Sales professionals are competitive creatures by nature, whether we’re competing against others or against ourselves.
When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.
Potential
I participated in a leadership retreat in college and the speaker asked me to participate in a demonstration by jumping as far as I could. She then measured the distance and asked me to jump again to see if I could beat my original effort.
Turns out I did, because I had a measurable goal.
If I hadn’t measured my first attempt, I wouldn’t have known whether my second attempt was better. As a sales professional, you’ll benefit if you measure your activity on a daily basis.
Optimization
You’re probably already planning some of your work: prospecting, phone calls, LinkedIn contacts, and those efforts are all great. But in order to optimize, now you must measure those efforts.
If you’re making phone calls, what are you measuring?
- Are you measuring the number of calls?
- Are you measuring the number of appointments you’re setting based upon phone calls?
Start writing down and measuring your key indicators.
If you’re measuring LinkedIn activity, what are you measuring?
- Are you measuring the number of connections you can make?
- Are you measuring the people who replay to your conversations?
Develop key indicators or key performance metrics that you can measure on a daily basis.
Trends
When you measure those numbers, you’ll begin to notice trends.
You might notice that you set more appointments on Wednesday and Thursday than on Monday and Friday. You may discover that you successfully connect with more people on LinkedIn on Tuesdays.
This effort may sound like a lot of work, and some of you may think you can’t possibly find the time. Realize that top performers in every industry are measuring and optimizing their efforts. That’s how they improve.
Coaching
That’s also where coaching comes into play.
Now imagine you’re measuring these numbers and your performances while you’re being coached. You’re going to quickly discover that you’re improving quickly.
The problem is that we often get comfortable with our performance level. We settle for an acceptable amount of production and we accept it as our best.
You may recognize this mindset as, “This is how I’ve prospected for years, so I’m going to stick with this format.”
Challenge that thinking. Perhaps you’ll work with a manager or a sales leader or even the CEO. Accountability will make you even more effective.
Strategy
When I’m collaborating or sharing with someone else, I may discover different strategies that are working for other sellers.
The danger is in thinking that you can’t learn from others or believing that you already have all the answers. You won’t increase or improve or progress.
When I started writing down day-to-day performance, I wasn’t competing against my team. I was competing against my previous performance.
I started closing more deals because I listened to my podcast guests and got beyond my weaknesses. Then, I read books and got better insights. Really, though, I improved simply because I was conscious of my efforts.
This year was our best ever, and we haven’t even fully optimized our tracking and measuring.
Tracking your performance makes a huge difference.
Planning
Send me an email if you’d like to see what I’m doing and how I’m scheduling my day.
I use a planner and a Gmail calendar. I list tasks and color code them to differentiate different activities. If you’re wondering, I use green for money-generating activities.
I use a different color for admin tasks so I can visually see how my day looks.
At the end of the day I ask myself four questions:
- Did I meet my goals today?
- What could I have done differently?
- What was my biggest win today?
- How will tomorrow look?
I’m no genius, but it’s working for me, and I want to challenge you to do it as well.
“Tracking Your Performance” episode resources
This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same.
Previously known as TSE Hustler’s League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries.
This episode is brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out.
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