Many of us are so focused on hitting our sales target today that we forget that we’re in this (or should be) for the long haul. Each year those sales targets increase, but God has not, and doesn’t seem inclined to provide additional hours to accomplish those bigger targets. So what are we doing this year to make our task easier next year, and the year after?

When we take a look at our territory at the beginning of each year, whether it is a list of specific targeted accounts, a geographic territory or just a few major accounts, we should ask ourselves two questions about the territory itself:

1. Is my territory more refined than it was a year ago?
2. What can I do this year to make sure that the answer to question number one a year from now is yes?

So what do I mean by refined? If I have a brand new list of 1,000 names, we know that some of these names can not or will not buy from us. Our job is to not only to make sales this year, but also to continually refine that list of 1,000 names, culling out the chaff and retaining the wheat for future attempts.

Many sales people I have trained work through lists of names provided them, sold to those where the timing was right and just threw the rest of the list away and asked for another list. In past Blogs, I’ve talked about the concept of very few of our targets being ‘in the market’ for what we’re selling when we call them. Since we’ve just invested time with them on an appointment making call only to determine they’re not ‘in the market’ right now, why not take just a few more seconds to ask an additional question or two to determine whether this is a permanent condition or just temporary?

If we do, and then ask the appropriate ones if it would be okay to call back in the future to determine if anything has changed, we’re beginning to build a list of targets that have at least passed the first level of qualification. Our appointment making task will therefore take less time next year.