There’s a hard fact of sales that most people don’t learn until their first commission check.
Quotas are designed to be unattainable.
You can work your inbound leads, prospect, cold call and cold email all you want, but it’s rarely enough to get to 100 percent. Even deals that seem to be in the bag can fall through without warning.
Nothing is guaranteed.
Your best bet for getting 100% to quota (and 100% of your on-target earnings) — is building “deep pipeline.”
That means doing stuff today that may not pay off for 6 to 12 months.This goes against what most salespeople believe, and what most sales managers will tell you. Because the pressure to hit quota is so high, the natural urge is to focus only on the opportunities that could realistically close this month, or this quarter and ignore everything else.
But that won’t get you where you want to go.
To build the kind of ‘deep pipeline’ that will make you truly successful, you have to go beyond selling and prioritize building relationships — even with people who have no chance of buying this month, next month, or next quarter.
At the end of the day, that’s where deals come from: relationships. Genuine, non-transactional, human-to-human relationships are the backbone of every career salesperson’s success.
Can relationships ultimately become transactional? Sure. . But you won’t get to that point unless they’re respectful and real.
But we’re not saying to waste time with people who can’t buy. That’s a losing strategy. What we are saying is to identify people for whom the timing isn’t right but who could buy in the future.
When you come across those folks, invest in them. Remember their birthdays and anniversaries. Congratulate them on promotions or starting a new job.
But whatever you do, don’t monopolize their time. That’s just annoying.
Check out Teamflow’s virtual sales floor: https://www.teamflowhq.com/salesfloor
