Do the math

Make a grid of your week, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Sunday. Fill in the hours with the following:

. In-house meetings

Administration/paper work/research

Prospecting (finding and qualifying new customers)

Selling (working existing qualified accounts)

Breaks/personal time

II /e ALL HAVE A "NUMBER" we want to hit. The myth of V V having 40 hours a week to hit that number is just that, a myth.-This myth causes many to relax and think they have more time than they actually do to find and close business. This leads to unfocused. lackadaisical sales calls and organization.

The "action" in a basketball, football, baseball game or golf toumament is a fraction of the time spent preparing for the action. The same can be said of our sales years, weeks and days.

Let's do the yearly math first:

365 - 104 weekend days = 261, - l0 (vacation days) = 251 - 5 (national holidays) = 246 actual selling days.

Before we continue with our math problem, let's talk about the 104 weekend days.

Bryan Concannon says, "Monday thru Friday is for keeping up, Saturdays are for getting ahead."

David Olsen says, "lf you're not coming in on Sunday, don't bother coming in on Monday."

I quote these two gentlemen because I run across so many sellers who tell me they will do anything to succeed. These same salespeople work a non-intense 37-and-a-halfhour week and expect to compete with guys like Bryan Concannon and David Olsen who really mean ir when they say they will do anything to succeed!

If, in addition to our normal week, we work ever Saturday and half days on Sundays, we will have a 3lVo advantage over most of our competitors. If we work Saturdays, we have a20Vo advantage. If we work one half day per weekend or every other Saturday, we will have a l07o adyantage. "The Millionaire Next Door" says that most millionaires in America work 60-70 hours a week and buy used cars. (Who buys all the new cars? Well-paid sales people rank high on the list.)

As salespeople, we are running a small business. Entrepreneurial work habits produce entrepreneurial results; employee work habits produce employee results.

Here's an exercise I do with mv classes (and mvselfl.

If you are like most sellers, you will say 24-28 hours a week of selling time in a 4O-hour week. The real number is probably lower. Most lumber brokers will tell you they have a tough time logging 200 minutes a day on the phone. This is just phone time. Let's assume these sellers are on with customers for the full 200 minutes. 200 x 5 = 1000 minutes, + 60 = 16.6 hours per week. I work with road salespeople and street salespeople. Rare is the day we spend more than 4 hours in front of customers. 4 hours x 5 days = 20 hours per week.

Our T[ue Number

According to David Foster Wallace, "The truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you."

Dividing our number by actual days and hours may scare us (it does me!) and will definitely focus us. It will help us understand the need for thorough preparation for each call. For example:

28-hour sales week: $100,000 + 246 = $406, + 5.6 hours (28 + 5) = $72.50 per hour. With a commission schedule paying 33Vo, we will need to generate $217 of profit every selling hour.

2O-hour sales week: $100,000 + 246 = $406, + 4 hours (20 + 5) = $101.50 per hour. With a commission schedule paying 33Vo, we will need to generate $304 of profit every selling hour.

1.6.6-hour sales week: $100,000 + 246 = $406, ; 3.3 hours (16.6 + 5) - $123 per hour. With a commission schedule paying 33Vo, we will need to generate $369 of profit every selling hour.

For sales managers and individual salespeople alike, knowing our sales math will show us exactly how and where to spend our time. Knowing our sales math will intensify and give urgency to each of our sales calls.

Our true selling time is finite. Be prepared. Do the math.

James Olsen Reality Sales Training (s03) s44-3s'72 james@ reality-salestraining.com