Doing Some Things Some of the Time

Over time, your results match your effort. The more consistently you do something, the more consistent your results. The more sporadic your effort, the more unpredictable your results.

Some people do some things some of the time. You can have some success by taking some of the necessary actions to reach some desired outcome some of the time. Occasionally you may even experience massive success. But those successes will be unpredictable, and you won’t ever generate predictable results. You also won’t produce your best results.

There is power in routine. There is power in doing the same thing, in the same way, at the same time, over and over again. The results you produce from disciplined, consistent routines far exceed the results you produce when you only do things some of the time. Or when you do something different every time.

Too many salespeople prospect sometimes. Because their efforts are inconsistent, so are their results. Their occasional work produces results from time to time, and that allows them to believe that what they are doing is working. It never allows them to produce the results of which they are capable. Prospecting produces the best results when you do it consistently.

Too few salespeople plan for sales calls. When they do, it’s only because they have to make a call on a high value prospect. They feel good when they make these calls because they are prepared, but not good enough to do the work for every sales call they make. Every interaction with a client is worth investing the time necessary to make it a successful call for you and your dream client.

Some sales organizations are also consistently inconsistent. They don’t have a rhythm of business. There aren’t consistent processes, meetings, or systems to generate consistent results. Every year they change without actually producing the benefits from all the things they put in place in prior years.

Sometimes isn’t a good model. If an outcome is important, consistency is what will generate that result.