Newsletter #7 - October 2022
Andy Jaffke
Senior Sales Leader at Teradata | Figuring out the value of AI & GenAI | Passionate Coach and Mentor
Is that you???
It's October. The last quarter of FY2022 has just started and you are behind with your numbers! Oh my god!
The pressure is in the air, everyone is totally stressed chasing opportunities and trying to bring deals forward that are forecasted to close in Q1 or Q2 FY2023 to make the quota.
Your manager is staring at you in the forecast call and asks :
"How are your key deals progressing?"
"Paul, you are 40% behind your numbers and we have only three months left. What do you have?" and "What are you going to do to make your numbers?"
You are sweating and can only say "We are working on it at full steam." and "We made progress on this opportunity and are trying to bring in deal B with company A."
Successfully managing this stressful "Urgent and Important" period is vital.
Here is how you can make it happen:
Closely coach, mentor and support
Let me first tell you one thing: If you are behind with the numbers in October and you only have two and a half months left (Remember: Christmas is approaching!), there is no other way than working very closely with your Account Executives and sales team to make it happen.
But you should not do this by putting more pressure on the team. NOT!
Offering your AE's and sales team your help to advance and close deals without playing the hero is much more effective. Shoulder to shoulder.
Do not forget. You are there to help, coach and mentor, not to do their job even if it's very tempting to do so sometimes and to "jump" right in.
These are moments of truth and growth in the careers of many Account Executives. The outcomes of their own doing will provide these key learnings and real-life experiences.
Accountability call cadence is key
I can ?t stress this enough.
Most Sales Managers lack a healthy follow-up process and the right accountability call structure and cadence.
The lack of process discipline throughout the year often leads us to face these uncomfortable situations.
领英推荐
Solution: The Fiscal Year Closing Race Call
You can still fix this but in a different way. You set up the "FY Closing Race Call" once per week and call in the whole sales team. You run the meeting and share all opportunities ordered by deal sizes and close date and ask each AE to comment on next steps.
We did this back in FY2019 but started really late on December 16th. We had still to close 47! deals. Here is the spreadsheet we used.
We had a daily 30 min call on every single working day until we closed ALL deals. The last 2 deals were closed December 31st.
Lesson learnt: Everything seems impossible until it's done. But to make things happen you have to act putting laser sharp focus on the right things and be disciplined with the execution.
P.S: Since 2020 this was not necessary any more ;) - Keep reading and learn why
Avoid the stress, plan and prepare for FY2023
The only way to avoid this kind of situation is proper planning and preparation.
Believe me, this is the ONLY WAY.
Now set time aside during Q4 to plan your key management activities and put them into your FY2023 agenda.
These are:
Start now with your planning and put these in your agenda as "Jour fix" and repetitive meetings setting clear goals & expectations for every attendee!
I wish you a better and less stressful closing of FY2023 and a happy and successful FY2022 closing!
Links to previous "The Sales Manager" Newsletters:
Books Andy has written or co-authored: