In Sales, Winners Keep Score

Last week, my clients and I were talking about how to respond to adversity. If you made it through that message and you still have your head up high and your eyes forward, you might be asking the question: "What do I do now?" When we say something like: "There are people who say there is a recession, I decided not to participate," we are not being cute and we are not putting our head in the sand. What we are saying is that there are changes in the marketplace, so we will make changes in our behaviors that will lead to the accomplishment of our goals. Some people believe the appropriate response to the changes we are seeing or hearing in the marketplace--which others have called a recession--is to stand back and wait until the dust settles. Even though there are people who choose this route, you can respond instead in ways that might increase the probability that you will accomplish your goals. Some questions you might ask are: 1. What have been the result of my efforts to develop new clients or to get my sales people to bring in more sales? Out of ten prospective new clients, how many invited me in for a conversation? How many engaged me to solve their problems? Have these results changed in the past three months? Can I see a pattern there? 2. Out of my efforts to get new clients—networking meetings, charity boards, email campaigns, direct mail pieces, seminars, calling people my referral partners introduced me to—how much business resulted? Which of these behaviors gave me the most new clients or sales? 3. How many referrals am I getting? Where are they coming from? What referral partners are in my top 20 percent? If you are getting a little frustrated because you do not have the answers to these questions, you are not alone. But as one of my partners in a referral group last week declared: WINNERS KEEP SCORE! It probably doesn't help to keep score if you are only counting the number of new clients you get or the number of sales your people make. It wouldn't help Randy Carlyle if he only kept count of the number of goals the Ducks made. But it does make sense for him to count the number of behaviors that lead to those goals. No matter how tough the opposing team is, behaviors that, if consistently performed, lead to goals will lead to victories. (See how the Ducks keep score by clicking here.) How are you keeping score? What do your numbers look like? Chris Prongerhas to confront his behaviors every week. He has coaches to help him change his behavior. Who is helping you