The Critical Skill Few Sales People Have

If you’re in sales, you should be used to making quota.

Revenue, profit or a certain number of products sold – in the life of the salesperson, meeting and exceeding quota means the key to success or failure, a high income or the difficulty to make ends meet.

It’s often even the difference between being employed or out on the street.

And in that struggle, your most important skill won’t be your ability to deliver a killer presentation and product demo or to close a deal.

Nope.

It will be your ability to manage your own available sales time. The hours in your day and the days in your week. How you spend those will have a huge impact on your success.

If you spend most of your time on things that have an clear and measurable impact on revenue and significantly less on activities that do not, you’ll sell more.

Complete that activity report, but don’t let it replace the activities that will make you money. Keep the balance tipped in the direction of good, revenue generating activities.

So how do you stay focused on the things that matter?

To-do lists frustrate and aren’t that effective, because they focus on what you didn’t get done. “Make 20 Calls” doesn’t motivate, it sends you running the other way!

Here’s another way of doing it. And since you’re used to having a quota – we thought you might like David Seah’s idea.

First, I made this list of tasks that I’ve decided contribute to my business growth, with points assigned that reflect their relative power factor. Although they’re all important, I gave lower weights to tasks that I already do frequently–I don’t need the extra motivation. If an activity is not on the list, it isn’t worth any points. You’ll see that the tasks here are primarily oriented toward getting money, landing new revenue, making contacts, and creating tangible assets.

Think about it. What really sells more soap? A new appointment with one of your target accounts? A scheduled meeting with an account whose contract will expire within 12 months. Possibly a testimonial or letter of recommendation. Obtaining a quality referral, perhaps?

Then Dave assigns himself a “good activity” quota to make sure he spends time on those things that make him money.

Next, I made this weekly progress chart that has nifty fill-in bubbles for use with a No.2 pencil. Whenever you do something on the list, you get to fill in the appropriate bubble(s) for the day. I can set an arbitrary minimum level for the day, like “I will make 5 points”. When I meet or exceed that level, I know I’ve done a good day’s work.

And this could be fun too!

The bubble chart becomes a kind of game board in itself. Instead of feeling guilty for not getting to all your tasks on your ToDo list, feel good that you did make progress. This isn’t a tool for keeping track of how “efficient” you are every week so management can bust your ass. It’s for keeping focused, and as a reward you get to fill out a lot of bubbles with a No.2 pencil.

There’s much more on Dave Seah’s website, including free downloads of his 2008 Concrete Goal Tracker in various formats (paper, index card, excel) – it could be a great way to start 2008!

We’re also interested in hearing what your “good activities” are – which tasks would earn points on your personal scale?