Finish Strong – EOY

As we adjust to the cooler weather and enjoy the changing colors of the leaves, our children, family, and friends are getting excited about the upcoming holiday season. Your family and friends may have begun asking who’s hosting dinner for the holidays. 

Yet as a professional saleswoman or business owner, the end of year (EOY) can bring questions and sometimes anxiety about hitting quarterly and yearly sales targets. Here are 18 tips that begin with the letter E to help you finish the EOY with ease.

---

This is the 18-E EOY method to a strong finish:

1.  Encourage change—Give yourself a gentle reminder to do things differently or do different things.

2.  Embrace a take-no-prisoners attitude. Get serious, raise the bar, and step up your game. 

3.  Establish a sense of urgency—Only about 60 workdays are left in 2019.

4.  Execute—All actions are not created equal. Identify and focus on the high-impact actions you must do to hit your EOY goals, as recommended in Chris McChesney’s book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution.

5.  Elevate your value story. Leverage your client research and insight to make your sales story compelling, thought-provoking, and remarkable. Your value story is one of the most essential tools in your sales tool kit.

6.  Expand your EOY strategy with new ideas—Institute a weekly feed-forward coaching process. Feed-forward (versus feedback) focuses on future performance. Ask a colleague or peer, “If you wanted to finish the year strong, what would you do?” Join the SIS Slack conversation.

7.  Enhance your industry knowledge. Learn about industry trends by listening to daily podcasts or TEDTalks.

8.  Establish a daily routine of listing your critical tasks, and commit  to performing those tasks. Don’t write down a task if you’re not going to do it. Check out the daily SWATCH as an example. Start your day with your critical tasks.

9.  Enlist help—Ask for referrals. Entrepreneur magazine lists 25 ways to ask for referrals without seeming pushy or desperate. 

10.  End—Begin with the end. Set clear SMART Goals for December 31st.

11.  Exercise regularly—Practice self-care. (e.g., drink plenty of water, take time to walk and stretch). 

12.  Eliminate your messes—Mess enhances stress, and clutter contributes to confusion. Messy desks and workspaces can make us feel overwhelmed, anxious, and unfocused, as suggested in the New York Times article “The Unbearable Heaviness of Clutter.” 

13.  Each day, set intentions on how you want to present yourself to the world and live each day. Intentions can act as a reminder and give you the purpose of showing up to meet your goals.

14.  Emphasize appreciation. Employ a daily Gratitude Pact. 

15.  Execute a social media strategy—Leverage LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to increase your social media footprint.

16.  Endear clients—Send handwritten holiday or seasonal greeting cards. 

17.  Ensure accountability—Accept responsibility for your success. You’re worth the effort!

18.  Eat healthfully—Practice mindful eating and choose nutritious foods. Mindful eating, a form of meditation, is about developing awareness of your experiences, physical cues, and feelings about food. By eating mindfully, you make eating an intentional act instead of an automatic one. (See Mindful Eating 101 — A Beginner’s Guide)

The tasks that help you close out December and finish the year strong will help you hit your goals throughout the year. Regardless of how Q4 is shaping up, start thinking about how you can improve in 2020.

Here’s to selling Mastery. 

-Cherilynn

Head of Education and Growth, Sistas In Sales

Executive Coach/Managing Partner, CGI

Cherilynn Castleman, Executive Coach/Sales Trainer, has been a sales executive for 20+ years. With a natural talent for teaching and a drive to sell, Cherilynn uses her skills to coach and train other executives and sales professionals.

---

“Your life is your story, and the adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential.” — Kerry Washington

Am American actress, Kerry gained wide public recognition for starring as Olivia Pope, a crisis management expert, in the ABC drama series Scandal (2012–2018).