We all start the beginning of each year with 365 days.
To give you an example of how some salespeople can waste the better part of the year, I put together a few numbers below.
The sad comment is that a lot of the items, though they seem stupid, are closer to reality than fiction for some salespeople:
365 Total Days in a Year
– 104 Weekend days
– 12 Holidays
– 15 Vacation days
– 5 Sick / personal days
– 10 Company meeting days
– 50 Administrative office days
169 Remaining days to sell
– 10 First two weeks of the year spent preparing for the year!
– 12 “Busted days” — Days such as the short Thanksgiving Week, time between Christmas and New Year’s, etc.
– 35 Mondays — “because they just aren’t good days to reach customers because they’re busy getting ready for the week.”
– 35 Fridays — “because come the end of the week, the last thing a customer wants to do is talk to a salesperson.”
– 7 Computer/systems errors — those days that just pop up where the computer system is just not working right.
– 4 Arguing with the sales manager over the quarterly sales quotas.
– 3 Listening and complaining to HR about the compensation/benefit structure.
– 6 Complaining to anyone who will listen about “horrible” and “stupid” customers.
– 8 Complaining to other lazy salespeople about how stupid everyone else.
– 8 Spent in a “deep funk” worrying about not having enough time to sell.
41 Selling Days per Year
Is there any wonder the lazy salesperson can’t seem to make their numbers?
If you only had 41 selling days in a year, you wouldn’t make your number either. The beauty is that you probably have some competitors who are pretty close to following this lay salesperson’s calendar.
That puts you in a sweet spot — as long as you aren’t subconsciously finding yourself doing some of the items listed above.
It’s a New Year and a great opportunity to get out in front of your competition. How are you going to spend your time?
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
Funny thing is that, with the exception of personal vacation or sick time (legitimate sick), all of the days are still viable. That’s not the same as ideal or practical but the other days are opportunities to prove your worth to customers.
A frantic call on a holiday regarding your product or service does not mean foregoing dinner with the family or time at your church. It does though give you the chance to impress the customer with your commitment to find a person who can fix or otherwise mitigate the problem until a permanent fix can be instituted.
Sure, there are still limits that need to be drawn but taking a call, listening (not hearing) to the issue and then putting in place a plan to resolve will make you the hero. This is how long-term, business relationships are forged. If the customer uses your product or service 24/7 you should be prepared to address their concerns 24/7 as well.
it is never so simple. But i dolove the example.
Meanwhile back at the ranch how do i get up to speed,when i have just changed product and employer? i need to make things happen fast at the slowest time of the year.
ANY POSITIVE INPUT WOULD BE APPRECIATED.
JMMAG