Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

Success in selling isn't always about a new strategy or technique.  Often success has to do with how well you plan and then how well you execute.  That isn't to say that you should overspend your time planning.  In the words of General Patton:  "A well-thought out plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed tomorrow." But! You must have a plan.  In the world of sales and sales development that we live in at Anthony Cole Training Group, success in selling starts with your own personal success formula.

This isn't complicated.  It is simple math. The challenge is that you, as an individual, or you as a BIG you - COMPANY YOU - have to be committed to collecting data.  The data that you collect has to be focused on sales activity (effort) and sales efficiency (effectiveness).  This is easy to do, but not so easy to implement, execute and then coach.

You start by identifying personal goals that require freedom of time and freedom of choice. In other words, having a goal to "be happy" is a nice goal, but I'm not sure I can translate that to a financial requirement.  Unless you decide that "being happy" means spending time on your houseboat in Lake Cumberland. Then, you need freedom of time and that freedom requires that you improve your sales effort and/or effectiveness.  (I know I'm getting a little off here, but stay with me...)  From personal goals, you then have to figure out what kind of money or income is required to satisfy that goal or those goals.  From there, you then have to figure out how, in your sales world, you can generate the money you need to make the choices you want to make in order to achieve your personal objectives. This is where your success formula now becomes a math problem.  I won't do that here, but I will provide a link for you to download a template for personal goals and success formula calculations: Personal Goals Work Sheet, 12 Month Goal Worksheet & Success Formula.

The key to using the success formula isn't in the exercise itself.  That will just get you started. From there, you MUST begin to understand the science in your sales business.  As Grant Cardone states in his article, Increase Sales with Simple Math, "If you just know basic math, you will ensure your success no matter what is happening around you."  In other words, what are the numbers that really make your business work? What is your conversion ratio from one step in your sales process to the next step?  If you don't currently know this, you have to begin to know this.  You do this by tracking activity.

Let's pause here a second because I KNOW what you are thinking.  You are thinking CALL SHEETS.  And you are thinking that CALL SHEETS are BULL SHEETS, if you know what I'm implying.

Call sheets are not bullsheets, unless you fabricate the data and/or never use the data to gain insight into your business.  Data is powerful but only if used to gain insight as to what is really going on in your business. Gathering data, reviewing data, and then analyzing your effort and your performance could be the single most important things you do over the next 12 months to improve your success in selling.  And here is one more thing I'd ask you to do.  Go to our website and complete the sales achievement grader.  It will help you get started on the path of better understanding your sales business.