Ep. 204 Second Quarter Recharge

Avoid the second quarter slump. Joe Pici shares his top business coaching tips for reaching your mid year goals. 

Podcast transcript:
Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

This is Joe Pici of The Sales Edge and this is podcast number 204. Have you ever wondered how you were doing? How the health of your business was doing. You know, is April 1 we are the beginning of quarter number two. And so today we want to take a look back. We want to assess and evaluate your first quarter, my first quarter. So the sales says podcast is sponsored by Pici and Pici, which is a speaking, coaching, training, consulting company. Especially focusing on recapturing Lost revenue for our clients and for ourselves. recapturing those lost clients, recapturing lost momentum. Also SellMoreVirtually.com. This is a membership platform. Every Thursday night, I’m on doing a live coaching or training. We got interviews, downloads, e-courses. It’s tremendous. And so all of our businesses are always focused on how do you get in front of your target market? How do you close more business? All of the skills, tactics, and strategies? So today we want to move forward.

And I did an in-depth training on this last Thursday night on the SellMoreVirtually.com platform with a number of members that came in live. A couple of those said, you know Joe, this would be at least from an outline standpoint a tremendous podcast. And so if you remember back a few podcasts ago, I really taught the value in a SWOT analysis, which is your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and your threats. I want you to look at that model, you know, if you’re driving in your car, you certainly can’t do this. So the SWOT analysis is really forecasting, but we’re going to reverse engineer the SWOT analysis today. This is something that I do really weekly, monthly, annually. But today we’re going to reverse engineer the SWOT for the last 90 days.

How many People sat down in 2020 and and set their goals, their objectives? You know, really got ready for a fantastic 2021, thinking that all the storms were gone, all the challenges were disappear, There were no more challenges We had to be concerned about. And yet we found that although some things may have changed there is new set of circumstances. How did we navigate those things? How were we able to move forward in a way of business development, business growth? So if you have a SWOT in front of you okay, or just take out a piece of paper. We’re going to do it from a reverse engineering standpoint. I’d like you to first. Let’s go through the threats. Here’s some questions. What threats happened in the first 90 days of your fiscal year?

January 1, 2021. April 1, 2021. What were some of the challenges, the threats, You didn’t expect that came to the table? Take a couple minutes write them down. I can give you a couple of examples of things that may have happened. You may have lost some quality clients. You may have still experienced some new shutdowns, some of your clients that you had counted on for years may have gone out of business.

Maybe access to products and services you needed in your business We’re not readily available. Maybe you lost a good employee. Maybe you lost momentum. So went there are so many things that would constitute as threats. Let’s look back At the last 90 days and really become very granular and say what threats did we encounter We weren’t expecting? That’s your first reverse engineer of the SWOT for 2021. Now, let’s look at the next one over, what opportunities Loomed, what new opportunities came, what new opportunities did you get that you weren’t expecting? I know for us, We picked up a couple verticals We weren’t expecting. You know, in February, We picked up a couple of huge verticals. That were not part of our opportunities, but they came. You know through our lead generation and Linkedin we were able to uncover a new vertical. So what opportunities did you get That you weren’t expecting? Write them down.

Was it a new partnership, was it a new vertical, Did you pick up a brand new client? Okay, did you learn a new skill? You know, did you master, Did you develop a partnership? Did you open up a new company? Did you get a new position? Did you get a promotion? What opportunities were you not expecting? Okay that that happened, right them down. We’re going to move forward. Now an analysis and assessment, reverse engineering on the weaknesses, lost opportunities. So when we Get into this, What were some of the things you wanted to do that you didn’t do? What were some of the weaknesses are challenges that were revealed to you that you needed to get better at? So when these first 90 days of the year, you know kind of I never liked to use the word failure. I do like to use words like missed opportunities. Okay. What missed opportunities did you encounter in those first 90 days? We all had them but we need to really assess them.

And so when you make that list a second half of that same question, why? Why were those opportunities missed? Why did you miss the mark? This is a hard question. You know, this is sometimes it’s outside influence. Sometimes it’s outside. But sometimes it’s inside, sometimes it’s us, we didn’t do what we needed to do. We didn’t make that phone call. We didn’t generate that lead. We didn’t get that proposal out quickly enough. We didn’t follow up we didn’t deliver our projects in on time, on scope, on budget. We were not always returning phone calls in a timely fashion. We didn’t have a great response time. So these are all things that may have challenged. Okay, potential lost opportunities. So now let’s reverse engineer our strengths. What were our wins? What in the first 90 days of this year, What did you get better at? What became a strength, not a liability? What became an asset? What were your wins? How many new clients, how many proposals, how many phone calls did you eventually get into a new metric for yourself? So now as we look back because much can be learned from history. I believe we should keep our eyes forward but I believe we first have to reverse engineer SWOT so we can get a baseline. So as we’re looking through this and we’re writing these things down. Let me kind of review real quickly. We’ve done a reverse assessment in SWOT for the last 90 days. And like I said earlier most SWOTs are for the future. They’re forecasting, they’re ahead of us.

But if we use the same tool as a reverse engineering and we really use as an assessment tool of what happened. We can learn from it. So recap real quick before we move forward. What were the threats that appeared we weren’t expecting? I could write them down right now. I have them on my on my desk. There were a couple threats that happened for Pici and Pici. We were not expecting. But they became real. Number two, what were the opportunities? And I got those on my desk. There became opportunities that when 2020 closed out these opportunities were not even in the realm of understanding. We didn’t understand they were there, they did not appear. It wasn’t like our goal was, these were opportunities that showed up that we were able to attack and capture.

And then we when look at The weaknesses or lost opportunities and I will tell you this is the hardest one to deal with. The hardest one to deal with even more than threats. What are the opportunities I didn’t take advantage of? What were the things I didn’t do that I should have done? And the strength the wins, the captured. What was your fastball? Now that you have that look you have your Baseline. Let’s look at The next 90 days. Okay. We now have a baseline. So in the way of coaching, let’s look at the next 90 days. So the first thing we want to do is we want to look at again in our SWOT. What are three things that we want to develop in a way of strengths? What are three things We want to accomplish? What are those three things that absolutely we want to gain Mastery over, to execute, to generate, what result. So that’s under your strength.

Number two. What are The areas of deficiency weakness? What do we absolutely need to punch up in our business? What do we have to get better at? Maybe do we need to open up a new Silo? Do we need to increase the amount of calls? We need to get better at lead generation. Do we need a better core story. Do we need to be more effective in our core story? What are the areas that have to get better for us to get the end result? Now the third one is opportunities. What opportunities can we open up in a proactive way? You know, do we have our Dream 100, So to speak. Those companies or individuals we’d like to go after that Maybe we have an aversion or a nervousness for. So what opportunities would we like to open up? What are some potential opportunities we’ve heard about?

And what could be possible threats. What could be out there, things like new competition? A one of our one of our great clients. Okay on SellMoreVirtually.com was very transparent and said in the last 30 days a giant new competitor entered into his Marketplace that didn’t exist. And that became a new threat that he’s going to have to navigate. He’s going to have to figure out what are things I need to do to compensate and defeat my competition? How do you gain an unfair Advantage? How do you out sell the competition? So now you have your Baseline SWOT And so here’s a challenge. What are the three things you most want to accomplish in the next quarter? Write them down. What is very important to you that you want to accomplish? You want to get better at? You’re looking to capture? Now the second question is, okay. What possible distractions can get in the way of that? in other words, What are the pitfalls that can keep you from getting that? So, you know what you want to accomplish. Can we put a number on that? Is there a financial Revenue goal? Is there an amount of clients? Then what could distract you but What are you willing to do to get that?

What are you willing to improve on? What are those three to five things that you need to master To accomplish that? You know, in the book Think and Grow Rich. It’s always about how much money do I want to make doing what and what am I willing to give up? Because to move the needle, to get to Next Level, to achieve more, you have to do less of other things. It’s always about what can I do more of and what can I do less of? I will tell you about the month of April is very pivotal. It is very pivotal. The majority of people.

Okay, A lot of people out there have felt like the first 90 days of 2021 did not net them what they wanted. And if they’re not careful if they’re not careful. They will continue not to master. So you have to take April drive your stake in the ground be very focused on those things we talked about. You know for us we had some very audacious goals. We know the revenue we want. Okay, we know what could possibly get in a way that Revenue. We know what we’re willing to move around and and sacrifice to get there. So so the whole idea of this reverse engineering assessment was to help us not let the year disappear. Not let the year go away.

You know so many times People may quote unquote New Year’s resolutions only by the end of January to give up on them. Folks, We don’t want to be casualties. We don’t want you to be casualties. We don’t want their to get to the 6-month Mark and start talking about 2022. There’s a lot of time left here and April can be your pivotal month. So what are those very things you want to focus on to get better at? What do you want to accomplish? How do You want to get there? And what are you willing to give up to get there?

Now in that Okay, we’ve got to thank our sponsors that’s Pici and Pici and SellMoreVirtually.com. They have been the whole way financially for us to underwrite everything We’re doing here. If this is an asset to you. Can you like it, you can you share? Can you make a comment on it? Once again, we want to thank you as I’ve said in our last podcast Global gurus posted the top 30 in the world. Last year I was number one, this year Number two. Our sales training methodology was number one last year. We’re waiting for them to accumulate that. But thank you, you know in the last three years, I’ve been number three, number one, number two, which consistency is the key to business. But it’s only been because of your loyalty and you helping us achieve that Mark. So hopefully this has been an asset to you. Hopefully you gain some real value. On this whole reverse SWOT analysis because if you can really understand this, if you can execute this, this is going to help you have a tremendous April, May, June. An April, May, June, where you master these things you’re going to have an incline, a vertical, that’s going to make 2021 a great year. So thanks a lot. We will see you at our next podcast.

Voice over:

Thanks for listening. New episodes will air each Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and give us a five star review. The Sales Edge is sponsored by Pici and Pici Incorporated. A firm which provides training, consulting, and keynote presentations. Empowering corporations and individuals to attract and retain quality clients, for higher revenues and growth. Make more money in sales, speak with Joe in person by calling 407 947 2590 or visit www.piciandpici.com