The great business philosopher Big Worm once said, "are you playing with my money is like playing with my emotions". Or something like that. The message in the business parable was still sound: business is serious, do not play. Well that is partially true.
In this digital age the majority of the workforce has grown up with either smart phones or video games. In one way shape or form we have all been conditioned to understand the concept of gaming and the joy winning releases in our brains. Well why can't we apply that same concept to work. Someone somewhere (Marc Anthony) once said, "if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life". Let's test that out.
The sales profession is often referred to as the sales game. Sales people ring bells, hit gongs or just celebrate when they close deals or beat their goals. We are given goals (numbers) to achieve in a set amount of time (month), so there are rules to this. I could go on, but I think it's pretty clear that this (sales) can easily be seen as a game. If it then is a game, there must be things we can do to ensure we win right? Right.
First lets start with understanding that an average month in sales is not 30 days. When we take out weekends and holidays, most months only give you 18-22 days to get in front of or to talk to your ideal prospect. You can easily work all 30, but you won't be able to talk to your avatars, because they will be taking time off during the month.
So then we take our goal and divide it by the number of selling days in the month to give us our daily goal. For the sake of an example let's say your goal is $250,000. Divided by 22 days, your daily goal is $11363.64. Knowing your daily goal allows you to quickly course correct when you are off. And as soon as you get ahead of your goal, DO NOT LET UP! Go harder to ensure you stay ahead of your monthly number.
Now comes the secret sauce to winning. DON'T FOCUS ON SELLING! I know this is counter intuitive, but roll with me a minute. Noone likes sales people. So the minute you try to "sell" you lose all the good will you built up trying to connect. Instead of focusing on selling, FOCUS ON HELPING PEOPLE. People buy to fulfill an unmet need or to feel good. Customer Journey. How do you help?
In order for you to hit your numbers, you need to "help" X number of customers/avatars/prospects a month. But how do you talk to or meet with that number of people? Your CRM can automate your tasks but you still have to complete them. And let's be honest -- no one really likes tasks. The word itself just sounds, meh. So instead give each "task" a point value relative to your pipeline focus. At the end of the day you should score a total of X points (50 is the baseline I've used since the late 1900's). Then after you get into a groove, try to beat your average daily score. Can you walk out of the office with your hand raised in the air and yell "Kobe"! It is a great feeling, unless of course you didn't know Kobe Bryant put up 81 points in a basketball game against the Toronto Raptors. Second only to Wilt Chamberlin's 100 points against the New York Knicks. If you have a "Wilt" day, you were putting in that work!
The point system for managing your revenue generating activities is so key to winning....I think I'll be doing an article on it in the very near future. If it makes sense...it'll make money,
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