Looking at your selling scorecard at the end of this month will indicate that you are either at plan, behind plan or ahead of plan.  Obviously, if you are “behind plan” that equals failure to succeed, “at plan” equals meeting expectations and “ahead of plan” means you are enjoying selling success.  But, simply looking at your current selling scorecard information is not sufficient for maintaining or achieving future success. Your scorecard is what we call a “lagging indicator”- it shows what was working (or not working) in the past.  But, similar to the disclaimer that all mutual fund companies have that states “Past results are not a guarantee of future returns”, your current selling scorecard results are no guarantee of your future success.

I'm sure that intellectually you understand that the results you have today are a result of your past sales activity.  And, depending on your sales cycle, your current sales results as of May 31st can actually be a result of the sales activity that took place last year.  So my question to you as you prepare for the balance of the year is this:  What is your current sales activity data telling you about your potential selling success for the last half of this year and into the 1st quarter of next year?

Positive results are not accidental; they are the culmination of careful planning and execution. To have sales success now and in the future, you must continuously take action and assess the effectiveness of your actions. To reasonably predict the future sales health of your business, you MUST have the following data:

1.    How many contacts you have made over your most recent sales cycle

2.    How many of those contacts have turned into appointments

3.    How many of those appointments have turned into ‘real' sales opportunities

Not knowing those smart numbers reduces your ability to predict and really know your business vs. guessing.  And knowing your business - capturing real time information - allows you to make real time adjustments and decisions.

Before you start to get tense over this - because your immediate reaction to this might be, “this is micro-managing”- stop and think about what I've said.  I haven't said anything about managing or sales management.  This is about individual sales professionals making a decision to take responsibility for their success and understanding that sales success is never a matter of luck or bad economy.  It is about making smart decisions and then making smart adjustments based on smart numbers.

The smart decisions that you need to make today are:

1. Identify the sales activities / metrics (smart numbers) that lead to sales results

2. Establish the appropriate benchmark of performance for each activity

3. Track your performance of your identified activities against the benchmark

4. Review your sales activity results - manage yourself to your activity goals

5. Seek coaching for weak areas when you determine that there are choke points in your activity formula that are keeping you from selling success.

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