This is a perfect topic to begin the New Year!  While others will be talking and writing about goals and resolutions, we'll be discussing the things that really make a difference.  Sure, having goals is important, but having them in writing, with an achieve by date and a plan is exponentially more likely to have an actionable outcome than only having goals.  And if you really want results, accountability is to goals as the accelerator is to the automobile.  They both cause immediate action.  Here's what I mean.

Let's assume that the salespeople who read this blog are a little smarter and more dedicated to sales success.  If that resonates with you, then let's also assume that they have a strong will to succeed in sales.  If you're still with me, then it's safe to assume that they gave their all and tried to get 2015 off to a good start in the first quarter of last year.

We are going to compare the year over year results of 5 randomly selected salespeople with the only difference being that in 2016 they will be accountable, whereby in 2015, they were not.  Oh sure - they worked for someone, but that is not the same thing as being accountable.

To begin, I'll need 5 volunteers.  Here are the requirements:

• You must be willing to have me use your real name and company.
• You must have and provide your goals and actual metrics/results from the 1st quarter of 2015.
• You must be willing to provide me with your 2016 metrics/results every day during the 1st quarter of 2016.
• You must be willing to allow me to periodically write about your progress and results here in my blog.
• You must be willing to take part in a video interview before we begin and after we finish.
• You must allow the videos to be shown online.

I guarantee that the five people who are selected for this program, despite not getting coached, will experience their best years in 2016.  We know how powerful good coaching is, but I want to show how powerful effective accountability can be all by itself - especially when there is positive peer pressure.

Will it be you?

Will it be someone who reports to you?

If you or someone you care about would like to apply, just send me an email, state that you are willing and able to abide by the 6 requirements listed in the January 4 blog article, and I'll be in touch.

What are some of the things we can compare to last year?  They include, but aren't limited to:

• Pipeline Quantity
• Pipeline Quality
• Pipeline Acceleration
• Sales Cycle Length
• Call to Meeting Rate
• Attempt to Conversation Rate
• Milestones Achieved in Sales Cycle
• Suspect to Prospect Conversion Rate
• Prospect to Qualified Conversion Rate
• Qualified to Closable Rate
• Win Rate
• Average Sale
• Average Margin
• Number of Referrals
• Percentage of Leads Converted
• Archived Opportunities
• Percentage of Decision Makers Reached
• Demos Scheduled
• Demo to Win Rate
• Compelling Reasons Uncovered
• Compelling Reasons to Win Rate

Of course, if we don't have the specific metric from last year at this time, we can't run a comparison on that metric.  So how many of these metrics are you tracking?  Most companies track no more than 5 of these!  What would happen if you started to track all of them?