Sales is a lot like baseball. If there is a way to track a metric, a statistic, we’ll track it. We measure everything, great or small. We were Nate Silver before being Nate Silver was cool.
How many calls did you make? How many connections? How many face-to-face sales calls? How many opportunities? What was the average value of those opportunities? How many days has that opportunity been in that stage of the sales process?
I could continue this list for pages and pages, capturing activity after activity, and outcome after outcome. But there are really four big measurements that matter: How did you do against your number at the end of the each of the first three quarters, and how did you do at the end of the year. Those are the judgment days about which we worry most. As long as we make our number, we don’t worry too much about the numbers underneath. Mistake!
As long time readers know, I don’t believe you can cram success. I’ve seen it tried, but I’ve never seen it work. The secret to avoiding a bad judgment day is to recognize that each and every day is judgment day and act accordingly. Excellence is a habit.
Today, and Every Day
Are you proud of what you accomplished yesterday? Did you do the work that you needed to do? Or, were you distracted by work that won’t really produce the results you need? Was it worse than that? Were you distracted by novelties and trivialities having nothing to do with your work?
The question you have to answer is this: “If you were judged on yesterday’s results alone, how would you fare?”
Every one of your days counts. They all matter. The measurements we take at the end of each quarter are result of all of the days leading up to that measurement. The better results you produce each day, the better your final result.
Judgment Day
Today is judgment day. At the end of the day, look back over the activities you took and the outcomes you produced. If you were judged by this single day, would you be proud of the work you accomplished? Or would you be embarrassed by the lack of activity and the lack of real outcomes?
You can only effect the big measurements on the final judgment day by doing something about all the little judgment days leading up to it.
Questions
As if there weren’t enough questions in the body of the post.
How would your day be different if you were going to be judged at the end of that day–by that day’s performance alone?
How do you consistently do work of which you are proud?
What prevents you from making your number on judgment day, really?
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