Have you ever had a deal get delayed due to a holiday? Decision-makers are traveling and offices are closed. Around a holiday, you can lose an entire week—and this happens multiple times a year!
Many salespeople assume they have 52 weeks a year to reach their sales goals. Nope! When a holiday rolls around, you can’t hit your weekly quota, and suddenly you’re playing catch-up. If you’re lucky, you can catch up before the next holiday—and the cycle repeats.
So, how can you be strategic about planning your sales goals for the year?
When I’m calculating my weekly goals, I typically subtract 6 weeks out of the year. Here’s why you should too. Planning for 46-weeks:
- Keeps goals realistic
- Reduces stress around holidays & vacations
- Provides “Bonus Weeks” to use as you wish
Ready to make a 46-week plan work for you?
Why 46 Weeks?
If you think you’re going to accomplish 52 weeks of work in a year, you’re setting yourself up for failure. For any year, you can cross off four weeks right from the start:
- Fourth of July
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas
- New Year’s
This doesn’t mean that you’re not working those weeks, but it’s just really hard to close deals when so many people are taking time off.
In addition to the four holiday weeks, I subtract two more weeks to account for the vacation days, school snow days, sick days, and other lost time. It will happen—even if you don’t know when!
Your Six ‘Bonus Weeks’
These six weeks are now bonus weeks for you. If you get anything done, great! Check out my article on Making the Most of a Bonus Week. You can use this time for planning, research, networking, and more.
If you need personal time off, you can take it! Since you’ve already built in the lost time, you don’t have to worry about not reaching your goals. But if your regular business has slowed down during one of these weeks and you’re free, it’s a great opportunity to catch up—stress free!
Setting Up To Succeed
When you’re setting your sales goals, don’t count on these six weeks being productive, so the other weeks will have to pick up the slack. That’s why we divide our annual goals by 46 (not 52) to get our weekly quotas.
Managing your year this way ensures you’re setting up the correct quotas and milestones you need to achieve your annual goals. You won’t get off track, and you won’t beat yourself up every time there’s a snowstorm, illness, or national holiday.
Planning ahead takes the pressure off those “lost weeks” and sets you up to succeed. You’ll be able to enjoy your personal time off (with a positive attitude), and you won’t be playing a losing game of catch-up at the end of every year!
Hit Your Sales Goals With Time-Management
In my career as a sales coach and consultant, I’ve seen so many salespeople find that time management and planning had the most impact on their bottom line.
Until next time—go sell some stuff!
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