When I speak with salespeople they typically let me know that business is great, all things are good. They talk about how their business is built on referrals, they don't need to prospect. When I hear this my sales training antennae goes way up, so I'll ask a few more questions, only to learn things aren't at the level this person originally stated. How many times have they said this and just who are they fooling?
At Sandler, we teach folks about the concept of a "cookbook". The 'cookbook" is a rather simple tool that allows us to track the ingredients for success on daily/weekly basis. No different than following your favorite recipe. Put the ingredients in and out comes a successful result. The salespeople who fool themselves say this is for "other" salespeople. They don't need to track their activities because they know what to do and why would they put something on their calendar, it reduces their flexibility when an opportunity arises. Which leads us to the other area we fool ourselves.
Calendaring or time blocking. A great concept that many successful salespeople are doing on a regular basis. Our sales results are built in three areas - 1) Prospecting 2) Selling & 3) Delivery, and in that order of importance. Imagine if we took each of those categories and put placeholders in our calendar. Go ahead and do this, put placeholders in your calendar for the next 90 days. If I know I need to prospect for 3 hours a week put that down (maybe 3 one hour slots). That's an appointment you will not miss. Unfortunately, some of us will fool ourselves by saying, I can't block that time, what if something more important comes up and so on. Truth is Your fooling yourself. If you wait for things to happen they won't - take control!
Maybe you are exceeding your plan to date and you don't follow anything above. But there is, in my opinion, a significant majority of salespeople that are behind plan. When I speak with the owners or senior leaders at some of these firms they validate my findings. These same salespeople have convinced themselves they've got it figured out. Below is a summary to see if your fooling yourself, take a look and decide.
1) Take a hard look at your results and where your business comes from. Where do you stand?
2) Are you tracking your activities and results? Are you holding yourself accountable to your game plan? Do you know how many appointments you need per week to exceed your plan? Don't feel you need to do this?
3) Time blocking doesn't work. My clients like that I'm flexible and available. All responses i've heard. Time blocking works, and we can block time for almost any activity to make sure it happens. Chances are when your son/daughter has an event its time blocked - treat your business the same way.
If you're falling victim to these 3 areas its time to stop fooling yourself. Get your plan going and start selling!
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