At this point in the year, media sales professionals should have a good read on their 4Q performance. However, no matter how close or far you may be from your goals, there is time to still impact your final commission payment. With 4th quarter typically being the largest revenue quarter for many media companies, it’s often a make or break quarter for sellers and sales teams. Therefore, it’s paramount that sales teams and sellers approach this pivotal quarter with a sound plan to execute on. “But it’s already mid-September, what else can I do?”
- Booked Revenue - Make sure it stays in Quarter!
- First, ensure that booked dollars are still scheduled to run in quarter. You’ve worked hard to win this business, it would be a shame if it slipped out of quarter when you were focusing your energy elsewhere. Stay close to teams internally and externally that could impact the flighting of your revenue (production delays, etc.). Any changes could impact your commission, so best to know ASAP if you need to replace some of those dollars.. If you are surprised by a shift late in the quarter, it not only hurts your wallet, but, it will deflate you mentally!
- Pipeline - Know your pipeline and focus where it counts!
- Focus on the deals that have the highest likelihood of closing AND that can make the biggest impact on your 4Q number. These include, but are not limited to, deals that are higher up the funnel and/or deals that have a bulk of the dollars flighted in 4Q (even if lower probability to close). These will be the deals that can move the needle!
- Prospecting potential 4Q spenders
- Questions to ask yourself (ones you should have the answers to)
- What clients typically spend in this quarter but are not in my pipeline (company & industry wide)?
- Who do I (or the company) have the strongest win rates with (Advertisers and/or Agencies)?
- What clients typically have the shortest sales cycle times/quickest to close?
- What clients have we worked with that have quick turnaround times? (Focusing on quick closing and running media-only deals instead of production-heavy content clients.
As always, the best way to achieve and exceed your goals is to never be pacing behind them. Some best practices to live by throughout the year will help you stay ahead of pace and in-the-money!
- Plan out your days, weeks and months. Give yourself goals around # of cold calls, # of meetings, etc.
- Stay focused and don’t let distractions get in the way of your daily, weekly goals.
- Know the KPI’s needed to achieve your revenue goal:
- How many deals do you need to hit your number?
- What is your win rate? How many RFP’s do you need to generate to close those deals?
- How many calls & meetings do you need each week to achieve that level of RFP’s?
Know your business inside and out and give yourself daily and weekly targets at the beginning of the sales period that will influence the rest of the sales cycle. It’s in your hands!If you have trouble getting the answers to these questions or would like to talk in more detail about how to approach getting this data and using it to power your decisions, please feel free to contact us.
