Heavy topic today but important questions to ask yourself.
What % of your sales results are because of probability?
What % of your sales results arise from randomness?
Sales randomness is a result outside of what you expect or, due to luck, serendipity.
Sales probability is a fairly predictable long-term pattern that can be relied on to build a business, generate qualified leads, and keep the commission checks coming.
Two things it took me too long to learn, and I did it the hard way.
- Short-term results are affected more by what we did 30-days ago, 2-months ago and 6-months ago, than what we did today or in the past week.
- The more a prospect or ideal client differs from your “ideal client” norm, or the more their journey to you differs from the path most ideal clients traveled to you, the greater the risk of dissatisfaction or a poor result.
It is my belief that about 85% of qualified prospects/ideal clients are spit out by a foundationally solid consistently executed process. 15% are exceptions to the rule happy accidents due more to luck and randomness than purposeful actions.
Sales results that arise from a solid process can be relied upon, improved and, to a large degree, controlled.
Sales results due to randomness are beyond our control.
Human beings, which includes most sales reps, tend to have highly unrealistic expectations of what they should achieve in the short-term, and significantly underestimate what they can accomplish in 3-months, 6-months or a year if they stick with something.
What is your answer to the two questions posed at the top of this article?
If your “strategy” is to do more and more, find hacks and shortcuts, or you keep changing tactics, you are chasing randomness. You are counting on lottery ticket luck, playing tactic-o-rama and working in a low productivity space. (Plus, more activity and hacks is not a strategy. Don’t get me going.)
If your sale results are fairly predictable and of sufficient quality and value, that results from a system generating probable results.
Resolve to increase the amount of business generated from probability and less from randomness.
