- January 4, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Happy New Year everyone!
In today’s article, I introduce my first innovation of 2024, the Sales Goals Grid, but first, some context and the back story!
Most people set New Year’s resolutions around this time of the year which, in general terms, is nothing more than an exercise in goal setting. Your goals for the new selling year should start with the things you want to have, places to you want to see, and things you want to do. Those goals determine what your earnings must be and earnings will dictate the revenue you must generate, number of new accounts you must close, and the activities required to accomplish that. But there is more to the new year than goals.
The new year should also become a new chapter in your life and career. What will be different for you this year in the area of personal and professional growth, the way you present yourself to to others, and the way you feel about yourself? These differences can include things that no longer benefit you, things you vow not to do any longer, as well as productive changes that you need to make.
For example, 2024 marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life. At the end of 2023 and 33 years after I founded the company, I exited Objective Management Group (OMG). The company is now in the capable hands of Ben Tagoe, its new CEO. It was a great run but it was time. I may have exited OMG, but I am not retiring. Not by any stretch. I am excited to return to my roots and grow the sales consulting and training firm I started in 1985, Kurlan & Associates. Kurlan is best known for the Baseline Selling sales process and methodology I introduced in 2005 and I’ll be driving many updates to the look, feel, content and delivery methods of Baseline Selling. Stay tuned for the upcoming January announcement of a new course called Movie Night, a fun, entertaining, engaging, and inexpensive new self-directed course for salespeople.
I want to return to the goal setting theme of today’s article. I’m on the email distribution list for baseball Coach Mark Brooks. Earlier this week he shared baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani’s goal setting grid from when Ohtani was in high school and I was so impressed with his 9 Core goals and the eight tasks associated with each one. I thought it could be adapted for sales, combining most of the 21 Sales Core Competencies with goal setting. It is a great visual for every salesperson, regardless of what they sell, who they sell for, who they sell to, or the length of their sales cycle. You can even adapt it to your own needs.
Allow me to introduce the first draft of the first innovation of 2024 from Kurlan & Associates: The Sales Goals Grid
Copyright 2024 by Kurlan & Associates