In this issue, we have provided a list of the top ten recommended New Year’s “business” resolutions modified from the traditional ones you might have already seen or made. I look forward to your comments.

Rick Erling
CEO - The CxO Group

by Paul DiModi , 

It’s that time of year again when sales teams are assigned their company’s new compensation plans, sales quotas, and job responsibilities. It’s that time of year when sales managers start looking to hire new salespeople and sales executives start looking for new jobs.

It’s that time of year when management teams huddle in the backroom, order pizza, strategize their corporate goals, and develop new business concepts while simultaneously designing marketing materials that will make them look like an industry player.

So, as the New Year approaches, we all make New Year’s resolutions that are both personal and professional. We write on our magical list that we want to make more money, exercise more, get a better job, or lose the extra pounds that have hung around the last few years.

Yet studies show that most people do not have a personal success plan or even a business plan (a sales plan is not a business plan) and that by April of each New Year, most people have failed to live up to their New Year goals.

So, will you be prepared to reach your goals?

Traditional New Year’s resolutions include get out of debt, get a new job or work from home, save more money, exercise, get organized, learn something new, and reduce stress. At The CxO Group, we work with CEOs and senior executives to increase their professional and corporate business performance. To help our many readers, we have provided a list of the top ten recommended New Year’s “business” resolutions modified from the traditional ones you might have already seen or made.

Follow them and you will be healthier, wealthier and wiser in 2011.

Are the following resolutions tough? You bet they are. Am I being too aggressive in my observations? Maybe. But these are New Year’s resolutions. They are designed to make you reach for strategic and tactical goals that will make you more successful.

2011 is up to you!

Top 10 New Year’s Business Resolutions

1. Be a better leader. As the CEO or president of my company, I will not let ego drive my business decisions. Instead, I will substitute business logic, research and input from others.

2. Base my business decisions on research. As the CEO or president, I will not make up my team’s annual sales quota or target assignments in the backroom. Instead, I will calculate their goals based on a mathematical sales capture model that also looks at market opportunity size by territory.

3. Invest in my business. As the CEO or President of my company, I will invest in outside sales training, marketing, and strategy advisement for my company, because I really don’t know everything and without increased revenue capture . . . we don’t need our other departments.

4. Accept accountability. As a salesperson, I will not blame marketing, the services group, operations/engineering, or my boss when I do not hit my assigned sales quota. Instead, I will be a mature salesperson and accept it’s my responsibility to be successful within the corporate environment I operate in.

5. Invest in myself. As a salesperson, I will stop being cheap, accept that sales is my chosen career, understand that I am a professional, and actually invest my own money in career training to become more successful (at least 1% of my gross income a year).

6. Learn something new. As a salesperson, I will finally admit that I don’t know everything and will actually try to learn some new sales methods, strategies and techniques to increase my success.

7. Make more money. As a salesperson, even though I hate to cold call, I will cold call at least 40 new prospects a week, every week — because even with today's technology, cold calling is still one of the best ways to hunt for new business and make more money.

8. Be more productive. As a marketing department manager, I will focus on generating qualified inbound leads for my sales team first, work on branding second, and create brochures third.

9. Reduce stress. As a sales management executive, I will not manage my team by emotions. Instead, I will manage my sales team by business metrics that are realistic and can be documented.

10. Help others. As a manager of operations, engineering or corporate services delivery, I will stop blaming the sales department for client engagement problems and start working with them in tandem to deliver what I said we can do.

One Extra New Year’s Resolution

To work at what I like doing — not just what I have to do.

“Remember, revenue capture is not solely the salesperson’s responsibility — it’s the company’s responsibility.”