I have to be honest; I let the Christmas Holidays get away from me a little bit. I tipped the scales at a number I had never seen in my life up until this point. It’s nobody’s fault but my own. My daughter’s birthday, my birthday, and those sacred family recipes that arrive each and every holiday season got the best of me. When those numbers flashed on the scale, I knew it was time to do something.
My friend Shawn suggested I heed my own business advice and spend the next few weeks tracking everything I eat. Everything? Yes, everything. And so I did. In two weeks, I’ve had astonishing results. I was suddenly more aware and conscious of everything I was putting into my mouth. The accountability was there, and it’s made me think every time I considered grabbing that slice of pizza or can of diet coke. Just like much of the work I do with clients, what gets measured, is what gets done.
I can’t help but continue to harp on this from a business point of view. I continue to work with clients – very successful companies – where a lot of things that should be measured aren’t being measured. These companies have no way of knowing if they’re being done.
Let’s use the sales department as an example. Sales is the beating heart of a great company. Not only are we expected to keep our customers healthy and lively, but most companies are dependent on sales to keep the blood of new customers flowing.
You need to be measuring the activity happening each and every day. Otherwise, you’ll end up bloated, overweight, and out of shape. You need to hold yourself and your people accountable. We need to be measuring the activity and NOT just the result after a slow, lazy season of holiday cookies.
How many calls were made?
How many new contacts?
Follow-ups on quotes and proposals?
Handwritten letters sent?
New appointments set?
Deals closed?
Deals lost?
New opportunities found?
If you’re relying on individual reporting and overall stats from your sales team to determine their performance, then you’re robbing both the company and your people of the ability to identify what is working and what is not at a company-wide level. This also leaves you without the evidence to better train, coach and mentor your people (either as a group or individually) in areas where they may need help.
To make any change, it’s not enough to know what needs to be done. The gap between “knowing” and “doing” could easily swallow the Grand Canyon, None of the clients I work with are suffering from not knowing what to do – instead, what’s missing is the ability to pick the right projects and to be relentless in their execution, day in and day out.
In other words – don’t tell yourself you should eat better – actually track everything that goes into your mouth for two weeks. Don’t say, “I need to be better at reaching out to my clients.” Track every outbound contact that you make, and look at that number every day.
Even better, use my Pick-3 Process and track every person’s efforts toward retention, customer touch points, and overall revenue growth for 30 days. I guarantee results. 100% guaranteed to increase sales and revenue from new and existing customers. And the best part? It won’t cost you a damn thing to find out. Merely apply a little effort and track every effort for the next 30 days.
Your challenge for this week:
Where could you do a better job measuring?
Are you only tracking and rewarding on outputs, when you could be rewarding your people for the right inputs/activity?
Pick one area that you’re going to measure more fully, and be consistent with it for the at least the next week. Send me an email at [email protected] and let me know what you’re working on.
