How to Set Goals for 2015

As we end one year and begin another, it’s essential that you analyze the past year’s sales figures, and plan for the next year’s. That planning means you’ve have to set some sales goals. 

Once you determine how much money your techs and salespeople need to bring in to hit your goals, your next hurdle will be getting them to buy into those goals and commit to them.  The problem is, they’re your sales goals, not theirs.

The way to get people to set meaningful, realistic sales goals, and buy into them, is to make them more aware of their current sales figures.

When people keep accurate records of how much income they generate by the day, week, month, and year, their sales tend to increase.

When you make it a point to keep those numbers up, and to run calls until you’ve hit your daily minimum, your sales will go up.

— Charlie Greer

 

At the very least, everyone should keep a running list of all their sales in a notebook or a digital device.  I personally like the emotional experience of writing and figuring everything by hand in a good old-fashioned paper weekly planner.

Setting Sales Goals:
A sales log will help your people set sales goals.  It’s helpful if you’ve got last year’s figures, but just starting to keep track of their figures today will be more than adequate.  Within the first week of starting to log their sales figures, everyone will know you’re their conversion rate, the dollar amount of their average sale, and their average daily total.

When you make it a point to keep those numbers up, and to run calls until you’ve hit your daily minimum, your sales will go up.  Without even thinking much about it, you start competing against yourself to improve your sales figures.

My Experience
I worked at the same company as the late Tom McCart, who was the first person to sell $1,000,000 in residential replacement equipment in a single year. That got him a lot of publicity.

There was an interview with him in the trade press in which he was asked the secret to his success. He said it was two things. The first was that he studied and practiced salesmanship. Everyone knew he studied salesmanship.  So did I, so no secret there.

He said the second reason for his success was his obsession with his sales figures. At any given moment, he could tell you how many calls he’d run for the year, month, or week, his closing ratio, his ongoing total, the dollar amount of his average sale, and even how much money he was generating by the hour.  I didn’t know any of that about my sales figures.

I started keeping a sales log in an appointment book, and my sales immediately sky-rocketed.

 

Everyone knew he was obsessed with his sales figures, but I never thought he’d name it as one of two secrets to his success.

When I read that, I said to myself, “If it’s good enough for the top salesman in the country, it’s good enough for me.”

I started keeping a sales log in an appointment book, and my sales immediately sky-rocketed. 

One specific incident I remembered was, after a few day’s worth of keeping records, I established what my average sales was.

I ran my next call and wrote up my list of recommendations.  I was just about to approach the customer to go over them, when I realized that if they bought everything on my list, the sale would still be lower than my average sale.  I would personally be responsible for lowering my own average!

That’s when I started selling a lot more indoor air quality, complete systems, and higher-end equipment. These were all legitimate sales of a higher dollar amount. I was doing more for the customer, the company, and myself.

Will this work for everyone?
In the very first video of “Tec Daddy’s Service Technician Survival School on DVD,” I state that the purpose of your job as a service technician is to generate a profit for the company. I go on to explain that the best thing you can do to maximize your career as a tech is to be more aware of your sales figures. I then show how to use a standard appointment book, available just about anywhere, to do this. You can view the video here.

Five months after releasing that video, I got a telephone call from a service manager.  He said, “I thought you’d find what happened at this morning’s service meeting interesting.

“I was just about to end the meeting, when, on a whim, I asked, ‘How many of you are keeping a sales log in an appointment book like Tec Daddy said to do?

“Half of my 30 technicians raised their hands.  I instantly saw a pattern.  The 15 technicians that were using a planner had the highest sales figures.”

'Scheduling' Your Success
Until a goal is scheduled, it’s just some vague notion of something you would “like to see happen.”

Once you’ve broken your larger goal into smaller, 15-60 minute tasks, schedule them in your weekly planner.

I call this step “scheduling your success.”  You don’t “hope” that some day you’ll become successful, you schedule it in.

Your goals don’t always have to be financial.  People say they want to spend more time with their children, their hobbies or their god.  Have they scheduled it in?

Start using a daily planner and scheduling your activities, and you’ll find out how many hours there are in a day, and just what you can and cannot do.  You start prioritizing things differently.

In order for goals to work, they must be time-specific.

Commitment
Another point about goal setting is regarding your attitude toward goals.  Are your goals something you would “like” to happen?  Are your goals a “guideline?”  Or, are they “mandatory?”

For Goals to Work, They Must be Mandatory

The biggest problem people have with sales goals is making the internal commitment to hit them.

Once you’ve got a feel for your daily average, set a daily sales goal and commit to running calls until you hit it.  If you’re like me, and hate working late, you’ll hit your daily minimum by early afternoon every day.  If you’re not willing to make that commitment, then you don’t really have a goal.  What you’re calling a goal is really just “a guideline,” or something that would “be nice” if it happened.

When you commit to hitting your sales goals, you’re committing to having a better life.

Achieving Success:
Success does not happen by accident.  Success happens on purpose.  Success is not a matter of luck or good timing.  Success is a result of planning, followed by deliberate right action.

People who set mandatory, time-specific goals, and schedule them into a planner, tend to hit them much sooner than they’d planned.

CHARLIE GREER has developed an weekly planner specifically for HVAC salespeople and service technicians, with space to track sales.  It also provides weekly sales tips.  For more information call 1-800-963-HVAC (4822) or visit him on the web at www.hvacprofitboosters.com.  Email Charlie at [email protected].