Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

Did you meet your sales goals?

Is it the beginning of your new fiscal year? If you are like most salespeople, you are reflecting on your performance towards your goals for the last year or last quarter. Hopefully, you are celebrating the achievement of your sales goals. Congratulations! Great job!

But, if you are lamenting the fact that you came in short of your target numbers, then you have some questions to ask yourself, and some decisions to make before this new time period gets too far along.

Let’s start with the questions:

• Did you give it your all during this past year?
• Did you give your company and your product 100% effort to achieve your sales goals?
• Did you always present your product as your company asked you to?
• Did you always make the correct number of sales calls that you and your company expected?

If the answer is “yes” to these questions, I suggest presenting proof of your efforts to your company’s management and ask that they improve their product to make it more marketable, change the way the company is pricing the product, change the way the company is marketing the product, or ask them to reduce your sales quotas for this next period of time. If the company refuses to make the necessary changes, you might consider looking for another company to sell for. Make a change.

Recognize the insanity

But if the answer is “no” to these questions, and your plan, at this time, for next year is to approach your sales calls the same way you did last year with the same call attempt times, same email templates, same voicemail templates, same sales process, and same attitude, but now rely on hope alone to help you reach your goal before December rolls up, then you might want to look up the number for the Happy Farms Asylum.

How can you improve?

If you admit you could have given more effort last year, ask yourself why you didn’t. Maybe last year was an anomaly. Did personal issues interfere with your job duties? Hopefully, you have those issues squared away, you’ve made adjustments, and next year will find you back on track. Make those changes.

Have you considered a refresh of your sales training? We all need reminders now and then. Check out a few of the selling skills training videos from HSI. We cover things like handling objections, DISC selling skills, determining customer needs, and much more. Maybe it is time to simply get back to the basics.

Don’t you believe in the product you are selling or the company you are selling for? If not, look for another job or look for something else to sell. Don’t spend another year making yourself and your management miserable. Make a change to another company or another product.

If you believe in the product and your company, but you really don’t want to put in the effort to sell, you need to make a change to another career. Find a career that makes you want to put in the effort, something that you actually enjoy doing. Successful salespeople love their product and their company, and they love to sell. If you don’t have the love, make a change.

Our library is full of useful tools to contribute to your team's personal selling success. Check out our entire library of selling skills training courses now by requesting a free trial of our HSI LMS.

And by the way, I have heard that “insanity definition” used numerous times, and I have used it myself many times. Over and over again, Einstein has been credited for this famous remark. What if I were to tell you that there is absolutely no proof that Einstein ever said it? You might say something like, “You’re insane!” How fitting! Look it up.