2014 is less than a month away. How prepared are you? Here is a quick checklist of things you can do NOW

1. Happy 2014
2014 is less than a month away. How prepared are you?
Things to do to build a strong 2014 business
Philippe Van Impe

2. Dec 2013 – Checklist
2014 is less than a month away. How prepared are you?
Here is a quick checklist of things you can do now:
1. Who are your 5 best customers ?
2. Select 5 new large prospects
3. Identify 3 new products of services
4. Optimize 2 things in your sales process
5. Dump 3 customers or prospects
6. Judge how efficient you are

3. Who are your 5 best customers ?
1. Identify your best 5 customers and what you can do to increase your
level of business with them next year.
Take the time to develop the plan. Start with the people with whom you need
to develop a better relationship and follow that by focusing on the outcomes
they are desiring.
Doing these two things will put you in position to be able to serve these
customers at an even higher level than you’re currently doing.

4. Select 5 new large prospects
2. Identify 5 new large customers that will take a several months of
prospecting work to put you in a position to sell to them.
You want to start this process as early in the year as possible to ensure you can
close them well before the end of the year

5. Identify 3 new products of services
3. Identify 3 new products or services you can leverage hard with both
your existing customer base and with new customers.
Key is to not be focused on the actual product or service, but to be focused on
the outcome and benefit the customer will gain from using it.

6. Optimize 2 things in your sales process
4. Identify the 2 big things you know if you change in your sales process
will make a significant difference in your results.
Break these items down into small pieces you can begin working on
immediately. If the items are big, you will never attack them, but by going after
them in small chunks they become very doable.
Just as with the large prospects you intend to go after right away, you want to
start on these too without delay.

7. Dump 3 customers or prospects
5. Identify 3 customers/prospects you need to walk away from.
That’s right! You need to purge your list. It sounds counter-intuitive, but there
are people you’re spending time with who are doing nothing but taking up your
valuable time.
They might be customers or prospects or both. Either way you have to get rid
of them. Doing so will give you more time to spend on the other
customers/prospects you identified that are going to bring you the business
you need.

8. Judge how efficient you are
Judge how efficient you are
6. Assess your attitude/motivation and allocation of time.
In the end, it comes down to you. Take some time to list out how you spend your time
and what factors in your life either contribute positively or negatively to it.
What adjustments do you need to make? Who is going to hold you accountable?
As I’ve said many times before, top performers are those who are 100% responsible
for their own actions and are not willing to allow the environment around them to
impact them negatively.

9. Wishing you the best possible 2014
Philippe Van Impe
BDA Europe
@pvanimpe