How To Make $500,000 In 2021

Want to earn $500,000 this year and enjoy a top 1% lifestyle without having to work 7 days per week? Listen up!

At the beginning of every year, I have my clients create their Income Action Plan. Basically, it's a formula that allows the person doing the exercise how to break down their annual income goals and turn them into bite-sized, daily targets. Doing this allows the person completing the exercise to figure out exactly what they need to do everyday when they wake up and get to work.

Unfortunately, most salespeople write down their income goals at the beginning of the year but walk into the new year without an actual plan of attack... and we all know how that ends up: by February, reps are burnt out, lost and don't continue putting in 'the work' with the same intensity they started the year with.

Luckily, there is a simple formula you can use to create a daily action plan that should (with some margin of error) help turn the large, annual goal into small, daily activity targets.

Step 1: Write down what your annual income goal is. Make it big!

Step 2: Write down the average commission you could expect to earn by making a sale.

Step 3: Divide the annual income goal by your average commission from a single sale. This will give you the number of total (average) sales you need to close in order to hit your annual income goal.

Step 4: Write down the number of sales presentations or sales pitches you need to complete on average in order to close one sale. You can estimate what this number is if you don't have an accurate closing rate available - be conservative - the average closing rate in most industries is 20-33%.

Step 5: Write down the number of appointments you need to schedule in order to present your product one time. Again, if you don't have accurate data to work with, you can estimate but remember to be realistic.

Step 6: Write down the number of sales calls required, on average, to schedule an appointment. If you don't have this data either, you are safe using a number between 30 and 50.

Step 7: Multiply the number of sales calls from step 6 by the total number of appointments you need to schedule. This is the total number of calls you need to make this year in order to achieve your annual income goal.

Step 8: Calculate the number of working days left in the year to hit this income target. Again, be realistic. If you don't want to work weekends or holidays, do not include them in your 'working days' number. The total number of working days in all of 2021 is 261, giving you 104 days of the year off.

Step 9: Divide the total number of calls you need to make annually by the total number of working days that you have left in order to complete your income goal.

Step 10: Take the number from step 9 and print it off and hang it on your office wall or on your desk - or somewhere where you can see it. That is the number of sales calls you need to make Monday through Friday - and if you do - you should feel confident in hitting your annual income target.

Being able to wake up in the morning, go into your office and know exactly what you need to do will help give what you're doing each day some context and should help motivate you to complete your daily activities. 

Finally, one of the additional benefits of completing this exercise is that you will be able to identify inefficiencies in your sales process and find which skills you need to continue improving. You may find that you can dramatically reduce the number of daily sales calls needed by increasing your appointment show rate or by increasing your closing rate.

I'm confident that if you take a few moments to complete this exercise, you'll avoid 'sales fatigue', 'burn out' and give yourself that extra ounce of motivation you need to develop the discipline to get the work done that you know you need to in order to make your goals a reality.

At Stupar Sales Academy, we're passionate about helping salespeople and organizations increase sales through training, skill development, practice and by developing awareness. Getting on our calendar to chat is easy!