With the first six months of the sales year behind us, the Big Scoreboard in the boss's office says it all:
Hopefully, during July and August, you're gathering your troops together whether your title is "president" or "district manager" and going through not only a look back at the last six months, but, more importantly, what you're going to do to put more points on the board between September and December. July's almost finished and August's going to be a wash caught between the waves of vacations, so this is the perfect time of year to sit back and review your stats:
...and whatever other activity stats you and the rest of the team used during the month to stay on course.
...and the only way to plan Activities is to analytically and objectively assess your stats. Since stats don't lie, and they are the single source of the truth, you then need to define which activities and which tools worked and which didn't as you made the six month journey down your January through June funnel. Then you "simply" plan your activities accordingly for August through December remembering, of course, there's not much that's going to happen in August.
For me personally, July means six months since my successful open heart surgery.
The day before the operation, I asked the head of cardiac surgery if he had any more advice, and he answered "Relax, you will find this whole process "interesting". Since that word has many connotations for all of us, depending on the situation, I felt a little cheated and asked him, "Is that it? Interesting?" The bottom line out of all of this over the last six months was that, in fact, I did find it an interesting experience, including the stats that go along with heart disease.
To start with, I watch my diet. I'm not overweight. My cholesterol is "in the range". I exercise every day. Don't smoke, and didn't have any symptoms. No chest pain, no numbing in my left (or is it right?) arm...just a bit of shortness of breath, which I (mistakingly) "cured" over the last couple of years with an inhaler in every suit pocket, in my car and in my computer bag. In fact when I discovered that I had major heart disease, it was only as the result of my being told I needed to do a stress test for a totally unrelated matter. In reality, as my cardiologist told me, I was "one snowboard ride away from a massive heart attack".
The heart disease stats go like this:
I guess that I knew some of these, but I never paid any attention, since as far as I was concerned, heart disease always related to "the other guy" since the one stat that I was following (cholesterol levels) told me that I didn't have an issue. The problem was that I was only paying attention to that one stat-cholesterol-and if I had been reviewing others, and taken the time to figure out why I had suddenly acquired "asthma" a few years ago, it would have definitively told me that something else was going on. The single source of the truth, which started wiht a simple 20 minute stress test and a follow-up angiogram showed that there was never any asthma, just a 100% blocked left artery and a 60% blocked right artery.
Stats count.
And, while you're thinking about all of this, dial your doc and schedule a stress test. What do you have to lose? What you have to gain is your life.
Good Selling...and Good Health!
Have specific sales questions that you want to bounce off me or any of our other coaches, just email me, and we'll set up a time to talk.
Derby Management...for 25 years
-Sales & Marketing Productivity Experts
-Business & Strategy Planning Specialists
-Senior Management Coaching
Box 171322, Boston, MA 02117
617-292-7101
Jack's Cell: 617-504-4222