I have always loved the correlation between sales and sports. My mentality of looking at a group of professionals like a sports team, not a family, has uniquely shaped a perspective that requires maximum effort within individual strengths instead of adherence to ebb and flow of market swings. You will often hear me state “the only difference in a good market and a bad market is the number of calls needed to make a deal”. Educate often, train daily and expect winning, are pillars in my foundation, but training gone wrong will create turnover.
How to train the marketing muscle?
Every day at lunch I lace up my Pegasus Nike’s, and I grind out 4.5 miles. This allows me the time to meditate on the morning and plan my afternoon. It wasn’t always that way though. In fact, when I started this, I would only walk a mile. Soon, I began to run a couple miles and eventually committed to doing a 5k every day. After years of this I realized I had more in the tank and started to grow the distance. I found through trial and error that my sweet spot was a comfortable 4.5 miles. In fact, every time I would push beyond this daily distance, I would find my body breaking down and that I was riddled with injury, in turn disabling me from running tomorrow and beyond. My knowledge of both ability and restriction came because of trial and error over years of practice.
Follow me here because this is where the golden nugget lies. Had I started trying to run 4.5 miles everyday in the beginning I would have failed. Had I never pushed the boundary I would also not know my peak daily capabilities!
As a salesperson we can prospect an infinite amount of leads. However, if we punch numbers like a machine, we sacrifice the efficacy of the task. In fact, most task driven KPI’s LIMIT success because they are not accountable for success and failure, they are merely a weighted blanket C-suites initiate to guarantee limited success. Limited being the key word.
How to get started?
Conditioning is the key. Set a standard, not a goal, of only half of the day with a set number of calls to perform each hour. Easy enough so far right? This will look like 5 dials an hour from 1-5pm. That volume is laughable in context, but 20 dials of pure cold calling daily is likely 20 more dials than a lot of capable salespersons make. After the completion of five dials, catch a break, and think on the calls. What was good? What was bad? Even, what was uncomfortable? Then repeat the next hour.
After the first month, expand this practice to every hour, not just half of the day. Dialing only 5 true cold calls with professional intent and considering the good, bad, and uncomfortable after each set of 5. At no point should the practice become a clock to punch. Be deliberate and focused on each call. At this stage of the practice, you will find that the calls are becoming more good than bad and less uncomfortable. On your second month, that number should raise to 6 calls an hour, and nine months in, you will have conditioned yourself for nearly 120 calls, every day by merely adding one call per hour per month.
120 dials a day!!!!
Now, if you told your salespeople that this was your expectations today, they might quit. Consider it like the trash cans in a CrossFit gym, they are reserved puking stations for the new recruits. What I want you to understand here is if you start cold turkey dialing 120 calls a day while you might that marker you will likely be exhausted and unable to perform it again consistently. You would burn out in a few short days, and management runs the risk of overworking its best assets. You might find yourself more focused on the target number than on the conversation as well. The value of each call would likely be of a failing grade and that is a waste of time. Finding YOUR maximum volume of GOOD prospecting is the ideal outcome of proper conditioning and that number will fluctuate person to person.
Take your prospecting efforts and consider conditioning them in this format; start with a walk, graduate to a short jog, and slowly increase your distance! Now let’s discuss the 5-mile marker. Recall that I would get injured at this output daily and lose progress by not being able to run the following day. This cannot be allowed. You must learn individual ability and restrictions along the way. That might mean you stop adding volume at 40 calls, or that you can only commit to 5 hours each day. The key is wherever the volume becomes ineffective and non repeatable, that is a barrier you must respect! The main thing we need to appreciate is that good marketing is a muscle that grows and shrinks when respected and abused. Find a starting point and increase the size of your business!
Happy Hunting!
