How To Hit Your Sales Target…With ONE Week Left!

Once again, we are here in that wonderful time of the month for salespeople known as the FINAL week! One small week now stands between you and the fact that you will either HIT or MISS your sales target.

Will it be doomsday, or glory for you?

This is a stressful time as many salespeople will find themselves far from a comfortable place.

In this article, I’ll share my top tips for hitting your sales quota if you’re under a time crunch.

8 Steps To Hit Your Sales Target

  1. Audit Your Pipeline. Be Brutally Honest With Yourself.
  2. Remember To Sell Emotionally.
  3. Identify & Pursue Lowest Hanging Fruit Opportunities.
  4. Leverage Your Network To Help Influence The Sale.
  5. Follow Up At Various Times.
  6. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help.
  7. Find A Way. No Excuses.
  8. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For The Close.

Hitting Your Sales Target Under Pressure Comes Down To Two Factors

If you have enough pipeline – you need to do a deep dive and fish out the most likely opportunities.

If you don’t have enough pipeline – that means you have a lot of work to do; you’ll need to find new opportunities to convert this week ASAP.

Hitting Sales Targets 1

This is often the week where most sales people do 90% of ALL their monthly sales activity! Chasing deals, chasing prospects, making the most calls, working more hours and putting 110% in to make sure they live to see another month.

For some people, it will be in the bag already, target hit. For others, however there may still be a lot of work left to do. Here are the top 8 tips to help you HIT this month’s sales target this week!

Step #1 – Audit Your Sales Pipeline (Be Brutally Honest With Yourself Too)

sales pipeline growth

Now is the time to have an honest audit of your pipeline and look at the opportunities that are likely to convert this month.

Make sure you’re brutal during your audit – don’t waste time on opportunities that won’t convert when you could focus on those that will.

There will be plenty of salespeople guilty of beefing up their pipelines to keep their managers off their back, but now is the time to put that aside and be honest with yourself.

Make sure they’re qualified, check for realistic timescales and look at all potential barriers to the sale that may take more time to overcome.

Step #2 – Remember To Sell Emotionally

emotional selling

One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make in general, but especially during the final week, is to sell logically.

Using statistics or features/benefits to sell now will not be as effective as tapping into their emotional buying reasons.

[Tweet “Find their pain and create the excitement in the purchase that will drive it home – @DanielDisney86”]

This is where asking questions and critical listening skills play a crucial role. Never assume you know why they’re buying, ask them why and dig deep.

Not only will you build a far stronger relationship with them but you’ll tap into information that will help the sales process.

In some cases they may give you close without you even having to ask for it.

Step #3 – Identify And Pursue Lowest Hanging Fruit Opportunities

sales low hanging fruit

Every company and industry will have quick wins, a specific type of customer or deal type that are more likely to convert quicker compared to others.

To maximize your return in a pinch – you need to invest your time wisely. Don’t waste it on deals or customers that won’t convert.

In a previous sales role my quick win was the education sector including schools and colleges. Out of all our customer types, you could count on those to go from prospect to customer in a far shorter time frame; so when the pressure on my sales target increased, so did my activity target at that sector.

Step #4 – Leverage Your Network To Help Influence The Sale

Hitting Sales Goals 2

Now is the time to leverage anyone in your network or connection base that can help influence the deal for you. This could be other connections within the prospect company that may be able to help influence the decision-maker or perhaps connections who can help identify new quick-win opportunities.

If you don’t yet have those connections yet, then find them! It’s never been easier to find, connect and build relationships with people and it’s where social can play a crucial role in the sales process.

For example – if the decision-maker isn’t answering your calls, reach out to other connections with the company and ask them if he’s busy, when a good time to call may be or if they can give them a nudge.

This has worked great for me in the past where they’ve often advised perfect times in the day when they know the decision-maker is likely to be available, often helping me make contact and close the deal.

Step #5 – Follow Up At Various Times

effective sales follow up

It is usually within this week that you’ll struggle the most to get hold of the all-important decision maker!

Now is the time to get creative and phone them at various times. Phone them earlier in the morning before they get sucked into meetings, try them at lunch or towards the end of the day when they’re probably catching up on emails.

Recommended Read: How to Perfect the Sales Follow Up (Without Being Annoying)

This worked great for me when not so long ago when trying to win one of the larger deals in my sales career. I too struggled to get hold of the key decision-maker.

After making several attempts, leaving voicemails and sending emails I decided to try around 19:00. Much to my surprise, I got through straight away! We sometimes forget that during the day people are busy and that isn’t the best time to then try and push for a decision. Catch them during their quiet times when they’re both available and probably more likely to make a favorable decision!

Step #6 – Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help

sales meetings 1 on 1

You will no doubt have experienced successful salespeople around you, whether it’s physically in your office or socially through networks like LinkedIn and Twitter.

Now is the time to utilize that, swallow your ego for a minute, and ask for help. You might just get the advice you need to close the sales you need to hit the target!

Most of the best advice or the best tips I’ve ever received have come from asking people for help.

That could be your manager, your supervisor, the top seller in your office or perhaps salespeople in your social network.

Help is all around you and often all that stands between you and help is taking the initiative to ask.

Step #7 – Find A Way. No Excuses. 

It’s often the ones who don’t give up (and push further) who hit their sales target.

Whether it’s making more calls, coming in early, staying late, it will depend on how much you want to hit your sales target that will determine whether you do or don’t.

In my opinion, most salespeople have the ability to achieve their sales target, but it often comes down to choice.

The salespeople who hit their target are those who work harder and push further, whereas the ones who struggle to hit sales targets are those who end up pointing their fingers and blaming other factors.

Personally, I have always been the first one in the office and last one out; the one who pushes past all barriers as success was my ultimate goal.

I’ve also worked with equally skilled salespeople who come in late, leave early and just don’t put the effort in, yet they’ll always blame anything and everything else for missing target.  As they say, you’ll either find a way or you’ll find an excuse.

Step #8 – Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For The Close

compassion sales interview tips questions

This may seem like a stupidly obvious one, but the main reason salespeople lose the sale is because they simply don’t ask for it!

Don’t be scared to ask for the sale – if they say yes then great, if they say no then find a way to overcome that.

If you’ve gone through the above tips this will be a lot easier. If you’ve gone through your pipeline and made sure you’ve got the right quality of opportunity asking for the close shouldn’t be a big deal.

If you’ve identified their emotional reason to buy then closing should be driven by them. One of the best ways to look at it is that closing is just the logical next step in the sales process at this stage, you’re just guiding them along.

Now the question is…..can YOU help? Please write your tip to help salespeople hit target or close deals in the comments box below and let’s see how many tips we can build in the feed. I’ll feature the best ones with your name next to it in a future blog packed with closing and hitting target tips!

With 14+ years extensive sales experience, Daniel is a highly driven, successful and influential sales leader. With experience closing multi million pound deals and leading large sales teams along with creating social brands that reach millions of people, Daniel is a valuable modern sales resource. Taking all of that sales success and experience Daniel is now focused on coaching businesses and sales professionals all across the world on delivering real results.

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