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| This is a weekly column transcribed from my Radio Show. The "Top Story" is the major discussion each week in which I address in great depth and detail, aspects of selling that are pertinent to your job everyday. |
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Why is it so important to keep score? It's important to keep score because there is a razor thin difference between error or success in selling. There is a high volume of calls that need to be made, and the high level of rejection that the people are going to encounter. It's very important to know exactly what's going on: how many calls are being made, what's being said, and what the response is. We need to do everything in our power to increase those ratios of successful calls to the initial call.
What should we track? What is important to track especially if you're in a trail-blazing, new business development type environment?
You can keep score using one of the contact management programs like Act or Goldmine. You can do it based on using sheets of paper or 4x6 index cards for all I care. What I suggest to people is that they monitor the following statistics. Bear with me because there is a lot of information I'm going to share with you.
Let's look at it. On a day-by-day basis what we want to track is a whole number of statistics. The first one is called Attempts or Dials or Approaches. If I'm working with a client that's doing all the work by phone, we call it Dials. How many times a day, or half-day, or an hour do you actually pick up the phone and dial a number? That's the first thing we want to track.
The second thing we want to track is called Contacts Made or Decision-Makers Reached..
When you have two statistics that gives you an opportunity to make a comparison. These first two statistics are very important. Why? If I pick up the phone and I dial 50 times and I get through to two decision-makers, do you think I need help in what I'm saying, how to work with receptionists, how to make sure you're not treating them like "rejectionists" or gatekeepers or screeners? The answer is yes because the average in most major metropolitan areas is that you will get through to about one-third of the people you dial. This means if you dial 60 people, you'll get through to 20 of them.
Do you see why it's so important to be able to keep score and have statistics to measure, to have what to track, how to track it, and what all these different activities and ratios mean? You can diagnosis your very own sales issues and when you're a manager who's looking at the statistics from your sales group, you have an opportunity to find out exactly where you can help these salespeople.
The next statistic I like to measure is called Appointments Set. This works more in setting appointments, where you're trying to use the phone to make the face-to-face appointment. It's important to understand if you contact ten decision-makers and you get no appointments, my understanding of that statistic would be that you're trying to sell your product or service over the phone instead of offering or selling the appointment. The general rule with that statistic is that if you contact 10 people, you ought to be able to set appointments with 3 of them, about one-third. This means that 70% of the time you're going to be rejected.
The next statistic I like to track is called Needs Identified. That simply means that you're entering into a dialog with the other person, with the prospect, to start asking them about their current situation, what their needs are, what they like, what they don't like, what they would look for in a new product or service. That whole category is what I call Needs Identified. If you're looking at Decision-Makers Contacted 10 and Needs Identified 0, that tells me as a manager and as an understander of statistics that you're not asking questions. You're going right from contacting the decision-maker to "pitching" your solution. You're not asking enough questions.
The next category is called Solutions Presented. This means that once you have identified needs and you're asking this person a lot of questions, are you making that bridge? I would suggest that if you contact 10 people and you have a chance to identify needs of 5, you'd better have 5 solutions presented. Once you identified their needs, you have to take that transition step and start telling them how your product or service fits in with the needs you've identified.
The next statistic is the most important of all and that's called Commitments Asked For. As I've said before, so many people just keep talking and never stop to ask somebody if they want to buy or if they're interested or how they're doing so far. By having that statistic measurable, if I go through a whole list of calls that someone's made and realize that they're not asking anybody to do anything, then I realize they need help in learning how to ask obligating questions.
The next statistic is called Commitments Received. If you ask 10 people for the order and you only get 1 to say yes, I'd go back to the quality of your questions because 1 out of 10 is an unacceptable percentage of people buying out of people who are asked to buy. The average salesperson usually gets 2-3 out of 10, or 20-30% out of 10, and top salespeople can move that number up to 50% or more. So again, do you see why it's so important to have these statistics that are laid out, that are measurable?
This is what I call keeping score or keeping track in the selling game.
I've been working with a particular new client for about two weeks. They've been monitoring their statistics for ten days. Interestingly enough, the president of the company is someone I've known for a number of years and worked with on a number of projects. I know how he thinks, and he knows how I think. He knew, for example, that I was going to talk to all the salespeople one-on-one yesterday. I had phone conferences scheduled every 15 minutes with a salesperson. I was looking at the statistics. I knew what the problems were. I knew how to diagnosis their issues. So in that 15-minute conversation I could do a lot of coaching and redirecting of energy with all these various salespeople. The night before I was to make these calls, I got an email from the president of the company. He had been looking at the same statistics I had been looking at, and he said, "When you talk to Bob, ask him why or how he's getting through to 60% of the people, which we both know is above average. And when you talk to Sally ask her how she is finding out so many people who are interested compared to the rest of us who are only finding out maybe 1 out or 50. How come Sally is getting 3 out of 40." So he went through each statistic. He knows what the ratios are, and I know what the ratios are. He was able to point out areas of great need as well as areas of great strength. So when I got a chance to talk to the individuals I could find out what they were doing well, and I could work that into the rest of the people's planned approach. Then we hooked them up into a group meeting after I was done with the one-on-one conversations so they could share with each other what they were doing, having them highlight why one statistic was working better than another.
This is an amazingly powerful concept for any sales organization, for any salesperson, for any sales manager. Figure out what you want to track. Put together some type of easy format. It doesn't have to be an Excel spreadsheet. The reason we're doing it that way i this case is because we've got people in Minneapolis, people in Chicago, I'm in Iowa, the president travels all the time, and we need to be able to coordinate all our efforts on this project together, and electronically is the best way to do it. Like I said, you could lay these statistics out on a 4x6 card, and then you could keep track just by putting little hash marks.
For those of you whose minds are now hurting from all the statistical analysis I've shared with you today, and for those whose minds are not hurting, what I've shared with you is the best diagnostic tool. It's kind of like the Hammacker-Schlemmer catalog when they showed the best pants presser and the best screw driver set, I have just shared with you the best diagnostic tool for salespeople. It's called keeping score, knowing what to track, how to track it, putting it all together and seeing what it means in terms of activities and ratios, and then knowing how to diagnose your own sales issues.
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Unlearning
We sometimes have to unlearn to become a better salesperson. Not learn, but unlearn. Think about that. Think...
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Keeping Score
Keeping score in selling is as important as keeping score in a baseball game. Knowing what statistics to measure...
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– Warren
Wechsler |
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