Making the Goal Real

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

It was one of the “big birthdays” and my adult children had just told me that my gift was a week with all of them and the grandkids in the Florida Keys. Of course, the idea of a full week time with kids and grandkids was appealing. I had a vague idea, a pleasant notion, in my head about what it would mean. Soon however, dates of arrival and departure had to be decided. Airplane tickets and rental cars had to be arranged. Which fishing rods would I need? As I began to ask and answer that next level of questions, the pleasant notion became much more specific and compelling.

I was now thinking about a specific fishing trip with my seven-year-old grandson. What would I do on a beach to entertain a three-year-old granddaughter? The sharpened focus and level of detail of the new plan charged up my excitement with the trip and my commitment to what I needed to do to make it successful. My pleasant notion now had become detailed movies playing in my head about activities, results, and how they supported the objective (a great time with my grandkids).

The goal was real for me now, because I had engaged with it as I planned.

Such it is with sales planning. Every New Year starts with a new quota (always unattainable…) and a fuzzy notion of going to President’s Club, or buying a new car with the commission accelerators. Sales managers are hammering away at the need for a new account or territory sales plan, and the sales team is figuring how to accomplish that with the smallest outlay of energy possible. Because, after all, aren’t sales plans just a necessary evil, to be dispatched as quickly as possible so that the real selling can begin?

The sales wise manager-coach knows that detailed plans drive progress. Which discrete selling actions will lead to the sales results which will retire that annual goal? The mental act of defining the steps between what the situation is now and what it will be in the future is what makes the goal real and creates the commitment to achieving it. Everyone knows they have to make quota. (pleasant notion) But how are they going to do it? What elements of the overall bag of products and solutions are going to gain traction this quarter, with this set of target customers, with their own set of business goals? (Committed business plan)

The coach frames planning as the heart of every dialogue. Where do we want to be? (Clarity around the goal) What did we learn getting to where we are now? (Greater definition around environment and obstacles encountered) What’s the plan? (Actions) When we will do it? How will we know if we’re on track? (Measurement and accountability)

Done well, planning becomes the lifeblood of the selling. It flexes as it encounters reality and the environment changes. (Competitors plan, too.) It is so tightly woven into the selling and coaching that no one can question its value. It’s not a dusty document, written once a year to an unwieldy template designed by marketing people and stuffed into a drawer. It’s the way sales professionals grow their business and it changes every day, every week. It’s the enabler that gets them to President’s Club. (And you with them…)