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February 5, 2025

Seller-Doers: What Are Your Goals for This Year?

No, not your revenue goals… but your personal growth goals?

And not those silly New Year’s resolutions that are almost certainly forgotten by now… but personal goals that will help you develop into a true sales professional. Don’t have them? Well, let me give you a few things to think about…

Let’s start with one of my favorite sayings, “If you keep doin’ what you’re doin’… you’ll keep gettin’ what you’re gettin’.” That is, if you’re not happy with the results you’re achieving with the sales part of your job, what are you going to do to change that? It won’t happen all by itself, so here’s my recommendation…

First, take a critical look at yourself. What aspects of selling are you good at… and what are you not so good at? Also, what aspects of it do you like… and not like? An honest and critical self-assessment will provide the foundation plan for self-improvement.

To get started, think about the various steps of the sales process… how well do you do networking, cold emailing, exploratory calls, capabilities presentations, writing proposals, etc.? And not just good-fair-poor… but drill down a little and think about the various aspects of each step. Get into the weeds a little.

Beyond that, think about the numbers. For example, what percentage of your leads from networking resulted in getting that initial call? What percentage of your capabilities presentations resulted in RFPs? Apply numbers wherever you can because “the data don’t lie!”

Then think about it from a “Do I like doing this?” perspective. The fact is, if you don’t like doing something (for example, delivering a capabilities presentation), you probably won’t have much success with it. And often, the “I don’t like it” stems from the “I don’t know how to do it very well.”

Want a little more feedback… get someone else at your firm to ask your clients and sales prospects what you’re good at. If they’re honest (which is why you get someone else to ask), the feedback can be invaluable.

Once you feel like you’ve created an honest assessment, you need to decide how to get better in those areas where there’s room for improvement. So now, it’s time to start looking for resources that can help… sales websites, podcasts, webinars, training workshops, LinkedIn groups, conferences and seminars, blogs, magazines, using ChatGPT and so on.

To help find these resources, consider setting up a series of Google Alerts that will deliver fresh content to your inbox every morning. Search on topics like, “writing an effective sales email” or “delivering a compelling sales presentation” or “success as a seller-doer” and so on.

Once you found the resources that are most appropriate… first, prioritize them… then, spread the learning out over the year. You want to spread it out for two reasons:

  1. Trying to absorb all that information at one time would be like drinking from a fire hose – it’s just too much and none of it will stick. Tackle one topic at a time and learn all you can about it before moving on the next one.
  2. We’ve all heard the phrase that “Knowledge is power,” but that’s not correct! “Applied knowledge is power.” If you don’t give yourself an opportunity to use (in the real world) the things you’ve learned, they’ll never stick. They’ll never become a habit – and it’s making them a habit that’s critical for changing your behavior.

So, tackle a topic. Learn all about it for multiple sources… then try it… test it… see how well it works for you. And don’t just try it once, try it several times.

If you do this over the course of the year – with different topics – by the end of 2025, you’ll achieve your goals, resulting in you becoming a significantly better seller-doer. And you’ll enjoy your work so much more.

Good luck and good selling.

 

Having trouble finding resources? Here’s a list to help get you started…

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