It’s 2023! As I reflected on 2022 over the holidays, I was thinking about where I am in life, what I am grateful for, and the people in my life that make me truly happy.

It’s healthy to affirm and appreciate the things most important to you, recognize why you work for them, and evaluate what you need to change or continue doing to achieve your desired outcomes. One of my resolutions for 2023 is to dedicate time to do this assessment quarterly instead of just once a year.

Recognizing achievements of the past year helps me set goals for the year to come. I approach these goals – both the personal and professional – much like the best salespeople approach quotas. Initially, I think big. My goals may be a stretch, but I’m up for the challenge. Then, I break them into 90-day increments. Succeeding at the smaller, quarterly goals helps me reach the biggies. I limit myself to just three per quarter to keep myself focused. You know what? It works. That’s why I have so many things to be grateful for.

Would you like to follow a similar regimen to achieve or exceed your 2023 quotas? Here’s some advice to keep you on track:

The Right Frame of Mind

Setting quotas can feel overwhelming. Building and maintaining a solid Pipeline and Forecast provides sales peace of mind. With the data it provides, you can create a roadmap that leads to success.

Use your CRM to review positive results from the prior year and to study your pipeline by category.

Where will you most likely see sales results in the next 30, 60, 90, and 90+ days? Kickstart your year by prioritizing opportunities that will close quickly and start building “credit” in your “Quota Bank.” Consider markets, customer types, stages in the sales process, highest sales, RMR, and profitability values.

Do the Math

Review the number of sales, values, markets, types, and customers you closed. Did some categories close more easily or represent higher sales values? Which sales were the quickest from lead to booking? Identify the types of leads and sales with the best results. Also, consider what opportunities exist for new projects with current customers.

After you’ve done the math, you’re ready to set your annual quotas. Make them reasonable and realistic while challenging yourself to reach your next level. Sales software allows you to build yearly quotas based on quarterly quotas, which is especially handy when quarterly sales goals vary. Based on prior years, you can anticipate when the faster and slower months will be. How might you tackle slower sales periods to break past patterns? What factors can you control?

Identify the best times to pursue larger sales, sell new products, or enter new markets. Having a strategic plan can help you pursue stretch goals with confidence.

Behaviors and Actions

Reviewing the behaviors and actions that brought the best success will put you into an energized, game-day mindset. Think about the best calls you had for new leads. What did you say that opened meaningful conversations and next steps? How did you deal with difficult personalities? What can you learn from when things went well? And from when they didn’t?

Which questions helped you disqualify leads early on? Those count! Removing non-opportunities early on is key to managing your time. Also, tracking ‘nos’ and ‘whys’ provides a log of past non-opportunities that may be worth revisiting if the prospects’ circumstances have changed.

When estimating a job, were there questions that helped you uncover accurate budgets? Certain stakeholder roles you worked with regularly in the sales process? How long was the sales process for your best sales? Categorize past long, medium, and short-time sales and consider whether they had different success rates. What do you need to do to cultivate enough opportunities in each category to balance out wins-to-goal? 

Put Software to Work

Sales management software makes analyzing past performance, strategizing for the future, and implementing successful sales processes vastly easier. It lets you define key actions and track them per sale. When you can see how your actions affected close rates, time to close, and sales profitability, you can repeat successful behaviors, eliminate counterproductive ones, and boost your way toward quota.

Enough said. Now, go get it! I believe in you and love hearing what you do to achieve your goals. Keep me posted, and let me know if you’d like to chat. I’m always open to helping and learning. Best in 2023!