6 A Winning Formula

It’s what you do with what you’ve got.

—Leroy Van Dyke

How do you determine whether you’re a successful salesperson?

What measures do you use? There is your quota—what

you need to achieve to be successful. Then there is your earnings

goal—what you expect to earn in order to achieve the

lifestyle you want.

If you think about it, however, those are reactive measures.

Hitting your quotas and meeting your earning goals are

results you obtain because you have certain skills and you

took certain actions. The question is, how do you set about

achieving those results? If you want to get ahead of the curve

in prospecting—or sales in general—take a look at some proactive

measures.

_ Reactive goals and measures are ones that result from

your actions.

_ Proactive measures are ones that tell you which actions

to take.

The Proactive Equation

Success in prospecting will come when you master enough

skills to be proficient, and you perform a lot of the right activities that will yield the results you want. Skills and activities

are the key factors. The formula is:

$ = S x A2

$uccess = Skills x Activities2

Success results from the Skills you have multiplied by the

amount of cold-calling Activities you perform, squared. Yes,

we’re telling you that Activities are geometrically more important

than Skills. The successful Knock Your Socks Off

salesperson focuses on both. As we proceed, that formula will

be our guide.

Skills

We’ll talk about skills at length in later chapters. For now, allow

us to suggest that you try to improve one skill a week. Really

work on it. It could be anything. Here are a few suggestions

to get your started:

_ Opening speech

_ Closing speech

_ Homework skills

_ Communication skills

_ Time management skills

_ Negotiation skills

_ Phone skills

_ Writing skills

_ Computer skills

Pick one of the skills we call “tools” in this book. Pick a

skill from a training program you’ve attended. But every week,

choose something to get better at and make a real attempt to

improve. Spend up to twenty minutes a day focusing specifically

on developing and improving this one skill. The main

idea is simply to keep yourself sharp. Do you really want to

sell to today’s prospects using skills you haven’t honed in

years?

Activities

So much to do, so little time. And hey, you’ve been bitten before,

putting a lot of effort into activities that sounded important

but ended up being a waste of time. Why bother? What’s

the point? Where do you begin? Where do you focus? Here’s a

hint:

FOCUS ON ACTIVITIES THAT WILL PRODUCE THE

RESULTS YOU WANT WITHIN THE NEXT NINETY DAYS.

Start with an assessment: Given your territory, the status

of your accounts, the number of accounts you have, the kind

of accounts they are, etc., what activities need to get done over

the next ninety days that will really make a difference? This is

just a wild hunch, but perhaps you fall into one of the categories

that follow. If so, our recommendations might help.

The Low Caller

Take a look at your current sales forecast. If 50 percent or more

of your “real-close-to-closing” prospects are people who aren’t

very near the top of the buying organization’s totem pole, you have a problem. Middle managers won’t cut it. For you to get

a good-size deal, a vice president, president, or owner will

need to be in the picture. If you have at least met this senior

level person, good for you; you have them involved. Now get

them committed.

The difference between involved and committed is the

difference between ham and eggs. The chicken is involved,

the pig is committed.

The Too Few

Way too often we believe ourselves when we say we are too

busy to prospect. “I just need to close these two more deals,

and then I’ll have time to do a really good job at prospecting.”

The time to make cold calls is when you have too few

prospects, not when you have none. There are twenty four

hours in a day. Find one of those hours and devote it to

prospecting.

The Too Many

This is the opposite of the Too Few: You have a lot of

prospects but no time to focus on turning any of them into

buyers. The solution is to pick no more than three and dedicate

60 to 80 percent of your time to those three. The rest will

move along, and some will actually heat up, causing you to

cheat and try to balance four or five. That’s fine, except that it

can lead you right back to twenty five. Most salespeople can

really only balance three to five major sales at one time. Try

three for now to get into a groove. It is a discipline, but one

that will keep you focused on what is important.

The Deep but Not Wide

You have some good corporate accounts, but you have not

taken the time to prospect into other divisions or departments of these accounts. Either that or you are selling only one product

line when you could be selling more. You’re deep but not

wide. Again, set a goal that you will contact X number of people

within a specific time frame. A situation like this is leaving

money on the table. That’s no way to knock anybody’s socks off.

Here’s a quick and easy way to increase your contact

visibility. We call it the “Make a Friend a Week” rule. Talk to

one of your existing customers once a week, and dig deep for

possible contacts within the organization. This will enable

you to go both deep and wide within your existing client

organizations.

A Case of the Maybes

Yes’s are great, no’s are disappointing . . . but maybe’s will kill

you. If you’re working on ten deals right now, and you close

eight, congratulations, you have done well. If you’re working

ten deals and you lose eight, that’s too bad, but you know you

are doing something wrong and you can fix it. If you’re working

ten deals and you have eight maybe’s, do you figure that’s OK

because you still have a chance? You may want to reconsider.

Maybe’s will sit in your sales forecast, and sit there, and

sit there, and slip, slip, slip, and all you can do is “wait for

something to happen.”

Acts of God aside, there is something more proactive you

can do to deal with maybe’s. Ask the prospect for their implementation

date.

The Implementation Date (I-Date)

The implementation date (I-Date) is not the date when clients

say they’ll buy from you—that’s something only you care about.

The I-Date is the date when clients intend to use your product

or put it into service—and that’s what they care about. Think

about it: Does it matter to you when you bought your vacation

package or do you just care when you’re going on vacation? Does it matter when you bought the anniversary gift, or when

you give it? Look in your current sales forecast. Do you have real

I-Dates for your “maybe” prospects? If you do, great. If not, ask

them. When do they plan to use the thing you are selling?

If you’re an average salesperson, 30 to 40 percent of what

you’re working on is maybe’s. It’s time to get rid of those and

focus on real prospects who need your attention.

Hone your skills, build a ninety-day activity list, and

clean up the maybe’s. You will increase your prospecting

success more than you ever thought possible.

It’s what you do with what you’ve got.

—Leroy Van Dyke

How do you determine whether you’re a successful salesperson?

What measures do you use? There is your quota—what

you need to achieve to be successful. Then there is your earnings

goal—what you expect to earn in order to achieve the

lifestyle you want.

If you think about it, however, those are reactive measures.

Hitting your quotas and meeting your earning goals are

results you obtain because you have certain skills and you

took certain actions. The question is, how do you set about

achieving those results? If you want to get ahead of the curve

in prospecting—or sales in general—take a look at some proactive

measures.

_ Reactive goals and measures are ones that result from

your actions.

_ Proactive measures are ones that tell you which actions

to take.

The Proactive Equation

Success in prospecting will come when you master enough

skills to be proficient, and you perform a lot of the right activities that will yield the results you want. Skills and activities

are the key factors. The formula is:

$ = S x A2

$uccess = Skills x Activities2

Success results from the Skills you have multiplied by the

amount of cold-calling Activities you perform, squared. Yes,

we’re telling you that Activities are geometrically more important

than Skills. The successful Knock Your Socks Off

salesperson focuses on both. As we proceed, that formula will

be our guide.

Skills

We’ll talk about skills at length in later chapters. For now, allow

us to suggest that you try to improve one skill a week. Really

work on it. It could be anything. Here are a few suggestions

to get your started:

_ Opening speech

_ Closing speech

_ Homework skills

_ Communication skills

_ Time management skills

_ Negotiation skills

_ Phone skills

_ Writing skills

_ Computer skills

Pick one of the skills we call “tools” in this book. Pick a

skill from a training program you’ve attended. But every week,

choose something to get better at and make a real attempt to

improve. Spend up to twenty minutes a day focusing specifically

on developing and improving this one skill. The main

idea is simply to keep yourself sharp. Do you really want to

sell to today’s prospects using skills you haven’t honed in

years?

Activities

So much to do, so little time. And hey, you’ve been bitten before,

putting a lot of effort into activities that sounded important

but ended up being a waste of time. Why bother? What’s

the point? Where do you begin? Where do you focus? Here’s a

hint:

FOCUS ON ACTIVITIES THAT WILL PRODUCE THE

RESULTS YOU WANT WITHIN THE NEXT NINETY DAYS.

Start with an assessment: Given your territory, the status

of your accounts, the number of accounts you have, the kind

of accounts they are, etc., what activities need to get done over

the next ninety days that will really make a difference? This is

just a wild hunch, but perhaps you fall into one of the categories

that follow. If so, our recommendations might help.

The Low Caller

Take a look at your current sales forecast. If 50 percent or more

of your “real-close-to-closing” prospects are people who aren’t

very near the top of the buying organization’s totem pole, you have a problem. Middle managers won’t cut it. For you to get

a good-size deal, a vice president, president, or owner will

need to be in the picture. If you have at least met this senior

level person, good for you; you have them involved. Now get

them committed.

The difference between involved and committed is the

difference between ham and eggs. The chicken is involved,

the pig is committed.

The Too Few

Way too often we believe ourselves when we say we are too

busy to prospect. “I just need to close these two more deals,

and then I’ll have time to do a really good job at prospecting.”

The time to make cold calls is when you have too few

prospects, not when you have none. There are twenty four

hours in a day. Find one of those hours and devote it to

prospecting.

The Too Many

This is the opposite of the Too Few: You have a lot of

prospects but no time to focus on turning any of them into

buyers. The solution is to pick no more than three and dedicate

60 to 80 percent of your time to those three. The rest will

move along, and some will actually heat up, causing you to

cheat and try to balance four or five. That’s fine, except that it

can lead you right back to twenty five. Most salespeople can

really only balance three to five major sales at one time. Try

three for now to get into a groove. It is a discipline, but one

that will keep you focused on what is important.

The Deep but Not Wide

You have some good corporate accounts, but you have not

taken the time to prospect into other divisions or departments of these accounts. Either that or you are selling only one product

line when you could be selling more. You’re deep but not

wide. Again, set a goal that you will contact X number of people

within a specific time frame. A situation like this is leaving

money on the table. That’s no way to knock anybody’s socks off.

Here’s a quick and easy way to increase your contact

visibility. We call it the “Make a Friend a Week” rule. Talk to

one of your existing customers once a week, and dig deep for

possible contacts within the organization. This will enable

you to go both deep and wide within your existing client

organizations.

A Case of the Maybes

Yes’s are great, no’s are disappointing . . . but maybe’s will kill

you. If you’re working on ten deals right now, and you close

eight, congratulations, you have done well. If you’re working

ten deals and you lose eight, that’s too bad, but you know you

are doing something wrong and you can fix it. If you’re working

ten deals and you have eight maybe’s, do you figure that’s OK

because you still have a chance? You may want to reconsider.

Maybe’s will sit in your sales forecast, and sit there, and

sit there, and slip, slip, slip, and all you can do is “wait for

something to happen.”

Acts of God aside, there is something more proactive you

can do to deal with maybe’s. Ask the prospect for their implementation

date.

The Implementation Date (I-Date)

The implementation date (I-Date) is not the date when clients

say they’ll buy from you—that’s something only you care about.

The I-Date is the date when clients intend to use your product

or put it into service—and that’s what they care about. Think

about it: Does it matter to you when you bought your vacation

package or do you just care when you’re going on vacation? Does it matter when you bought the anniversary gift, or when

you give it? Look in your current sales forecast. Do you have real

I-Dates for your “maybe” prospects? If you do, great. If not, ask

them. When do they plan to use the thing you are selling?

If you’re an average salesperson, 30 to 40 percent of what

you’re working on is maybe’s. It’s time to get rid of those and

focus on real prospects who need your attention.

Hone your skills, build a ninety-day activity list, and

clean up the maybe’s. You will increase your prospecting

success more than you ever thought possible.