[email protected]

Sales training and sales consulting to increase sales.

Call For A Sales Consultation

972-380-0200
  • About
    • What We Do to Increase Sales
    • Sales Philosophy on Hiring Salespeople
    • Clients
    • Customer Comments
    • In the Media
    • Contact Us
  • Speaking and Training
    • Sales Coaching for Performance Improvement
    • Professional Speaking
    • Sales Training
    • Sales Consultant for Business Development & Increase Sales
  • Sales Products
    • Books
    • Audio CDs
    • Webinars
    • E-Books
    • Manuals
    • Booklets
    • Merchandise
  • Free Resources
    • Videos
    • The Selling Newsletter
    • What is your Selling Issue?
    • Recommended Reading
    • Free Reprint Articles
    • White Papers
    • Sales Pro
  • Upcoming Programs
  • Membership
You are here: Home / Blog / Celebrate Even If You Didn’t Make Your Sales Goals

Celebrate Even If You Didn’t Make Your Sales Goals

December 12, 2014 By maurasf

Celebrate your sales.
Celebrate even if you don’t make your sales goals.

This year may have been a great one for you. For others, you are celebrating simply because the year is over. As your year winds down, whether you sold as much as you planned or missed the mark, year end gives you time to reflect on what you’ve done. You may think there’s nothing to celebrate if you didn’t make your sales goals. You’re wrong. There is.

Give yourself some credit.

This is not meant for you if you did absolutely nothing this year. Luck is a part of selling, but hard, strategic work is more likely to predict success. This message is for you if you’ve made your goals every year and this year you fell short. If you’ve worked hard and missed the mark, there is something to be proud of. Look back at your work.

What did go well?

What did you learn? What are you proud of? Maybe you didn’t reach the total number of sales you wanted. Perhaps you retained many customers. You could have persistently worked at reaching an account and are in the process of developing it for sales next year. Maybe you executed a strategy only to find out that it wasn’t the best. You won’t continue implementing it and will change course next year.

These are certainly things that you can review and recognize as valuable contributions.

Prepare to work differently. In sales, especially, it’s hard to look back at a year when you missed achieving your goals. You must though, if only to decide how you’re going to proceed differently next year.

Use this year’s results to calibrate or redefine your efforts for next year. Is there someone you trust who you can talk with and examine what didn’t work and why? If you’re fortunate to have a great manager, that’s where you should start. If not, speak with a trusted sales peer. They understand the questions to ask: Was it too few calls you made that caused the shortfall? Was it calling on prospects who weren’t ideal customers? Did your turnover rate from prospects to customers fall short because customer needs were poorly identified?

Use the answers you uncover to plan for next year and do something different.

Don’t play the blame game.

Avoid wallowing in your feelings and blaming yourself. You might even find it helpful to talk to other salespeople who have reached their goals. Be selective. Some salespeople are known to exaggerate their accomplishments. Take the kernels of truth and learn from others and make your plans for next year. Stop comparing yourself to others. Simply take winning strategies and try to apply them to your work.

Ernest Hemingway was right. He said, “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” It’s the season to celebrate. Celebrate what you did accomplish this year. Then plan what you can do next year with what you have or have to learn.

Best wishes for your continued sales success!

maura schreier-Fleming

Tweet
PinIt

Filed Under: Blog, Sales Strategy Tagged With: sales goals, Sales Process

THE SELLING E-LETTER® SIGN UP

Social media

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Selling Tips

*What was your last “mistake?” Did you make it before? There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes in sales provided you are making different mistakes. (You are learning from them!)

About the principal

Would you take auto mechanics classes when you buy a car? Maura did because she wanted to be able to work on her car. She takes that same approach to selling. She can show you how to get below the surface of selling to learn why and how different strategies work. She will show you which skills to implement that will shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales. She was Mobil Oil's first female Lubrication Engineer in the United States and one of Chevron's top 5 salespeople in the country. She knows what works for sales.

"I would recommend your work to other sales organizations who want to get better results from improved selling strategies."
Jamey Rootes
President
Houston Texans

Sales Expert at Allbusiness.com

Selling is the easiest job in the world. Just ask anyone who is not in sales. Read Maura’s ideas on “more brain…less mouth” selling to make your selling easier and more successful.

Maura’s Allbusiness blog posts

Recent Posts

  • Sales Is Not Fair
  • Less Stress Selling:  What You Can Do to Reduce Sales Stress
  • Segment Your Prospects and Customers. Are Your Largest Prospects and Customers the Most Important?
  • Women In Sales: Beware Mansplaining and other gender stereotypes!
  • Sell In A Recession

Search

Copyright © 2023 · [email protected]