In a recent sales tip shared by Jack Falvey, Founder of makingthenumbers.com, he asked, and adeptly answered, this simple question as follows:
“Want more sales? Make more calls.
“Working hard is working smart. In a thirty-five year study of the most productive sales professionals in the world, the one common trait that all shared is that they made more calls and worked harder than anyone else. Not only did they work harder than their competitors, but harder than anyone else in their organization. Hard work pays off.
“Sales is a person-to-person business. A trust relationship must develop. The more people you get to, the more chances you will have to develop these trust relationships and build your business. Screen in suspects and prospects; don’t pre-qualify them out. Business comes from the least likely place at the oddest of hours. Your chances of being at the right place at the right time are greatly increased if you are at a great many places every working hour of every business day, and a few non-business hours thrown in for extra measure. Quality time is a myth. Quantity counts. “See a lot of people.” If there were an easier or better way, it would have been discovered by now. There isn’t, and it hasn’t. Make more calls. More sales will result.”
True words for sure… and to make sure we hold ourselves accountable to this “simple but not necessarily easy” plan, the best among us will keep score.
Some might think Falvey’s recommendation is old school – just as many will say keeping a call log falls into the same category. But the advice is as relevant today as it was yesterday, and the impact of keeping score has never changed either.
Contact volume matters, as does contact frequency. If we keep score it’s a lot more likely we’ll excel in both areas.