Now that the new year is three weeks old, you likely have your new territory assignments, understand your new incentive plan, are familiar with your new product offerings, have been briefed on any new organizational constructs, and have refreshed your ideas about how you are going to engage with your customers. With that in mind, let’s ruminate a bit on the possibilities of 2016 by revisiting Peter Drucker’s classic five critical questions that any business should be able to answer. I have a few ideas, but your true path to success in 2016 lies in how you answer these for your own business.

What is our mission?

This answer is pretty straightforward. The mission of technical sales continues to be helping customers design and deploy solutions to help them run their business while expanding your own. Everything that you do, as long as it is not illegal, immoral, or against your company’s or your customers’ policies, should contribute to that mission.

Who is our customer?

The most obvious “Sales 101” answer is the customer is the person who has the authority to make the purchase. However, in a complex business-to-business selling environment that is driven by long-term relationships and past successes, it is never that simple. There are always multiple stakeholders to consider. This answer will vary opportunity by opportunity, customer by customer, and depend on the stage and the status of each opportunity pursuit. As you map out your strategy and win plan for each of your opportunities, you have to consider all of the individuals who will have some influence over the investment in your solution. In some situations, the true customer may actually be your customer’s customer.

What does the customer value?

The new year is a great time to establish what goals and targets have been assigned to your customer. Remember, your true goal is to help them run their business using your solutions, so you need to understand their definition of success. In addition to your technology, what else can you personally, your company, or your colleagues bring to your relationship with the customer to add value? Zeroing in on the values and desires of your customer’s customer may also pave a path to success. In fact, one way to differentiate yourself from your competitors may be a design thinking approach that helps your customer better identify the true needs of their target market. These sorts of discussions can sometimes illuminate new products, solutions, and alternative uses for your technology that neither you nor your customer had previously considered.

What are our results?

It is easy to answer this question with fundamental business results such as pipeline, revenue growth, profit, and market expansion. And all of those are absolutely essential to your business. However, is it possible to focus on your customers’ results or successes? Is it the launch of a new product offering? Is it a reduction in business cycle times or release cycles for new products? Is it a more efficient supply chain? Since customers typically only invest in new solutions to make money, save money, or mitigate risk, how do they quantify these? Quantifying customer value and using it to help define your results may be the true path to differentiation for your business.

What is our plan?

Or, more directly, what is YOUR plan to bring the answers to the previous four questions together to run your business? This should be answered not only in the context of your broader territory, but at every moment in the sales cycle for your individual transactions. You own the opportunity and the customer relationship, so what are you going to do to progress it? What team needs to be assembled? What are the team members’ assignments? What is the timeline? Does the customer agree with your plan? If you do not know your next steps to move the opportunity forward, secure the technical win, or advocate for your solution with your customer, how do you expect to win?

Thoughtful and actionable answers to these five questions, revised as appropriate throughout an opportunity’s life cycle, will keep you focused on the most important elements of your business. The beginning of a new year is when many operational aspects of a sales organization hit the proverbial reset button. Your success in 2016 lies in your ability to answer and execute on these key questions. Good luck and good selling!