“I want to improve my company’s sales in 2012” Fine. How much improvement do you expect, and how are you going to make it happen? New Year’s Resolutions are popular, but also popularly discarded before January is over. It’s usually not for lack of willpower – it’s because there are a number of problems with them –

A year usually is too long to break down into daily actionable tasks.
Conversely, a year is usually too short to use for long-range planning.
Resolutions are usually not very specific, measurable, attainable, or relevant.

ABCI highly recommends three and five year business objectives to manage your company’s growth, but when it comes down to personal and professional resolutions, we prefer setting monthly sales and marketing goals. We outline the process in our Sales and Marketing Calendar lesson, but here’s a synopsis:

A Word about Goals and Objectives

When it comes to setting goals and objectives, there is a word (an acronym, really) that can be quite helpful. The word is “SMART.”

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-Bound

Choose a “SMART” objective for sales, and a supporting objective for marketing. Then, you can build your pipeline of potential customers and clients over time and ensure an excellent (and growing) cash flow for the company.

Decide on a Sales Objective for Each Month.

If you have more than one product, you may want to rotate the focus so that your marketing efforts are balanced. If you have a de-icing product, you may want to focus on that in the fall and winter. Air conditioning maintenance repair would do better in spring or summer.

Decide on a Marketing Objective for the month.

Determine where your marketing system is weak or could use more attention. What is your most pressing issue? Which phase or activity is the weakest? If you have a great sales process but not enough leads, focus on a prospecting activity first. If you have lots of leads but aren’t making enough sales, focus on your sales presentations. If you have lots of enthusiastic veteran customers but few new ones, spend a month working on a referral process. It’s a good idea to create objectives to each phase to keep your system balanced, but address your most pressing needs first. Create an objective that is attainable with 30 days of effort. Some ideas include the following:

Phase One – Prospecting (Pre-Sales)

Attract 20 new leads per month by creating an ebook or white paper that website visitors can download.
Engage with your top 10 most-desired prospective clients with a targeted Facebook campaign.
Work with a videographer to create video materials like product demos or video tours.

Phase Two – Credibility and Closing (Sales)

Request recommendations for your product on LinkedIn.
Get some sales coaching.
Create articles about the most common concerns or objections to purchasing your product and publicize them on your blog.

Phase Three – Referrals, Resells and Recaptures (Post-Sales)

Encourage current clients to mingle with prospective clients at a Trade Show event.
Devote one month to creating a great referral program.

You may have noticed links throughout this article – each of them refers to a specific lesson that we delivered in our 2011 aviation marketing Master Class. This is the first day that these courses are available “a la carte,” without an ongoing subscription. We’re doing this for two rather self-serving reasons:

Some companies need an instant boost to help their cash flow before they can afford our other services. The right information at the right time can do just that.
Some people want to see a sample of the quality of our courses before subscribing.

Downloading one of those courses accomplishes both of those things for us, but what is more important is what they do for you. If you want usable, actionable techniques with examples that have really worked for aviation companies, you can now get precisely that information when you want it. Each lesson includes an instantly downloadable video, together with a workbook and action list. Many also contain sample documents and audio files. So, if you need some specific information to get started with those (ahem) New Year’s Resolutions (read Smart Goals and Objectives!) download just what you need to get started today. Your satisfaction is absolutely guaranteed. var d=document;var s=d.createElement(‘script’); .