. But what I also want to do is I want to make sure that you understand how to get that free invite to our exclusive event. The way to do that, send me an email right here, ryan@brainswellmedia.com. That's where you need to reach out to me. If you'd like to call me on the phone, here's the phone number, but most people want to reach out via email. I've got 16,000-some Twitters @ryandohrn on Twitter. I'd love for you to be a part of that overall success as well. All right, so let's go take a look over at Sales Training World. I'll show you where to go to find out some, some great stuff. All right, so this is just sales-training-world.com. All right, first thing you want to do if you want to get free advice from me on a monthly basis, all you need to do is put your email address right here. So it might just be rocky@rockyroad.com. Okay, then just click sign up and it'll sign you up. Notice right here, 100% No spam guarantee. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk. All right, if you're looking for sales training, click on the sales training tab. Okay, it's right here. Click on the sales training tab. That's going to take you over to our sales training page. This is where you're going to find all the articles all related to sales training. Okay, stop losing customers, 5 critical sales questions, 6 ways to achieve your sales goals. Well, how about that? Fixing the 5 most common sales roadblocks. As the holidays draw near, how to avoid the holiday sales blues. That's all under sales training. All right, if you're looking for a coach, looking to hire a sales coach, this is where you're going to find our coaches under sales coaching. It's a great article here, why hire a sales coach, and you can also then interview our various sales coaches. Looking to expand your learning beyond webinars? You can go right here to the sales training podcast. Just click here on the sales training podcast and that's going to open up our sales podcast page. We've got all kinds of topics related to our podcast. You can also open that on your phone as you're working out or whatever the circumstances. And of course, right here, we'd love to have your input on an event that's coming up. We're thinking of venues for 2017 for Sales Training World, the conference and expo, and we've got several locations. We're thinking about Denver, thinking about Orange County, thinking about the New School in Manhattan. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, and you can reach out to me over at my email address if you'd like to talk through that as well. All right, so again, it's just very simple. It's just ryan@brainswellmedia.com. All right, friends, thanks for stopping by Sales Training World, and from all the staff and crew over here at Brain Swell Media, our parent company, thanks for hanging out with us. If there's anything we can do, I promise you I'm not going to give you the hard sell. Reach out to me. We'll take care of you. Give me a call. Drop me an email. Love to hear from you. And of course, you can always claim that 60 minutes of free coaching. You need to drop me an email though. I want to see your email. So send it over here to ryan@brainswellmedia.com. And what we'll do is I'll set you up on my calendar and we'll walk you through your very first sales coaching call. Absolutely no obligation. Absolutely no sales pitch. I I promise you there will be no sales pitch. I'm going to teach you how to sales pitch. I'm going to teach you how to be the best you can be, but I'm not going to pressure you into this because I have got other people that I can pressure. I don't want it to be you. All right, friends, we'll see you out on the street.