One more gift, one more sale: Tips to sleigh your goals in the new year

Swear to get to know your own data cold — inside and out. ... If you don’t know your numbers, it’s hard to really know where to improve.”

Jeff Sleete, a 50+ year broadcast industry veteran

I love the Christmas season if for no other reason than it allows me to, once again, serenade and annoy my grandchildren with my favorite version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” by The Smothers Brothers:

You better watch out,

You better not cry,

Better not pout,

I'm telling you why:

Santa Claus is dead.

 Another thing is coming to town, and it’s a New Year. And if you want to make it one, you don’t have to watch out for or cry over, or pout about, or heaven forbid, keep from becoming a dead year for yourself; it’s best to make a couple of New Year’s sales resolutions.

You know, stuff like…

Pledge to get back to basics

The past year has been anything but ordinary. We are all hoping for a new normal. The only way to get there is to go back to basics. Resolve to practice improving, at the very least, one key core sales skill like:

• Prospecting
• Presenting
• Handling objections
• Closing
• Following-up

Do one more

In episodes of the TV show “Columbo,” the unconventional character Lt. Frank Columbo, played by Peter Falk, would say to a suspect he was investigating who thinks they have gotten away with murder, “Just one more thing ....” The phrase was a trademark of the show and a sign to viewers that Columbo was about to solve the case.

In sales, pledge to commit to “Columbo’s Trademark,” which translates to doing one more thing to make the ordinary — extraordinary. 

In the story of Medal of Honor recipient Desmond Doss, told in the movie “Hacksaw Ridge,” Doss was a conscientious objector who enlisted as a combat medic. He singlehandedly, in one battle, saved 75 men. (Doss reckoned he saved about 50, but his fellow soldiers gauged it closer to 100. They decided to split the difference.)  During the night, he sneaked around the battlefield, covered with injured men, and one by one, lowered them down a 400-foot cliff using a rope. With each one he lowered, he would ask, “Lord, please, help me get one more.”

It may take some courage, but you can do this! When you look at your sales day …

• Plan one more call than usual.
• Send one more email.
• Prospect for one more customer.
• Follow up with a prospect one more time.
• Make one more presentation, etc.

You get the picture.

Know your numbers

Swear to get to know your own data cold — inside and out.

• Your average sale size
• The number of conversations to land some face time to secure a meeting
• Average number of meetings until a close
• Average number of clients sold per day/week/month, etc.

If you don’t know your numbers, it’s hard to really know where to improve.

Remember, all the additional things you don’t do or changes you don’t make in this New Year won’t work. I sincerely hope 2025 is a blessed one for you!

Jeff Sleete is a 50+ year broadcast industry veteran — sales manager/GM/corporate sales head. He most enjoys helping sales departments position themselves as “mavens” (experts) of business to be more successful at selling advertising. Fundamentally, Jeff is a salesman. Through his media sales consultancy, Sleete Sales Script, he provides a daily road map for sellers of any media outlet type to be more consultative in their approach to their clients and set themselves apart from all their competition. Learn more about Jeff at https://www.sleetesales.com/. Or reach him at  jeff@sleetesales.com.