08:39
Faizan
First I'd like to share with you the story of a client company that is in the midst of a four-year contract. I am on-site with them twice a month. Every month there are goals set for the sales department and everyone is aware of those goals and what the percentage is because the company does a fabulous job of reporting to their salespeople: they use an 84-inch monitor that, and at any moment in time, the salespeople, the operations people, and the executive team can look up at and see what the numbers are.
At the end of February, there was great news--and a challenge. The company had a record month. They had record profits. The challenge was that the salespeople were just shy of their goal by less than two percentage points.
When I met with them at the beginning of March, I asked them "Why did we miss it? Why were all these records broken, but the goal not met?" Their excuses were just that: excuses--weather delays, stock issues… they could have just said "Hey, we just wanted to go mow the lawn" because all excuses are equal. I counseled them on that day, telling them "I find it funny that you guys always have all these excuses, but the fact of the matter is that you really have to understand the rule of 70%."
The Rule of 70%
Every salesperson, every sales manager, every sales-related company is 70% inefficient unless they prove to me that they are not.
And that is a rule of thumb across the board. Some C-level executives tell me "Oh, no, we're very efficient." But you know what? They don't know what they don't know: they are very, very inefficient, and that's why we here have a thriving company--because companies are inefficient, and they don't know how to get efficient, so they come to us.
This company I'm working with--if you look at the salespeople, and look at all they have been taught, if they were doing all those tactical approaches, or using psychology, or doing all the other things they know they should be doing, then we could have hit 100% or well over 100% To be 2% shy of 100% is crazy, and it doesn't take much to get over that hump.
Guess what happened in March?
Same situation. We have record growth gross production. We have record profits again. And at the same time, the sales team hits 98.3%. Again, why are they not hitting 100%? I talked to them just a couple of days ago. The same excuses they used in February are the same excuses they used in March. But they don't put the spotlight on themselves and really embrace the fact that unless they are doing everything they've been taught by me, or the vice-president of sales, or the president of the company, they are still running at a pretty low efficiency.
It's incredible how you can look at these numbers and see how they come into play and how if you can increase efficiencies with everything you do in sales or marketing or whatever, you will get an automatic bump from both a gross production standpoint and a profitability standpoint.
At the end of February, there was great news--and a challenge. The company had a record month. They had record profits. The challenge was that the salespeople were just shy of their goal by less than two percentage points.
When I met with them at the beginning of March, I asked them "Why did we miss it? Why were all these records broken, but the goal not met?" Their excuses were just that: excuses--weather delays, stock issues… they could have just said "Hey, we just wanted to go mow the lawn" because all excuses are equal. I counseled them on that day, telling them "I find it funny that you guys always have all these excuses, but the fact of the matter is that you really have to understand the rule of 70%."
The Rule of 70%
Every salesperson, every sales manager, every sales-related company is 70% inefficient unless they prove to me that they are not.
And that is a rule of thumb across the board. Some C-level executives tell me "Oh, no, we're very efficient." But you know what? They don't know what they don't know: they are very, very inefficient, and that's why we here have a thriving company--because companies are inefficient, and they don't know how to get efficient, so they come to us.
This company I'm working with--if you look at the salespeople, and look at all they have been taught, if they were doing all those tactical approaches, or using psychology, or doing all the other things they know they should be doing, then we could have hit 100% or well over 100% To be 2% shy of 100% is crazy, and it doesn't take much to get over that hump.
Guess what happened in March?
Same situation. We have record growth gross production. We have record profits again. And at the same time, the sales team hits 98.3%. Again, why are they not hitting 100%? I talked to them just a couple of days ago. The same excuses they used in February are the same excuses they used in March. But they don't put the spotlight on themselves and really embrace the fact that unless they are doing everything they've been taught by me, or the vice-president of sales, or the president of the company, they are still running at a pretty low efficiency.
It's incredible how you can look at these numbers and see how they come into play and how if you can increase efficiencies with everything you do in sales or marketing or whatever, you will get an automatic bump from both a gross production standpoint and a profitability standpoint.
Posted in: business
