How To Create 'Momentum Moments' And Increase Sales 10-fold It is a period of 30 minutes where you are incredibly focused on producing outcomes that move your business forward

We've all been there. In sales, the number one cause of stress is the monthly and quarterly focus on targets. In my experience, the problem with this anxiety ridden ritual is that it promotes short-term thinking and reactivity that favors quick wins over long-term sustainable business building.

When building a business to last, attention must be directed towards maintaining a healthy pipeline of opportunities. The question is, when starting out with a relatively unknown brand, or limited resources, how does your business remain relevant in a competitive and crowded market that is dominated with loud, cashed-up players?

The strategy I am going to share with you will help you to eliminate this stressful monthly chase of targets and help you to realign on what's important as the driver of successful business.

First, we must undergo a mindset shift; this is towards one of abundance and faith that sales will come to us. This is important because our beliefs impact our actions and so by fully believing and having faith that we will make sales it reduces the energy of anxiety that is passed on to clients and blocks them from purchasing.

The next step is to introduce what I call "momentum moments' in your business. This is a period of 30 minutes where you are incredibly focused on producing outcomes that move your business forward.

If you are new to sales or have been in sales for a while but feel stuck, it can be easy to underestimate just how much energy and work you need to put into prospecting. This is the area of the sales funnel that will bring qualified opportunities to your door. If you're just starting out or running your own business you won't have a team to qualify opportunities for you. Again it is time to roll up your sleeves, dig in and get sorting the good from the bad. It is important to establish a criteria for the goal you are looking to achieve whether that be revenue growth, margin, or credibility to name just a few.

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Using momentum moments, the intention is to stimulate change in a big way and act as a ritual that you can turn to whenever you feel stuck or like your pipeline isn't big enough. Every business is different, but typically I find that I need a pipeline that is three times bigger than any target to hit that revenue goal.

To maximise sales, my weekly objective is every Sunday night I will draft up 20 prospecting emails to new clients requesting a meeting for the following week. Come Monday morning at 8.30 am, I press send and these emails go to work. Then no matter what happens, whether my son is sick and needs to see a doctor, or I am pulled onto a call with the US team or I am stuck in traffic, these emails go out. This is one strategy that helps maintain a consistent pipeline whilst dealing with life's uncertainties.

Now you might be thinking, 20 meeting requests in a week seems like a lot, but really what's the worst that can happen? They all agree to a meeting and I am in for a busy week of 20 meetings? 20 meetings in a week is more than possible if you stay organized.

By engaging in this process of actively prospecting targeted accounts and overachieving on the meeting goal it allows you to stay one step ahead of the game by having an influx face to face meetings with clients.

By conducting 20 meetings in a week, there are also some side benefits including having more information shared with you about the market, your competitors and contacts. It allows you to have your finger on the pulse of the industry and like a virtuous circle gives you more to share with your selected clients. This in turn makes you a valuable asset and gives you increased credibility, as a result your referral business goes up and the pipeline is fed yet again.

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It all begins by increasing the amount of action you are taking to increase the number of qualified accounts you are seeing on a weekly basis. You never need to worry where you next meeting will come from because it will already be there.

In a sense you are creating the problem for the successful outcome you want to have. If you were to imagine a top seller what would their characteristics be?

• Diary full of back to back fruitful meetings
• Phone ringing off the hook with opportunities
• Emails flying in left, right and centre all discussing sales
• Energy, enthusiasm and optimism by the bucket load
• An informed and inthe-know leader

These are just a few of the tenants that are easily obtained by putting this strategy into practise. If you look at the outcome and then work backwards to the types of problems a person who was achieving this level of success would have you get closer to the actions that you need to be taking to produce those very same results.

In my capacity working with some of the most ambitious start-ups and founders, the biggest thing that I help them with is how to restructure their business so that they can take more action in the area of prospecting and business development. After all, there are only 24 hours in day, so you need to make sure that you are able to fire on all cylinders and the time you are spending is going to have a direct impact to your long-term business growth.

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By bulking tasks like prospecting into momentum moments (30-minute blocks of time) it allows you to move with speed and drive maximum effectiveness through the core of your business before the week has even begun.