How Ya Doin...Really?

How are you doing?

  

"Fine" or "ok" is the typical response.  Even from a long faced child or angry spouse!

  

If you are in sales and I ask that question, you might tell me that you got a sale yesterday from a referral from a sale last week.

  

Congratulations! Great job!

  

Ok...How ya doin...really? (best New York accent!)

  

Most sales people can't tell you how they are really doing.  What do I mean? 

  

Beyond the final tally of sales for the week can you answer the following questions?

  

How many opportunities did you have?

  

What was your closing rate?

  

If you are buying leads from a lead source what is your cost of acquisition and cost to close?

  

Is your book of business centrally located in a spreadsheet or CRM tool?

  

Have your reconciled your 2013 book of business for tax season?

  

Do you even know your book of business?

  

Ok...enough...

  

Some of you can answer ALL of these questions (great!) and some of you can't answer ANY (yikes!)!

  

That is ok...for now.

  

Truth is, it will be hard to manage what you don't monitor. 

  

I know sales people all across the world (ok, US, Canada and the Caribbean and one person in Australia/Singapore!) that are engaged in daily activity and can't tell you the effectiveness of that effort.

  

Money is being spent on leads, advertising and marketing and the results are "unknown".

  

Your hard earned money and effort should be measured so you can reap greater rewards from profitable and effective areas and shut down things that aren't working.

  

How do you get started?

  

Review your results at the end of each day and week.

  

Most sales people don't do daily/weekly planning or any real review. They simply judge their week/month by the final tally - sales.

  

You have to monitor and measure the various components of your activity, so you can begin to modify approaches as necessary.

  

The best way to increase sales is to "Evolve" that which challenges (isn't working well), and "Expand" that which works....do more of it.

  

You won't know which areas arent working or what is working if you don't "Inspect what you Expect" (you had to know that cliché was coming!).

 

It doesn't have to be sophisticated to start with...tic marks and tally's are ok...for now!

 

One last time...

How ya doin?

Until tomorrow, I wish you Money, Power, Success!