Velocity Selling TV: Episode 34: Working the Plan or Go for the No

Matthew: Hi Matthew Whyatt here with Velocity Selling TV Episode number thirty-four, and we’re talking about how to actually go about tracking behaviours. Now Bob, one thing that comes up a lot in meetings once we go ahead and build out this plan and we’ve got the salespeople saying that they’re committed, one of the challenges is actually on a daily basis, how do you make sure they’re actually filling out these sales plans so we can really track those behaviours?
Bob: It’s not so much as filling out the sales plan. Our job as a leader becomes easier now because all we have to do is follow up with the sales rep, did they do what they said they were going to do? And that’s why I broke it down into what I call daily disciplines, daily behavours. But here’s the thing for sales reps in particular, firs t of all, I’ll tell you a bit of a story. I was on 100% commission, I only made money if I sold it so I like to believe as salespeople whether we’re 100% commission or not, we should have what we call an owner’s mentality. You are the CEO of ME INC. I’m the CEO of my inc, and you’re the CEO of your inc. and what we need to do is think like owners. And what I found was, when I was doing this, I was actually selling franchises in Canada that were based in the US. Everyday they would give me leads and I would make phone calls. So the first thing I did is, I would record, how many leads did I get today? In other words, you take a piece of paper and you list across the top all the different areas of activity that you get involved in and then down the left hand side, numbers one to thirty- which is each day of the month.
Matthew: Yeah.
Bob: It’s a little similar to the monthly monitor chart but different. So, here we go: Day One- how many leads did you get? From those leads, what did you do? Made phone calls. Those phone calls, how many people answered the phone? How many people did not answer the phone? From those phone calls, how many appointments have been set? From those appointments, how many presentations were made? From those presentations that were made, how many were qualified? From the qualified, how many were sold and what was the dollar value? Get the idea?
Matthew: Sure.
Bob: See, every time you do one of these things, you just mark it on your piece of paper, very rough, and at the end of the day you tally it up. Now here’s what it did for me: I was making 600 calls a day. Out of the 600 calls a day, I was only getting, sorry, 600 dials is the way I did it. So I was doing 600 dials. Out of the 600 dials, I was only getting 300 contacts.
Matthew: In a day or in a week?
Bob: This was a monthly average.
Matthew: Ok.
Bob: I did this for three months, 600 calls, and I was doing, this was part-time by the way, I had a full time job at the same time.
Matthew: Right.
Bob: What it was, 600 dials which lead to 300 contacts- contact means a live body- no voicemails, no wrong number, none of that stuff, it lead to a live body. Out of the 300 contacts, I would get 285 rejections. I would find 15 people that would qualify. Out of the 15 people that were qualified, only 5 would really have the money to take a trip to the United States to visit how this worked.
Matthew: Yep.
Bob: But out of the 5, only three would show. Out of the three that showed, two would buy. I was making $1500 commission. So that gave me a total of $3000 every month for two sales.
Matthew: Got it.
Bob: After three months of looking at this, I said to myself, ok, how can I make more money? So let’s go through the numbers here: well one, I’m making 600 dials. But before we even go there, if I make $3000 dollars, and I’m making 600 dials, how much am I getting paid per dial? $5 a dial.
Matthew: Sorry, I’m enrolled in the conversation, I didn’t answer the question.
Bob: You know me Matthew, I like to engage.
Matthew: Now, I don’t have to do math, I’m in Sales Bob.
Bob: I make $5 a dial, I want to make more money, what do I need to do?
Matthew: More dials.
Bob: You got it. Now, and I looked at more dials, I said ok, well let’s look at this, we can make more dials, but why am I only getting 300 contacts out of 600? How could I increase my contact rate? And then I thought about it. This was a business opportunity for people. So, could it be that they’re leaving me their home number? Maybe I’m calling at the wrong time of the day? So after realising this and analysing it, I said, let’s start to do something different. Let’s start the call on the east coast of Canada, because we have about six different time zones here, let’s start the call here and end up on the west coast later on because there’s about a four or five hour time difference between the two. And I did that and guess what? The next thing you know, I’m up to 525 contacts.
Matthew: Wow.
Bob: Simply by changing the time of day of calling. Get the idea?
Matthew: That’s really cool.
Bob: Now, here’s the other one and this was where I was going to say Velocity Selling really started. When a sales person gets asked a question, what does a sales person usually do?
Matthew: Well they usually answer it.
Bob: Exactly and I did too. I’d call them and say, I’m calling about this and that are you interested in a business opportunity? And they’d say, yes, can you tell me a little bit about it? Well Urichuck turned into Yak-achuck. Just like every other sales rep. Blah Blah. And I’d spend half an hour, forty-five minutes telling them all the great things about it. I decided to change that.
Matthew: Yep.
Bob: How could I get a better return on my time invested? So someone would say to me, ok Bob, can you tell me a little bit about it? I’d say of course, I have so much to tell you about it, it’s going to take me at least forty-five minutes, but before I start, can I ask you a question?
Matthew: Sure.
Bob: Have you got $40,000 USD to invest in a business?
Matthew: Yeah, really good.
Bob: And what do you think I’d get right there?
Matthew: Well, it would cut out a lot of people.
Bob: It immediately cut out a lot of people and I saved myself forty-five minutes. Which allowed me to make a whole bunch more calls.
Matthew: Yeah, right.
Bob: And this is the part that people don’t understand, I’d rather get a no, than waste my time with someone who is not qualified.
Matthew: Absolutely.
Bob: Right away I’d go for no and that’s an important part. And that started to change the process and my numbers started to go up from there. So the thing I’m encouraging people to do is track your behaviours. Where does your time go in a day? How many phone calls are you making? How many emails are you putting out? How much marketing are you doing? How many networking events are you going to? What’s your results? I mean, you know yourself Matthew, I’ve told you this before, when I go to a networking meeting, what’s the first thing I do: How many people are here? 100? Well, I make an objective, I get minimum 10%. And out of that 10% I know that 2% out of that 10% is going to give me business in the next three months, because I’ve tracked it all the way through. So we have to always know what’s our objective. Why are we here? What are we trying to accomplish? And we have to always be looking for the best ROTI- best return on time invested. Now, I’m not looking for return on investment I’m looking for return on time invested. And I say that because money comes an d money goes, time just goes. And in business for yourself you’ve only got so much time to make things happen. And we’ve got to use that time to the best of our ability. So, if I can quickly qualify someone to no, fantastic. You know, it’s a lot of ‘no’s’, and I know how to deal with rejection today so I’m ok with it. I actually encourage, go for no. don’t go for yes, go for no.
Matthew: Very cool. Well, Bob we might actually rename this episode as go for the no.
Bob: Yes. Now Matthew, before we go there’s something here and I just want to put on my glasses, I just want to put you into Velocity Selling, the book.
Matthew: Yep.
Bob: In there we provide something called the Behaviour Work Sheet.
Matthew: Ok.
Bob: And when you know your numbers, you can answer this question. In order to generate X dollars, I need to get in front of X prospects? In order to get in front of X prospects I need to book X appointments. In order to book X appointments, I need to speak to X prospects. In order to initiate X point of contacts I need to initiate X points of contact. See what I mean? So it’s a whole flow going through so that if you know that if you made 25 phone calls today you’re going to get so many appointments and out of those so many appointments, you’re going to get so many qualified buyers, and you’re going to make so many sales. So whatever your number is on a daily basis that you need to accomplish, you work it backwards from tracking your behaviours and you’ll know in no time what you need to do to make your numbers.
Matthew: Fantastic Bob. Really clear stuff, I coach all of my people to know those numbers and you know, to the people listening, if you don’t know those numbers, that should probably be your little gem, take away today. Start tracking this stuff. Start understanding where your business is at.
Bob: But let me put something to you Matthew that I put to sales people around the world. Would you say that sales leaders focus on the numbers?
Matthew: Usually, yeah.
Bob: How do you get the numbers? Through behaviours.
Matthew: Yep.
Bob: Our job is to make sure that our sales reps are demonstrating the right behaviours. If they’re doing the appropriate behaviours, they’ll hit their numbers do you agree?
Matthew: Got it.
Bob: Stop managing numbers. Start managing people’s behviours. Before you manage people’s behaviours, get them to define them to you then you’re just coaching them on doing what they said they’re going to do. Simple as that.
Matthew: Really good Bob. Fantastic. Well thanks very much for that. That was a longer episode but I think there’s so much value in there. Hopefully everyone is enjoying these as much as I am. Talk to you later Bob.
Bob: Alright. Thanks a lot Matthew.
Matthew: Bye-bye.

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