New Year, New Goals: Time for Sales and Marketing Teams to Cowboy Up

As we step into a new year, there’s a palpable energy in the air—new goals, fresh plans, and the opportunity to make this year more successful than the last. But with this fresh start comes the responsibility to “cowboy up.”

The phrase “cowboy up” is rooted in the rugged American West lifestyle, where cowboys faced adversity with grit, toughness, and resilience. In business, it’s a call to action for teams to embrace challenges head-on, act decisively, and embody persistence.

In sales and marketing, “cowboying up” means shedding the complacency of the past and committing to new levels of discipline, collaboration, and accountability. It’s about stepping up, staying focused, and doing what it takes to achieve big goals. One top trait all top-performing salespeople have is Grit.

So, what should your sales and marketing teams do to cowboy up in January?

Let’s break it down into five steps for each team to set the foundation for a successful year.

5 Steps for Sales Teams to Cowboy Up

1. Set Specific, Measurable Goals

Break down your annual targets into quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals. Define specific actions needed to hit those targets. Focus on measurable outcomes like leads, revenue, or closing rates to stay accountable. The goals should support your marketing and sales plans that support your strategic plan.

2. Revisit and Refresh Your Sales Pipeline

A new year is the perfect time to review your sales pipeline. Are there stale leads that need to be revived or purged? This is also an opportunity to identify new prospects and ensure the pipeline is healthy and growing.

In January of 2024, a client asked us to call everyone they quoted in 2023 who did not buy and find out why. We were as surprised as the CEO when the data showed that 40% of the people they quoted did nothing. They did not buy from a lower-cost competitor as their CRM entries indicated. And of the 40% 30 % said 2024 was the year they must buy my clients product. We trained the salespeople in follow-up, negotiations, and closing skills and targeted the customers who were once in their pipeline. In December 2024, their revenues were as much as the entire year of 2023.

3. Enhance Prospecting and Outreach

Push yourself to expand beyond your usual methods of finding new leads. Experiment with new outreach techniques, whether leveraging social selling, improving cold call scripts, or optimizing your use of CRM tools. We often conduct digital footprint audits and find clients with beautiful websites, but no one sees them. We determine the keywords and phrases, pulling prospects to their top three competitors’ sites and updating them. One client went from under 100 visits to 14,000 visits monthly after the firm we partner with updated their website. We also help clients create content, sharing how they solve industry problems. We train their sales teams on professional prospecting. We teach the skills, develop a cadence, and monitor KPIs.
In one voice of customer research project in 2024, we discovered over 75% of their customers said they started a relationship with my client due to cold call outreach by a persistent but professional salesperson.

4. Sharpen Your Sales Conversations

Your pitch must evolve as products, services, and customer needs evolve. Ensure your value proposition is crystal clear and tailored to the specific pain points of your audience. Practice with peers to get real-time feedback and perfect your delivery. When we train sales teams how to deliver their company’s value position, we create value conversations for each persona they speak with.

5. Commit to Ongoing Training

“Cowboying up” requires skill refinement. On average, 50% of salespeople have never received sales skills training. They have received product and application training, and we should not be surprised that they pitch slap customers and prospects with features and benefits and do not ask professional discovery and qualifying questions. Assess your sales teams’ current state of sales skills ( 21 in all); then we prescribe training and coaching to close the skills gaps we discovered. Invest in training sessions, whether it’s Mastering Negotiation Techniques, Objection Handling, Discovery, Qualifying, or Closing techniques. Our data shows that 67% of salespeople lack closing skills.

We often find that sales teams need training in a formal sales process, such as using digital sales tools and where to find them. Continuous learning is key to staying ahead of the competition.

We often share with owners…

“ If you want to 10X your revenues, you need to 10X the skills of your people.”

5 Steps for Marketing Teams to Cowboy Up

1. Align Marketing Goals with Sales Targets

Work closely with the sales team to ensure your marketing efforts directly support their objectives. This could mean creating more targeted campaigns, producing sales-enablement content, or optimizing lead nurturing strategies to meet shared goals. Develop cross-functional goals with sales. Our goal is profitable revenue growth and increasing shareholder value, not winning an Addy Award.

2. Audit and Optimize Your Channels

You can take stock of your marketing channels. Which ones generated the most leads last year? Which underperformed? Cut or improve low-performing channels and double down on the high-converting ones. Don’t be afraid to try new platforms and approaches. We use a Keep/ Start/ Stop team exercise to help teams focus on what customers value most and what drives the greatest ROI.

3. Prioritize Content Creation

Content remains king in marketing. Whether through blogs, videos, case studies, or webinars, focus on producing high-quality content that educates and engages your target audience. Consistency is key, so build an editorial calendar to stay on track. We develop editorial quarterly themes based on the VOC research and industry language and challenges those we interviewed shared. We build success stories and case studies that share the problem, what we did, and the financial impact of our solution.

4. Refine Your Messaging

Like sales teams refining their conversations, marketing teams should ensure their messaging resonates with the current market environment. Please update your buyer personas, tweak value propositions, and ensure your messaging addresses your audience’s evolving needs.

I often share with marketing leaders…

Think of how much your business has changed since the pandemic. Why would we assume our customers’ businesses and challenges have not changed, too?

5. Track and Analyze Key Metrics

Data should be your best friend. Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) closely—website traffic, conversion rates, time on the site, bounce rate, or customer acquisition costs. Regularly reviewing this data will allow you to pivot quickly and make informed decisions to optimize campaigns. A-B testing various messages and campaigns and determine what drives the greatest results.

Final Thoughts: The Importance of Collaboration

Success for sales and marketing teams doesn’t happen in silos.

Companies that have marketing and sales silos underperform.

As I shared on a recent webinar… “silos are only good for shooting missiles.”

Marketing says they did their job, and sales say the leads are terrible. Marketing wants time with customers, and sales will not share contact information.

Too much time is spent defending what team members did and are doing to meet their KPIs rather than developing a strategy to improve results together.

You can create a stronger go-to-market strategy by aligning both teams’ goals and fostering open communication. As you “cowboy up” this year, remember that resilience, agility, and teamwork are at the heart of success.

Now is the time to dust off the boots, pull on the gloves, get back on the horse, and prepare for an incredible year. The work may be challenging, but success is inevitable with the right approach and mindset. So, saddle up, partner—2025 is yours to conquer!

In my next post, I will share companies that have cowboyed up for 2025.-