Every sales person needs a track to run on. We need to know on a daily and weekly basis how we are doing. Waiting for the end of the month or quarter is a recipe for high anxiety. Also, you have to turn your focus away from the $$ and onto the daily activities you need to do to make it all happen.
A useful analogy comes from football. The really great teams do not focus on scoring touchdowns. They focus on superior execution of each play. They concentrate on getting first downs and marching up the field with solid execution of each play.
For the sales person the secret lies in knowing "RATIOS" and how they operate to create some certainty about "how I am doing" on a daily basis. Sales, after all is said and done, is a numbers game: if you see enough people and make enough presentations, you are going to make sales.
Depending on the particular business, an individual sale is made up of a number of necessary parts. In my world five basic parts make up the process:
1. Dialing the phone
2. Connecting with the party I want to get
3. Making an appointment to see the party
4. Securing an opportunity to present a proposal
5. Closing the sale
The RATIOS that occur between each part enable me to forecast how much activity I need to generate up front each day. In order to be successful I need to focus on doing the right daily activity, starting at the beginning. If I get too caught up in only the "closing", I will get too anxious, pushy, or unfocused.
So, it is essential to work backward from the annual goal in dollars to how often I need to dial the phone each day. That way I will know how I am doing each day. Generating regular, consistent daily activity is the key to successful sales.
Go, now, to the next page to see how to work out the formula for your selling situation.
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