With 2024 soon coming to a close, now’s a great time to start thinking about the year ahead. By looking at the year month-by-month, you can focus on different strategies to strengthen skills and build a stronger, more motivated team.
Kate Rehling, a talent analyst and engagement specialist for The Center for Sales Strategy, recommends mapping out the year month by month. This allows you to break larger goals into more manageable chunks, and it helps ensure no area — like recruitment or training — is overlooked.
Want to borrow her roadmap? Keep reading this issue of PromoPro Daily, where we share Rehling’s month-by-month guide for engaging and developing your team.
January: Focus on growth. Kick off the year by gaining deeper insights into what motivates each member of your team. Rehling recommends devoting 60 minutes to each conversation and trying to meet outside the office, if possible.
February: Recruitment. Rehling suggests creating a weekly 30-minute recurring event on your calendar titled “recruitment.” Use that time to connect with people on LinkedIn, ask your current staff for referrals, and conduct 15-minute touch bases with any names that come through.
March: Onboarding. You have one chance to welcome new hires. Make it a smooth start by creating a customized onboarding checklist. Ask your team to review it to ensure you didn’t leave anything out.
April: Talent. Use April to discuss your team’s talents and how they can grow in their roles. You might ask each sales rep to identify 1 talent they want to work on over the next 90 days and 1 strategy they will use to help develop that talent.
May: Feedback. Rehling says the magic ratio for feedback is 5 pieces of positive feedback for every 1 piece of feedback that may be difficult to hear.
June: Employee engagement. According to Rehling, the best way to gauge your team’s engagement is to survey them. A survey gives you helpful insight into their emotional commitment and willingness to give their best at work.
July: Promo focus. Ask your team to share their favorite PPAI Media article or how they want to grow their skills through industry certification.
August: Teamwork and collaboration. Take a look at your organization. If you see silos, actively work to dissolve those silos and promote increased communication.
September: Personal growth. Use this month to refocus on your own personal growth and development.
October: Recognition. Rehling says it’s a big trust-builder and morale-booster when you let someone know the specific things they do well.
November: Talent feedback. Similar to April’s focus, November focuses on reviewing strengths and how people can continue growing.
December: Priority strategies. At the end of the year, Rehling recommends maximizing each person’s strengths and working around any weaknesses that may hinder their performance. This sets you up to prep for the next year and new goals.
Don’t wait for the new year to begin planning. Take time now to map out your strategy so you can start the year off strong.
Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: Kate Rehling is a talent analyst/engagement specialist for The Center for Sales Strategy. She has more than a decade of experience as a coach, teacher and mentor.
