The Six-Point Sales Checklist: Start Your Year Strong w/ Josh Pitchford
Release Date: 12/11/2025
Building Your Sales Engine
Mark McGraw and Josh Pitchford reveal the six essential checkpoints every seller needs to crush their goals and start the new year with confidence. Are you ready to hit the ground running in the new year? In this milestone 50th episode, Mark McGraw and Josh Pitchford break down the six critical areas every sales professional must address to start strong and finish stronger. From setting stretch goals you'll only achieve 25% of the time (yes, really) to building your "cookbook" of controllable behaviors, Mark and Josh share the exact framework they use with clients to transform overwhelming...
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info_outlineMark McGraw and Josh Pitchford reveal the six essential checkpoints every seller needs to crush their goals and start the new year with confidence.
Are you ready to hit the ground running in the new year? In this milestone 50th episode, Mark McGraw and Josh Pitchford break down the six critical areas every sales professional must address to start strong and finish stronger.
From setting stretch goals you'll only achieve 25% of the time (yes, really) to building your "cookbook" of controllable behaviors, Mark and Josh share the exact framework they use with clients to transform overwhelming annual quotas into manageable, motivating action plans. You'll learn about the KARE model for account segmentation, why your personal goals drive your professional success, and how to identify and crush the self-limiting beliefs holding you back.
Whether you're a sales leader preparing your team or an individual contributor mapping out your year, this checklist will help you move from daunting quotas to confident execution. Plus, hear Mark's "star salesman" story and why that's not the compliment you think it is.
About Josh Pitchford: Josh Pitchford is a Sandler trainer and coach at Sales Engine, where he helps sales professionals and teams build predictable revenue systems. With extensive experience in enterprise sales and account management, Josh specializes in teaching relationship-building strategies, account planning, and the Sandler methodology.
đź”— Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-pitchford-6163274/
Host: Mark McGraw — Building Your Sales Engine
In This Episode:
- The six-point checklist for starting your sales year strong
- Why written goals beat goals "in your brain"
- David Sandler's counterintuitive advice: set goals you'll only hit 25% of the time
- How to create a quarterly revenue map to make quotas manageable
- The "cookbook" concept: your recipe for consistent sales success
- Why personal goals drive professional motivation
- The KARE model (Keep, Attain, Recapture, Expand) for account segmentation
- Territory zoning and why being a "star salesman" isn't a compliment
- Using AI tools like ChatGPT to optimize your territory routes
- Building strategic plans for your top 10 accounts
- The three-by-three framework: going wider, higher, and deeper in accounts
- Skill development priorities for the coming year (including AI)
- The belief wheel: how beliefs drive actions and results
- Identifying and crushing self-limiting beliefs
- Why referral asks belong in every seller's cookbook
- "It's not how you feel that determines how you act, it's how you act that determines how you feel"
Links:
- Sandler Training: https://www.Sandler.com
- Episode Page: https://www.BuildingYourSalesEngine.com/
- Show Links: https://linktr.ee/buildingyoursalesengine
- Josh Pitchford LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-pitchford-6163274/