If You Keep Doing What You’re Doing, You’ll Keep Getting What You’re Getting
This is my way of paraphrasing a famous statement made by Albert Einstein. And I think it applies to managers and owners of sales-driven companies.
Over the 43 years that I have coached these companies, I’ve observed that many entrepreneurs and owners who are frustrated with the results their sales and marketing efforts are producing. Yet and still, they are hesitant to change core aspects of their business.
Implementing Change
It is remarkably easy for these same owners and entrepreneurs, even though they’re frustrated, to justify maintaining the status quo. So, the most important thing a manager or an owner can change is his/her view of one word, accountability.
All too often, management holds the sales team accountable for the dollars they produce, not the activities that produce those dollars. You should hold your employees accountable for both the quantity as well as the quality of activities undertaken in the pursuit of incremental revenue.
If you don’t hold them accountable, you may wind up with the ongoing frustration of feeling as if you’re overpaying your team for underperforming. Worse, your team will get into a comfort zone that makes them highly resistant to changing any or all of their performance.
The excuses that I’ve heard sound like this. “I don’t know why management wants us to go to training. Sales are ‘okay’!” Furthermore, many owners and entrepreneurs view the task of holding the sales team accountable as challenging work that is easy to postpone and/or avoid.
Implementing Change
In order to inject accountability into your process, I encourage you to practice some of the principles I teach in my Six Sigma Selling™ training program. First and foremost, establish a mathematical correlation between key sales activity metrics such as number of:
First meetings
Follow-up meetings
Dollars or deals added to your funnel
Quotes or proposals produced
Demonstrations or tours conducted
Et cetera
Correlate those activities to the dollars produced. This will help you establish activity metrics which, in turn, should be the focus of your new accountability program. If you’d like to discuss these concepts further, feel free to schedule a complimentary coaching call with me.
As always, I wish you…
Good Luck and Good Selling!!!
