Sales Consistency and Time Management

The amount of time (in-person sales calls) you spend in each Measurable Phase (MP) has a big impact on your sales consistency. In-person sales calls are your currency. You only have so many you can invest, and each one must provide a return to warrant further ones with the same customers. Making in-person sales calls is also like farming. You have three stages, and you want to strike the right balance between them to ensure a strong harvest. They are as follows:

1. Planting Seeds. This stage consists of MP 1: Spark Interest and MP 2: Measure Potential. You try to generate new sales opportunities and determine what it will take for them to grow (be worthwhile to plant).

2. Watering Crops. This stage consists of MP 3: Cement Solution. You demonstrate how your watering (solutions) makes their yield (measurable benefits) bountiful.

3. Harvesting Crops. This stage consists of MP 4: Implement Agreement. You are ready to bring the crop to market (purchase orders).

The right balance ensures that your sales performance does not encounter droughts. For instance, assume that you bat 50 percent. Half of your MP 1 telephone sales calls make it to MP 2 in-person sales calls, and half of those make it to MP 3, and, then half of those make it to MP 4. Your mix for consistency requires eight times as many of your sales calls to be in MP 1 than in MP 4. (See Exhibit 9-8.)

	Planting Seeds		Watering	Harvesting
Phase	MP 1 (via telephone)	MP 2	MP 3	MP 4	Total
Number of in-person sales calls	8 phone calls	4 sales calls	2 sales calls	1 sales call	7 sales calls
Approximate % in each phase		57%	28%	15%	100%

Exhibit 9-8: The right balance for sales calls.

It is easy to understand why you want to manage your selling efforts in a measurable manner. You can manage your sales activities by recording how many open sales opportunities fall into these groupings. The productivity equation later in this chapter takes into account the varying sales factors that determine your optimal balance.

Note

Customers also set limits on the numbers of sales calls they will spend with a salesperson before they must know the price of your products or the measurable benefits of their goals. Which one do you want to happen first?

Using a Monthly Sales Call Planner

To help you plan and manage your selling activities, use a monthly sales call planner. It motivates you to think about where you want to invest your limited sales resources—your in-person sales calls. You use this sales tool (see Exhibit 9-9) to plan your sales calls one month in advance. (This tool can be found as an Excel spreadsheet at www.measuremax.com.)

Account	Opportunity Name	Contact Name	Position	Planned, In-Person Calls/Month	Actual	Current Phase
Advanced Computer Company	West End facilities upgrade	Tom James	director of engineering	2	3	MP 2
Advanced Computer Company	West End facilities upgrade	Becky Barr	CEO	2	1	MP 2
Advanced Computer Company	Martinville maintenance agreement	William Thomas	plant supervisor	1	1	MP 2
Positron	Central Plant upgrade	Olivia Ontime	VP of manufacturing	3	2	MP 3
Positron	Central Plant upgrade	ReutersRon	CEO	2	1	MP 3
Star Computers	Unknown	Gary Bryant	VP of engineering	1	0	MP 1
Star Computers	Unknown	Deborah Dietz	CFO	1	1	MP 1
PC Power Ltd.	Addition to 888 Market Street	Arthur Stein	plant manager	2	3	MP 4
Total Planned Calls:	14
Nonscheduled, Reactive Calls:	8
Total Monthly Calls:	22

Exhibit 9-9: Example of a monthly sales call planner.

You decide how many sales calls you need to make to practice account or opportunity management effectively. No magic number exists other than what you think you require to be successful. You are not scheduling specific dates to visit, but rather specific numbers of planned sales calls. You can also use the monthly sales call planner to solicit advice from your peers or sales management team, but before your month begins, not after. Another benefit of the planner is that it lets you evaluate how well you know who the different players are and their role in the decision-making process.

A monthly sales call planner should have the following format:

• Account. The name of the account you are seeing that month.

• Opportunity Name. The name of the opportunity.

• Contact. The name of the person you plan on seeing. List all the decision makers you think are in important in that account, regardless of whether you plan on seeing him. You can then reuse your monthly sales planner by saving it as the next month's planner and updating it.

• Position. The title of the contact.

• Planned, In-Person Sales Calls/Month. Self-explanatory.

• Actual. The number of sales calls you actually made.

• Current Phase. In which Measurable Phase did you make the sales call?

• Total Planned Calls. Self-explanatory.

• Nonscheduled Reactive Calls. The number of sales calls you make on a reactive basis rather than on a planned one. Try to make sure your reactive calls (such as customer requests, unexpected bids or opportunities that surface, and customer problems that arise) are less than a third of your total sales calls. It's difficult to react your way to sales superstar status.

• Total Monthly Calls. Self-explanatory.

Note

If you do not use customer relationship management (CRM) software to record your selling activities or a day timer, then use scheduling software programs such as Lotus Notes or Out-look to record in their calendars where you made in-person, sales calls. Compare the number from your calendar to your monthly sales call planner to evaluate your performance.

Set Limits on Sales Calls to Increase Productivity

Another way to improve productivity is to limit the number of sales calls in each of the MPs. In a given sales opportunity, decide how many calls you are willing to invest without obtaining an MPC in each selling phase. When you reach a certain limit, it is time to call it quits. Otherwise, hope springs eternal—along with wasted efforts.

Setting limits provides an objective and measurable mechanism to motivate you to identify and handle potential hinges or smokescreens. Limits also trigger create-and-wait (Chapter 4) responses sooner so you pursue more productive and high-return opportunities. As discussed, if you end the sales process at this time, let the customers know why. Also, if possible, explain to them that if certain goals or filters change you can provide them with more benefits and value than they currently receive. Q sheets chart the number of sales calls you make in each MP. (See Exhibit 9-10.)

Exhibit 9-10: Setting limits to improve productivity.

Use a Quote Inventory to Increase Productivity

A quote inventory is easy to create. The quote inventory encompasses the law of diminishing returns. Every MP 3: Cement Solution quote (proposal) you add over a certain number of outstanding ones, the harder it becomes for you to handle them proficiently. Therefore, set a maximum number on your MP 3: Cement Solution quotes. Typically, salespeople can effectively manage between eight and fifteen quotes. Do not count proposals made outside of the MeasureMax process (public bids) in your numbers, just the MP 3 ones that occur within it. You know public bid outcomes most often depend on low price to win the sale.

When you exceed this limit, take one quote out of inventory and insert it in an inactive file. Bring the oldest quote first back into inventory when you fall below your maximum level. Purchase orders and, regrettably, lost sales provide room to add quotes into your inventory.

Question why your MP 3: Cement Solution proposals are not sales yet. When the agreed-upon budget or start dates arrive without purchase orders, ask customers why. After all, the MPC 3: Solution Confirmed supposedly validated that your proposed solutions met their conditional commitments. Depending on their answers, review the "Handling Hinges" section in Chapter 8 to determine the best strategy to use. As a preventative measure, remember that the stronger the measurable benefits are in MP 3, the more likely MPC 4 will occur at the same time.

Set up a quote log to track your outstanding MP 3: Cement Solution proposals by budget and decision dates of the proposals, dollar amounts, and gross margins. Again, Q sheets record this information. (See Exhibit 9-11.)

Exhibit 9-11: Manageable quote limit.

Note

When customers view your products as commodities, your input become less important after you provide them with quotes, which they often view as official price tags. With value-driven sales, your input is just important after the quote as before.