The Boston Red Sox had a mediocre team in 2024. They had too many left-handed hitters, not enough starting pitching, an undependable bullpen, and by far, the worst defense in the MLB. Sure, they won half their games, but they lost the other half – many of them games they should have won. Most sales teams win fewer than half their “games,” and while defense can’t be blamed, pitching can! Unlike the Red Sox, most sales teams have too much pitching (demos and presentations)!

Success is a highly subjective concept defined by intentional achievement and aligning actions with personal values. It may mean earning a degree, securing a promotion or gaining confidence. However, the greatest barriers to success are often self-imposed. Your personality can be a significant hurdle, with traits like perfectionism or fear of failure sabotaging your efforts. Understanding and managing these traits is crucial to staying on track and achieving your vision of success.

Sales must be a top priority if you want your business to thrive. It's not enough to simply have a great product or service; you need to market it effectively and convince potential customers that it's worth their time and money. As we approach the year's final quarter, business owners across various industries are feeling the pressure to close out the year with high financial numbers.

One of the best ways to set your sales team up for success is to create an action plan. Instead of simply assigning target sales goals and leaving them at that, an action plan reverse engineers how your team will reach those numbers, laying out the best tactics and strategies. This post will walk you through four steps to create an action plan to improve sales performance, along with sales action plan ideas and tips to keep your team on track to achieving the target.

Whether you call them New Year’s resolutions or goals, many of us are setting action items to help us improve in 2022. Scrolling through LinkedIn recently, I saw several sales leaders sharing their goals. One common theme: They want to empower their sales teams to succeed.

A few years ago, my team at Inventium completed a strengths finder assessment. I expected my report to tell me that my top strength was something like ‘time optimisation’ (as a similar test had revealed many years ago) or ‘creativity’ - or some other skill that I utilise every day. But no, apparently my number one strength was ‘competitiveness’ (although this would come as no surprise to anyone who has played Settlers of Catan against me).