Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / How to Track Your Way to Higher Profits

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How to Track Your Way to Higher Profits · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

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  Lots of Nigerian business people and sales people don't track the
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  activities that they do everyday.
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  They don't just keep, they don't keep simple metrics about stuff
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  that they do everyday. And the reason why lots of you
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  don't do that is because you don't know the reason why this
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  is important. Now, sales is a performance
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  discipline. It is just like sports or it's
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  just like music. So if there's certain kinds of
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  reps, certain kinds of activities, certain kinds of
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  things that you don't do every single day, you're not going to
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  see the results at the back end. So for those of you who are
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  musicians, whether you're a hobbyist or you're a
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  professional, you know that if you don't practice your skills
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  every day, if you don't practice certain kinds of passages every
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  day, let's say you play guitar or maybe you play piano.
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  So you don't practice your skills, you don't practice your
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  lines. At the end of the day, it's
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  going to show your performance is not going to improve because
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  you've not been doing the things that you need to do every single
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  day to get the guaranteed output at the end, which is you're
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  going to be a very beautiful and proficient performer.
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  So for those of you who have hobbies and music, you know that
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  it's just something you have to do.
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  So you wake up today and you practice your skills.
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  Are you going to do a major scale, a minor scale, a
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  pentatonic scale, a jazz scale, whatever.
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  It's just part of the process. So it's the same thing when it
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  comes to sales as well. Sales is a performance
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  discipline. So there's certain kinds of
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  things that we're supposed to do every day that will grow our
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  business and we should be tracking that accordingly.
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  Now, the reason why I'm talking about this today is because I
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  was having a conversation with a sales manager, one of my
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  clients, and she didn't quite get that.
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  Look, this is the reason why this is your responsibility and
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  it's your job role. So you should be tracking that
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  thing. You have sales people under you.
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  How many call attempts did they make every day?
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  You need to figure that out. How many actual phone
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  conversations did they have from those calls?
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  Call attempts that they made? You need to figure that out.
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  How many estimates did they issue every day?
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  You need to figure that out. How many emails did they send?
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  How many text messages did they send?
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  Or how many meetings were booked?
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  You need to figure that out. So even if you're not a sales
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  manager, but you're self-employed and you're an
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  entrepreneur, these are some of the activities that you need to
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  be tracking. How many calls did I make
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  yesterday? How many actual phone
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  conversations did I have? How many estimates did I send
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  out? How many proposals did I send
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  out? How many emails did I send?
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  How many text messages did I send?
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  How many meetings did I book? How many meetings did I go for?
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  You need to be tracking all these things because sales is a
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  performance discipline, just like music and just like sports.
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  So with sports, if you're not doing the practice, you will not
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  be good at the end of the day. It's just that simple.
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  So if you're a footballer, you wake up, you don't do the the
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  fundamentals, you know, dribbling, conditioning, cardio,
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  practicing shots, you know, all the basic fundamental things,
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  you're going to be a crappy, you're going to be useless
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  footballer. So whether football, baseball,
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  basketball, racquetball, you know, it's all the same.
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  That's some fundamentals. So for those of you who are
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  sales managers, for those of you who are business owners, for
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  those of you who are self-employed, we have to be
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  tracking these things and we have to make sure that we're
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  doing these things every single day.
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  Because honestly, if you're not making call attempts, you're not
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  going to be speaking to people. Whether call attempts, as far as
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  you try to buzz people on the phone or you try to go to
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  people's office, you suppose they call on people.
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  At least you go attempts. Whether you succeed or not is
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  not beyond you. But shall you suppose attempt?
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  So you should be tracking it. Last week how many attempts?
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  Yesterday? How many attempts?
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  Then the actual conversations they had.
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  OK, so yesterday I attempted to call 20 people.
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  Ten of them didn't answer. So I only had 10 conversation
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  bit be tracking those things of the people, the 10 people that I
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  had conversations with, how many people did we start talking
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  pricing? Did we issue estimates?
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  Did we look our proposals track that one of the remaining 10
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  that I sent that I tried to reach out to those ones who
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  didn't answer, OK, no problem. How many emails did I send as
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  follow up? How many text messages did I
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  send as follow up? These are all the activities
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  that when we track every single day of every single week, every
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  single month, that profit will be guaranteed at the end.
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  Some of you say like what's the point?
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  The whole point is just to make sure that we're staying on our
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  daily disciplines because the revenue is going to come at the
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  end of the day. If you don't understand it, I'm
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  saying let me just put it this way.
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  If you wake up every day, you stay inside your house under the
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  cool AC and all you do is you watch Netflix, how will money
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  come and find you? Money will not come and find
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  you. In this case, there are certain
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  things that you have to do, revenue generating activities
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  that will bring in money at the end of the day.
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  Now, nothing is guaranteed, but like Brian Tracy likes to say,
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  it's all about the law of averages.
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  We're trying to do things that will put the odds in our favor.
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  So if you're making certain call attempts every day, certain you
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  have actual conversations every day, talk money every day, send
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  emails every day, send text messages every day, try and book
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  meetings every day, then you're putting the odds in your favor.
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  That profit is going to come at the end of the day, so we should
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  be tracking these things. Now, the sales manager that I
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  was talking to, she said, and there's no need to track because
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  we have a call tracker, we have ACRM.
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  So the sales people already put all the details in there.
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  And yeah, you know, fine, all well and good.
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  But The thing is, as a sales manager, we're supposed to be on
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  top of people and help them to grow and develop themselves.
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  If you're not looking at these things every single day, things
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  will start to slip. And The thing is the CRM, that's
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  the customer relationship management tool and the call
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  tracker and things like that, It doesn't show you what.
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  It doesn't show you the full picture.
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  It doesn't show you the full picture.
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  Let me just put it that way. It only shows you how will I put
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  it? It doesn't show you the full
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  picture, so it's unfortunate, but you do have to track on this
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  very modular kind of level. Now there are lots of fancy high
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  tech ways of tracking these sorts of things, but they're
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  very simple, old school, tried and tested ways that never fail.
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  And I spoke to the sales manager and I said, look, these are some
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  simple things you can do. While I was in paid employment,
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  one of the things that we used to do was that's in my own team
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  because I was in the, I worked with the civil service, I was in
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  the Department of Works and Pensions in Scotland and we were
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  customer facing. So we had to talk to customers
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  every single day because we had to process their benefits and
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  payment claims. And one simple way that my team
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  and I used to do it was we just had a tally sheet.
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  And on the tally sheet, you will just put it there, you know,
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  cases, processed phone numbers, you know, things like that.
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  And what's a simple tally system for those of us who went to
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  school in, you know, Nigeria, Nigeria primary school, remember
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  mathematics, how they taught us how to tally by using, what's it
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  called, using ticks and then crossing them out.
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  So you, you, you do your tallies in five.
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  So you draw 4 lines, 1234 and then the fifth line goes across
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  it sharp 5. So that if you look at your
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  tally sheet and you see four of those blocks, you know 1234, the
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  line across it, you see four of them automatically just an OK,
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  that is 20. So that is simple.
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  It's low tech. It's very clear.
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  You can see that, oh, these are the amount of cases that are
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  processed at the end of the day. So yes, if you go through the
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  computer system and look at the data log, you'll be able to find
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  out, OK, this person did this, this person did this.
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  But if everybody just has a sheet of paper on their table,
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  every single time you make a call, draw one line, another
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  call, draw one line. By the time you make 4 calls,
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  draw another line, your 5th call, draw one line across,
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  that's your tally 5 and then you move on.
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  At the end of the day, slow tech is very easy and you can manage
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  based on that. And that was a simple way that
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  my team and I, because I was, I was an assistant line manager.
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  Eventually I became a line manager for a bit, but then my
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  OGA came back and then, you know, I went back to being an
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  assistant line manager. But it was a simple way that we
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  all stayed on course. We were supposed to process 40
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  claims every single day and it was very easy.
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  You just hash out your tally sheet before you leave.
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  You just go and you drop it on your manager's desk.
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  Sometimes, you know, yes, I was assistant line manager.
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  Sometimes I was a line manager. So sometimes you drop it on my
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  desk. I look at that and I can see
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  that. OK, no problem.
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  Coley has been consistently hitting 404040 every day.
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  OK, Cammy sometimes does 45, sometimes she's doing 12,
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  sometimes she's doing, you know. So as a manager, by looking at
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  all these things, you start getting a sense of who is in
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  trouble or where is the trouble going to come from because she
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  can start seeing problems in performance every single day.
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  So it's the same thing with business.
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  If you have this simple tally sheet thing and you're tracking
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  your activities, you'll be able to tell when there's a problem.
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  So if for your business, you think you're supposed to be
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  having two meetings every single week with potential customers
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  and you're using this tally sheet, by the time you start
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  noticing that ah, come, I've only been having one one meeting
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  or for the last two or three weeks I've had zero meeting.
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  You will now know that, OK, a problem is going to come later
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  on in the future because I'm not doing the activities and the
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  metrics today that will guarantee the profits for, you
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  know, next month. So this part of business
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  absolutely sucks. It really sucks.
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  The self management part, it absolutely sucks.
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  The people management part, it absolutely sucks, but or more,
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  we can't run away from it. It is absolutely important.
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  If you don't stay on your team and make sure that they're doing
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  all the things they need to do, excuse me, call attempts, phone
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  conversations, estimates, proposals, money conversations,
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  meetings, emails, SMS. There'll be a problem brewing in your
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  business and you won't know now. You will know at the end of 1/4
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  that profits are down. So it sucks.
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  However it is you want to do it. You need to find a way if you
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  want to look for high tech solutions, you know, data
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  loggers attached to computers and whatever you know, whatever
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  you want to do, it's fine. Just do something.
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  If you're not tech savvy like me, this tally system is very,
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  very simple. 12345 cross it out. 12345 cross it out.
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  If at the end of the day, your plan is to be making 1010 calls
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  every day, 1010 attempts, by the time it's 4:00, you look at your
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  sheet and you will see the you ever see two batches of two
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  batches of five tallies or you don't.
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  By the time you look at the sheets for yesterday, the day
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  before, yesterday, and the week before, you'll be able to see
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  whether you are on an upward trajectory or on a downward
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  trajectory. Then you will now solve the
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  problem and you can start making changes accordingly.
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  But anyway, bottom line, what I'm trying to say today is the
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  self management part, it sucks, it's drying, it's boring, can
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  seem demoralizing. The people management part, it
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  sucks, but we can't, we have to do it.
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  So pick a system, high tech, low tech, something that works for
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  you, but track it. How many call attempts did you
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  make yesterday? How many call attempts did you
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  make last week? With the attempts that you made,
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  how many actual phone conversations did you have?
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  If you're someone who likes to go out and visit people, no
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  problem. How many potential customers or
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  how many past customers did you schedule to visit last week?
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  Of the five that you scheduled the visit, how many people did
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  you actually jam in the office or how many people did you
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  actually jam in the house? All the people that you jammed,
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  how many money conversations did you have?
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  How many proposal did you put down?
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  How many estimates did you put on table?
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  How many presentations did you make?
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  How many proposals did you drop? For the people where you know
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  jam, how many notes did you drop?
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  How many emails did you send? How many follow up text messages
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  did you send? It is from doing all these
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  activities every day religiously or every single week religiously
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  that money will come at the end. So please always remember that
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  sales is a performance thing, is a performance discipline.
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  Sales is like music. Sales is like sports.
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  If you have not been doing the fundamentals when it comes to
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  sports, you've not been doing your dribbling, you've not been
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  doing your tackling, you've not been doing your raising, you've
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  not been doing your conditioning.
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  You've not been following boys in the morning to be doing your
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  warm up. When the time for the match
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  comes, you'll be useless and you won't score goals and the boys
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  will want you off the team because you know they do the
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  fundamentals, you know they follow them do the fundamentals.
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  It's the same thing with music. You like guitar, you like the
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  flute, you like the clarinet, you like the trombone, you like
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  the piano, you like the harmonica.
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  Whatever it is, you're not going to be able to perform
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  convincingly on the stage, either by yourself or with a
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  team, unless you have been doing the fundamentals.
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  So let's say harmonica. Now mouth organ.
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  You wake up every day, you like the mouth organ, but you don't
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  practice, you don't run your skills.
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  When the time comes to perform on stage, how would you make
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  mistake? Anyway, I think I've
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  overstressed the point, so let me just leave it there.
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  Apologies for the noise in the background making the stage
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  recording on a Saturday morning. All the kids at home, you know,
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  neighborhood kids, you know, every, every.
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  So that's where all the noise is coming from, just in case any
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  noise has bled through the microphones.
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  So if you've gotten value from what I've heard and you'd love
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  to connect with me, you can call me, send me a text message or
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  send me a WhatsApp message on 08064662140.
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  If you'd like to discuss with me how these things can be applied
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  in your business on your own personal circumstances, then get
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  in touch with me. You can call me, send me a text
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  message on 08064662140. If you're shy and you still want
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  to connect, just to say you still want to connect just so
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  you can be on my WhatsApp channel, that's not a problem.
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  Then send me a message on the same number and we'll hook you
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  up. So thank you very much for your
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  time and attention. I'll catch you some other
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  episode.