Good Morning. It's December 30th, the second to last day of the year, and your final opportunity to send those Hail Mary emails to prospects who set their out of office message last week. But miracles do happen. This is where legendary sales stories are born. So, send the email. Make the call. This is your moment. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:
Responding to ‘they're cheaper.’ 🤌
How to create your sales goals the right way ✅
What will get a prospect to sign a contract this week 👀
Sales jobs & a meme 😂
Sales Tip of The Day 💡
When a prospect says your competitor is cheaper, don’t argue.
❌ “We’re more expensive because we’re better.”
✅ “That checks out. Most teams choose them when cost is the top priority. Out of curiosity, what made you look at us as well?”
This reframes the conversation around trade-offs instead of price.
Price objections are comparison problems, not math problems.
14 Essential Apps for HubSpot
There’s no magic wand in sales, but the right tools come close.
The Essential Apps for Sales collection features 14 easy to use apps that, paired with HubSpot, make selling easier, decisions smarter, and wins more repeatable.
Explore the list in the HubSpot Marketplace.
How to Set Your 2026 Sales Goals (Follow these steps)
Every January, sales teams sound the same.
This time it’s going to be different… This is my year. President’s Club. Top rep. Hello promotion!
By March, most pipelines look familiar.
That drop off rarely comes from lack of talent or effort. It comes from confusing wanting something with having a real goal.
Wanting sounds confident. It feels ambitious. But it doesn’t tell you what to do when your calendar is empty, and your manager wants a forecast update.
Wanting something is not a goal. It’s a feeling.
Goals only work when they force decisions. They create constraints. And they make it obvious what matters this week instead of leaving everything up to hope.
Where Sales Goals Usually Fall Apart
Most reps stop at the outcome.
Hit quota. Make more money. Get promoted.
Those are valid targets, but on their own, they don’t change how a week actually plays out.
Sales is an input driven job. Deals are decided weeks before they ever close, based on the work you put in when nobody was watching.
The accounts you chose, the calls you made, and the follow ups you sent determine the outcome long before revenue shows up.
The Part That Actually Makes Goals Work
Goals only work when they are clear enough to force action.
Most reps stop once the goal is written down. The reps who hit their numbers keep going and work backwards.
There are a few core metrics that matter:
Average deal size: This is the typical value of a closed deal.
Close rate: This is how many opportunities turn into closed deals. If you close 2 deals out of 10 opportunities, your close rate is 20%.
Meeting to opportunity rate: This measures how often first meetings become real sales cycles. Only the conversations that move forward count.
Once you have those numbers, you can translate revenue goals into activity.
This is where goals become usable.
Instead of saying you want a big year, you end up with something concrete.
X number of first meetings per week.
X number of new accounts worked.
X volume of daily outreach.
And with more volume, close rates and meetings-to-opportunities both increase.
Tracking Matters As Much As Planning
Weekly check ins work best when they focus on effort instead of outcomes. The point isn’t to only judge results. It’s to confirm that the work actually happened.
Did you hit your activity targets?
Did you protect prospecting time?
Did deals move forward?
Monthly reviews are where adjustment happens.
If meetings are showing up but deals aren’t closing, the issue usually isn’t volume. It’s qualification, messaging, or discovery.
Tracking makes the results obvious.
Using The S.M.A.R.T. Goals Framework
The S.M.A.R.T. framework is simply a way to turn a vague “want” into something you can operate against.
Specific: Your goal should clearly state the outcome you’re aiming for. Not growth. Not improvement. A concrete number tied to revenue, deals closed, or performance.
Measurable: You should be able to check progress weekly. If you have to explain whether you’re “kind of on track,” the goal is too loose.
Achievable: Use your own past performance as the baseline. A realistic goal forces better execution. As a rule of thumb, you should aim to hit 70-80% of your goals.
Relevant: Sales goals need to connect directly to how you get paid, promoted, or trusted with bigger opportunities.
Time bound: A goal without a deadline slowly becomes optional. Strong goals have a clear end date and smaller checkpoints that force regular reflection.
When all five are in place, the goal becomes a decision-making tool.
Your goal should tell you what deserves time on your calendar and what can wait.
What do your sales goals usually look like?
