We must all confront reality...
Yep, it’s that time of the year again. You know, that time from late November to early January where we all eat way too much because everywhere we look there’s candy, cakes, pie, mashed potatoes and gravy, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate…..It’s the time when many of us just ‘let it go’ and enjoy some extra indulgence, that is, until, we finally have to confront reality. For many people, this reality confrontation after such excess involves one very important object: a scale. Oh yes, that little device that we either love or hate, praise or curse, but most certainly anticipate with its every usage. You see, scales don’t have feelings. They’re not like our spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, co-workers, or family. Nope, they won’t praise us when it’s undeserved. Nor will they give us a pat on the back side when we’re down. Heck, they don’t even offer a shoulder to cry on. But the reality is that a scale, despite its Mr. Spok-like emotional status, is in many ways more effective than friends and family will ever be. Why? Because it’s always, 100% of the time, brutally honest. It’s not interested in praise nor chastisement. No, the scale is much smarter than that. It understands that human motivation needs to be intrinsic. Therefore, like an old sage, it simply tells us the truth and allows us to draw our own conclusions. And by doing this, it’s often more motivating than any book, cd, or speech one can ingest.
As professional sales persons, I feel its critical that we figuratively step on the scales as much as possible, but especially during the holiday season or slower time periods of our businesses. During these momentary respites, our abilities to confront our current situation and performance, whether good or bad, is never easier.
So how do we, as sales people, ‘Step on the Scale’?
Here are my top 5 suggestions:
1. Lead/Apt to Close Ratio
This one is a no-brainer but it’s amazing how many sales persons never really track the number of presentations they give and what percentage of said presentations actually sign a contract. I’ve had many people tell me how they closed “more than 50% of their customers” only to find out later on the number was more like 20-30%. As we’ve all heard many, many times: The numbers don’t lie.
2. Give a sales presentation with a manager/peer/etc .present.
Because so many sales persons are rather confident in their own abilities (this is my nice way of saying their conceited), it’s rare that they’ll seek help from fellow professionals in analyzing their strengths and weaknesses. This is a tragedy considering it can be an incredibly powerful tool to give a presentation, be it in the home or on the show room, with another professional there to take notes on general observations and give feedback afterwards. As we all know, feedback is a must for the most successful of sales people. Those persons that shun feedback and ignore the help of others are typically the ones who remain below average their entire sales lives.
3. Record/Video Yourself
Although this can be tough to do(especially via video), there is no better
"Yeah Coach, I picked that up watching film the other night..."
way to truly look in the mirror as a salesperson and see where you’re excelling and falling short. A perfect example of this is Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts. Peyton is famous for his film study. He is constanly scrutinizing his every move and is his own worse critic. This is what makes him one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time. As sales professionals, we may not have the same technology advantages of an NFL player, but we can certainly look for ways to watch and hear ourselves in action.
4. Send Feedback Forms to Customers
Feedback forms can be quite telling in sales. For example, when I go on an in-home sales presentation and don’t earn a customers business, I’ll usually send them a feedback form over the next few weeks. This form, which comes with a self-addressed/stamped envelope, simply asks the customer why the chose not to do business with our company and what we could do better the next time. An important aspect of this form is that the person filling it out should not have to put their name on it. This way, they will likely be more honest and sincere in their feedback.
5. Measure Real Work vs Appearing to Work
In this day and age of computers(and other distractions), it can be quite easy to be ‘working’ on the computer for 8 hours a day and have nothing really to show for it at the end of the day. As we all know, there’s quite a big difference between piddling around the web/office/etc versus selling or at least doing specific and measureable activities that lead to more sales. In order to truly calculate this, it’s a great idea for a sales person to write down EVERY activity they do over a week’s time period that has anything to do with work. By doing this, one can quickly see just how much time they waste on certain activities which are actually thwarting their success. The key to such a list is detail and honesty, but when documented properly, such a list can drastically change one’s habits for success.
So there are my top 5 ways in which we can step on the scales and confront the good, the bad, and the ugly areas of our sales lives. By adhering to such a list, I can absolutely say with a certainty that your sales will improve dramatically and your general awareness will be at an all time high.
Do you have more ways we can ‘step on the scales’ as sales persons? If so, please leave your thoughts below and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog!
