What’s the best way to close a quarter strong? Not having to.

We all know it: the famous rat race of quota-crushing on a monthly basis and pushing hard to finish the quarter with dignity and spirits intact.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The more proactively you build your pipeline, the better off you’ll be. While even seasoned reps can have a difficult time with this, it’s undoubtedly the key to repeating your results quarter over quarter.

Just like in my book, ‘Addicted to The Process”, the more consistency you build in your strategies day in and day out, the more confidence and results follow. So, let’s pull apart some key takeaways I personally see as ways that you can set yourself up for success and crush your quotas.

STEP ONE: DON’T MANUFACTURE URGENCY

Pipeline, pipeline, pipeline. Back in the beginning when I started my sales career I was a maniac about staying late in the office and building out a process. A huge part of that was building my pipeline.

SalesHacker wrote an article about end-of-quarter strategies that my sidekick and good friend, Amy Volas, chimed in on in regards to pipeline:

“No matter what time of the month, quarter, or year it may be, keep your pipeline strong, always. This approach has never let me down. The only times I’ve struggled, I had let my pipeline “go” for a period of time. Foolish mistake. I was fortunate enough to learn early on in my career.”

And she ain’t wrong!

If your pipeline is 10x bigger than your revenue target, you won’t have to manufacture urgency. You can still create urgency and will need to — but you won’t be manufacturing it as a means to make sales solely because you were in a time crunch.

If your target pipeline is 3x, why settle at that? Go 10x. Then it doesn’t matter what closes and what doesn’t. It purely becomes statistical at that point, allowing you to worry less about how many you don’t have in the lineup, which leads to less stress and onto the next key takeaway.

STEP TWO: STOP STRESSING

Your life isn’t over if you miss quota. It’s actually important to build the grit and hunger from the months that you don’t hit quota because it will only propel you forward.

One or two bad months of not hitting your number should only be a lesson and lead to behavior that you don’t want to repeat again (hence, filling your pipeline heavily.)

On a NPR podcast called, HIDDEN BRAIN, there’s an episode on the scarcity trap. The mindset behind it is that not having enough of what you need can become the only thing that matters to you; it creates a tunnel vision.

When you have a quota to retain and your pipeline, deals coming through, quarterly goals aren’t being met and so forth, it can immediately trigger us to be blind to the big picture and we lack the ability to see the details.

Don’t get stuck in this — stop stressing. Pick apart your process, and trust it.

STEP THREE: LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED

Go back into your pipeline with a vengeance. Reach out to old opportunities or past customers and try to re-engage with them.

Not only does it help build rapport easily but it puts the bug back in their ear. If you truly start increasing your pipeline 10x like I mentioned: making this touchpoint is going to be huge for you to make a repeatable process.

STEP FOUR: LET OTHER PEOPLE INFECT YOU

Okay, this one sounds weird but, hang with me here. Spend time talking to and hanging out with folks already over quota so their confidence and tactics rub off on you.

If you’re struggling early on and can preemptively see the quarter or month isn’t going to end well for you: find the person that’s crushing it or doing something right and put time on their calendar.

Learn from their process and rituals and see if there are takeaways you can build into your own routine. Not only will talking to other people about it help alleviate the stress you might feel, but it will inject confidence into you once you have new ideas to put into action.

Overall, remembering that hitting quota is full within your control, but not letting the fickle side of selling get to your head. Maintain your mindset and your work ethic and the numbers will follow.

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Come visit us on Thursday Night Sales if you need to bounce ideas off of Amy and I and find support from hundreds of people going through the same experience day in and day out.

As for other big news: Surf and Sales is back on for November 2021! Session two sold out in four hours so we opened up session one and its now 50% sold out. If you want to learn more and reserve your spot to level up professionally and personally you can find all of the information here: Surf and Sales 2021.

My podcast episode: Metrics That Measure Up w/ host Ray Rike. “Each “side hustle” was a way to off-set an existing expense. This created the goal and incentive to invest the time to create “micro-ventures” outside of his full time VP Sales roles.”

I don’t know what the F*** this thing is – I didn’t ask to be involved – but since I am apparently in it – maybe you can help me win the whole thing?