An optimistic post about how to capitalize on 2017’s successes and recreate them in 2018. Keep the karma coming! Stick with what is successful and simplify your sales!

Step 1: Analyzing What Worked

As with all self-reflective practices, our first step is analysis. Last week we discussed analyzing our sales pitfalls from 2017 and avoiding our past mistakes. The other side of the coin here is focusing on what worked and doing that again, but better. Take a look at your sales trends that worked from last year by analyzing your monthly sales numbers as well as identifying how your contacts that became clients were identified. What age groups are you serving the most? What process gets you “in the door?” Have your in home sales been successful? What script gets you responses during cold calling? What social media posts have gotten the most likes or followers?

There are many ways to analyze the sales trends of the last year. A lot of the work will be done the old-fashioned way: by backtracking through paperwork or financial records with a pen and paper. However, I would encourage you to look into how to use social media data for trend analysis. Depending on what platforms you utilize to help you sell preneed insurance, there are tons of resources available that will analyze the data for you. Instagram Business has tools to help you measure how your posts are received by your followers, and what hashtags are searched when people find you. Facebook has similar breakdowns focused on likes and post activity. Do you know what your most viewed post was in 2017? Take the time to find out what it was, why it worked, and how you can recreate it again this year.

Step 2: Target the Trends

Obviously, it’s not enough to know which of your sales strategies worked well; you’ve got to break down each success into its synergistic parts. If you closed 7 sales in September, can you track where each one began? How did you contact those clients? How long did it take before they made their decision? What materials did you use, how did you educate them about preneed insurance? Targeting the details of each successful trend is how you recreate the success again and again in the future. It’s not dumb luck—it’s hard work and a formula that you’ve already figured out! Don’t reinvent the wheel, refine it!

Step 3: Stepping up the Strategy

Hopefully this has helped you start thinking about last year’s successes, but once you target the trends that have worked for you, it’s time to implement them in a new sales strategy. I love to set goals at the beginning of the year starting with my long-term, big-time goals. Where do I want to be when 2019 starts? From there, I use the data I have just gathered to break down my year-long vision into 12 months, then 52 weeks, then 365 days (or, you know, close to that). It’s so much easier to set these sales goals when you have a list of successes to work from and integrate on a regular basis. Don’t be afraid to build off of what you’ve already done as well as try new things—diversifying your strategies will keep you self-aware and successful!