My favorite blogger, especially at this time of year as we prepare to celebrate the 4th, is Benjamin Franklin.

An amazing patriot, which is why I always tie Franklin to the 4th.  An inventor, an entrepreneur, the creator of Poor Richard's Almanac (the leading blog of his day), an extraordinary statesman, a lover of good food and wine, and provider of wonderfully simple quotes such as...

"Time is Money"

No time to better think about this simple Ben Franklin adage than today, just a couple of days after closing the sales quarter last week.  Since all through last week, I spent the majority of my time with six different sales teams watching, observing, and participating, a couple of comments...

Basic observations from last week: 

• 10% of the people completed their quarter, or knew that they were comfortably on their final glide path at the beginning of June. These are what we call "the Overachievers"-the long term planners, the Trusted Advisors of the salesforce.  The AA players who act as strategic counselors to both their customers and their prospects.
• 70% were confident on the Monday of last week that they would be at or close to their sales quota by the end of the week. These are "the Steady Eddies"-the blocking and tackling foot soldiers, the meat and potatoes of the salesforce.
• 20% essentially gave up sometime during the month and resigned themselves to missing their numbers. These are typically "the Excusers" since there's always a reason as to why they didn't get to quota.  Not enough leads, the economy is slow, the decision makers went on vacation...and so on.  Lots of explanations, but never enough procative planning which leads to the primary cause of too many sleepless nights and wasted time on your part when the company is trying to reach its business plan.

The 70% will typically come close to their yearend numbers, especially considering that the overall data on quota attainment for B2B salespeople is only 68%, but, I'm always very dissapointed that such a large number as 20% just decide sometime during the quarter that they're not going to meet their quotas, and they resign themselves to failure.   Clearly not Bruins or Blackhawks material, and quite frankly, most probably not material for your team.   You need right now, here at the beginning of the second half of the year, to start planning to recruit new draft choices and get rid of the people who are resigned to fail and just get by.

Lost Time is Never Found Again

Another Franklin quote regarding time reminds me that typically failure to close a quarter on plan means that rarely is that delta going to be made up in the next quarter, and especially in Q3.  Rarely do planned-for orders not close during the last week of the of the month, but then magically reappear during the next week.  If the order didn't close as a salesperson thought that it would, it's typically because the salesperson did not do a good job at the earlier Disovery step or that the Value Propositon that was being presented just wasn't compelling.   The reason that forecasted orders that were planned to close by the end of the month, but did not, is, in reality, never because..."time ran out".  The miss to plan typically occured because the detailed planning and the accompanying execution on the part of the individual saleperson was weak.

You may delay, but time will not.

Although we, as practioners of Sales Optimization, firmly believe that Sales today is largely about process, math, metrics and technology (and not relationships), Franklin's last quote about time, says a lot about constantly asking for the order all through the sales process.  At every step of the sales funnel from Qualify to Close, this simple adage of "never delaying" and always being proactive and asking for the order may just surprise you early in the sales funnel.  Not only do you achieve an early win, but you also have more time to work on the rest of your opportunities in the funnel.

I trust that your quarter ended on plan!  Send me an email or give me a call this week and update me on how the month ended. 

In the meantime, Enjoy the...

Jack,
Head Coach

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During our upcoming 2013 Sales Management Boot Camp, we'll talk about Sales Funnels and their tools and metrics, but, most importantly, we will drive down into the details of Sales Enablement along with other strategies, tools such as Value Propositions and a wide variety of other tactics.  Plus this is a unique opportunity to meet others just like you from a wide variety of industries in an exciting, engaging, and exhausting work environment. 

 Late Sunday afternoon, October 6th through Tuesday afternoon, October 8th at the MIT Endicott House.

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1.  How can I improve my own effectiveness as a manager?
2.  How can I enable my salespeople to produce more effectively?

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Just email Jack at jack@derbymanagement.com to set up a 10 minute call to answer any questions that you might have.