In: Categories » Business » Management » Sales Consistency and Time Management
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The amount of time (in-person sales calls) you spend in each Measurable Phase (MP) has a big impact on your sales consistency. In-person sales calls are your currency. You only have so many you can invest, and each one must provide a return to warrant further ones with the same customers. Making in-person sales calls is also like farming. You have three stages, and you want to strike the right balance between them to ensure a strong harvest. They are as follows:
The right balance ensures that your sales performance does not encounter droughts. For instance, assume that you bat 50 percent. Half of your MP 1 telephone sales calls make it to MP 2 in-person sales calls, and half of those make it to MP 3, and, then half of those make it to MP 4. Your mix for consistency requires eight times as many of your sales calls to be in MP 1 than in MP 4.
It is easy to understand why you want to manage your selling efforts in a measurable manner. You can manage your sales activities by recording how many open sales opportunities fall into these groupings.
Using a Monthly Sales Call PlannerTo help you plan and manage your selling activities, use a monthly sales call planner. It motivates you to think about where you want to invest your limited sales resources—your in-person sales calls. You use this sales tool to plan your sales calls one month in advance. (This tool can be found as an Excel spreadsheet at www.measuremax.com.)
You decide how many sales calls you need to make to practice account or opportunity management effectively. No magic number exists other than what you think you require to be successful. You are not scheduling specific dates to visit, but rather specific numbers of planned sales calls. You can also use the monthly sales call planner to solicit advice from your peers or sales management team, but before your month begins, not after. Another benefit of the planner is that it lets you evaluate how well you know who the different players are and their role in the decision-making process. A monthly sales call planner should have the following format:
Set Limits on Sales Calls to Increase ProductivityAnother way to improve productivity is to limit the number of sales calls in each of the MPs. In a given sales opportunity, decide how many calls you are willing to invest without obtaining an MPC in each selling phase. When you reach a certain limit, it is time to call it quits. Otherwise, hope springs eternal—along with wasted efforts. Setting limits provides an objective and measurable mechanism to motivate you to identify and handle potential hinges or smokescreens. Limits also trigger create-and-wait responses sooner so you pursue more productive and high-return opportunities. As discussed, if you end the sales process at this time, let the customers know why. Also, if possible, explain to them that if certain goals or filters change you can provide them with more benefits and value than they currently receive. Q sheets chart the number of sales calls you make in each MP. Use a Quote Inventory to Increase ProductivityA quote inventory is easy to create. The quote inventory encompasses the law of diminishing returns. Every MP 3: Cement Solution quote (proposal) you add over a certain number of outstanding ones, the harder it becomes for you to handle them proficiently. Therefore, set a maximum number on your MP 3: Cement Solution quotes. Typically, salespeople can effectively manage between eight and fifteen quotes. Do not count proposals made outside of the MeasureMax process (public bids) in your numbers, just the MP 3 ones that occur within it. You know public bid outcomes most often depend on low price to win the sale. When you exceed this limit, take one quote out of inventory and insert it in an inactive file. Bring the oldest quote first back into inventory when you fall below your maximum level. Purchase orders and, regrettably, lost sales provide room to add quotes into your inventory. Question why your MP 3: Cement Solution proposals are not sales yet. When the agreed-upon budget or start dates arrive without purchase orders, ask customers why. After all, the MPC 3: Solution Confirmed supposedly validated that your proposed solutions met their conditional commitments. As a preventative measure, remember that the stronger the measurable benefits are in MP 3, the more likely MPC 4 will occur at the same time. Set up a quote log to track your outstanding MP 3: Cement Solution proposals by budget and decision dates of the proposals, dollar amounts, and gross margins. Again, Q sheets record this information.
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