Do ONE crucial thing to boost your 2023 sales success

Start this year smarter

What one thing can you do to boost your sales success in 2023? For most, April is the start of a new financial year. New targets. New challenges. New budgets for your buyers. So why do so many sales people take the same old, same old approach? They see that big, new, shiny target and charge ahead, concentrating on quantity of work rather than quality. Unfortunately, it is absolutely NOT true that the more you throw at it, the more you’ll get out. We all need to work smarter, not harder.

The ONE Thing

In their book, ‘The ONE Thing’, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan focus on the idea that to achieve success in any area of life – not just sales – it is crucial to identify and zero in on the one most important task. Then work out the smart way to approach it to achieve your goal. Once this is in hand, you move on to the next most important task until your whole life is on track. As sales training experts, we think this is a great productivity and personal development book and well worth a read – available from World of Books.

Flume’s ONE Thing

What one thing can all sales people and sales leaders action right now to give themselves the best and smartest start to the new financial year?

Slow Down to Speed Up

It may sound counter-intuitive but it works. Instead of rushing ahead, take a step back. Look at your targets. Break things down and take the time to plan the best way to get there. This will never be time wasted. It will help you work smarter and save time in the long run.

Revenue Planning

Take your target, break it down into its constituent parts and plan how to target each stream.

Recurring revenue
Account growth
New business

Effort Planning

Again, break this down into

Average opportunities
Win rate
Average order value

Then calculate what you need to do in terms of effort. How many calls to make? How many meetings do you need to achieve those Closed Won opportunities?

Improve their Sales Experience

According to CEB, the B2B sales experience is 53% of the reason why a company chooses to work with you so it is essential to get this right. The experience you create needs to stand head and shoulders above your competition. Plan your outreach. How can you improve your pitch to make it more about helping and less about selling? Is there a better way to conduct your sales conversations?

The most successful sales people are those who recognise that there is always something new to learn. Buyer behaviour is constantly changing and their sales approaches evolve to meet those ever changing needs.

Flume have published a whole series of blog posts that go into more detail on planning and working smarter. Rather than us repeating it here, grab yourself a coffee, hop over to the sales training blog dashboard and check a few of them out.

Immediate, actionable takeaways

Flume are experts in sales training and we constantly share ideas, tips and takeaways to help sales teams perform at their best. If you haven’t seen The Sales Funnel is Dead post, check it out now for more info on working smarter. Our blogs, whitepapers and downloads are packed with immediate, easy to adopt, game changing takeaways aimed at sales professionals at every level.

Ask an expert

For insights into ongoing team development and our ground breaking approach to sales training, book a call with one of our experts – and make sure you follow us on LinkedIn

Our next free webinar

Sign up now to our next free, interactive webinar – Crucial hacks to drive the KPIs that matter. We’ll be live on 18th April showing you how to increase your success at every stage of the sales process. See you there!

We hope this has given you some food for thought for the coming year. Remember, we’re only a call or click away when you need us. We’d love to hear from you and hope to see you at the webinar for more sales info and insights.