Do your reps have goals and/or a quota? Have you asked them whether they'll hit them? Did their answer totally convince you that they were 100% confident in their ability to deliver and that they absolutely would or did they leave room to miss?

I talked about this this morning.

• Many reps have happy ears.
• Many reps fake a positive attitude.
• Many reps secretly doubt their ability.
• Many reps have hope, but not faith.
• Many reps miss their target.

Here's what we did this morning.

1. What do you need to sell between now and December 18th?
2. What did you sell between March 16th and now?
3. How many new opportunities did you start between March 16th and now?
4. How many of those new opportunities closed before today?
5. What is #3x#1/#2?
6. What is #4x#1/#2?
7. How many days will you work between now and December 18th? (Subtract Saturdays, Sundays, Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, and any other day that you will not devote your full attention and effort to selling.
8. Divide #1, #5 & #6 by the number of workdays that you'll work to get new opps/day, closed/day, $/day.
9. How many 'non-follow-up' calls did you make between March 16th and now? i.e.-asking for referrals, trying to get someone to answer the phone, prospecting only. Once they are an opportunity, the calls don't count.
10. What is #9x#1/#2/#7? Can your rep make that # of new calls/day?

Important to note.

• I understand that their pipeline is probably not empty. It's likely that their pipeline wasn't empty on March 16th. Let it be. Focus on what wasn't there. Think about it. They did whatever they did to find a new opportunity AND THEY CLOSED IT! Aren't we always more excited by stuff that's new and moving than something that's been stalled or stuck? Focus on what you can control. The behavior of getting new opportunities.
• This doesn't need to be complicated. These aren't fancy formulae with Greek letter, roots or powers. It's simple. What have they done? Can they do more of it? Success Secret #3.
• Finally, I used March 16th rather than 1/1 or a year ago to keep the entire exercise during the Covid era. We're using the history of their effort and results from the past few months under Covid to predict the results of their effort during the next few months. If things improve, hurray! If they don't, we planned for it.

Feel free to try it, If you need help working through it, just ask.