An article for business professionals - January 4, 2007
Happy New Year!
I love hope. Don't you?
And don't you just love the fresh new crop of it that comes with the new year?
Or do you?
For many, it is quickly spoiled by a little flash of skepticism like - why will it be any different this year?
Or maybe even a full blast like - I can hope but it won't happen unless I do something and I don't know what that is and even if I did, I don't know how. And even if I knew how, I'm too tired because I've been hopping all over the place trying to make my hopes come true and now --- my batteries are flat out dead.
Wherever you are on the hope/hop scale, I hope this article will serve as a helpful boost. While we can do it at any time, there is something about a clean slate and the opportunity it brings to re-focus, re-energize and enjoy the potential a new year brings.
Jan
Hoping or Hopping?
by Jan Bolick
Long, long ago, in the land of advertising sales, our team had a monthly sales goal, which was divided into individual sales rep goals. These were broken down further into weekly and daily goals.
Each of us could make our goal by renewing and upselling businesses on our account list. But our managers knew it was best to plan for setbacks like losing an account for all the reasons that can happen. And so – in addition to dollar goals, we had weekly goals for making proposals to prospective advertisers.
Progress was monitored closely.
The copy deadline for our publication was on Tuesdays at noon. If we weren’t close enough to goal by Monday morning, our managers implemented a back up plan like a promotion or special section to sell. Or sometimes it was a contest like whoever sold the most new ads that day won a gift certificate to Joe’s Pizzeria.
Every Wednesday morning, we met as a team and evaluated results by reviewing the publication page by page and by posting individual sales results on "the board".
Those who had made goal, got lots of positive attention from management and teammates too. Those who hadn’t - well - we sat in guilt-ridden silence.
Thank goodness - the meeting soon ended with around-the-table sales projections for the next week. Ah - next week! Another chance.
It was a clear demonstration of my favorite formula for setting and achieving goals...the one described in Keep Me Hopping.
1. Clearly define the goal
2. Break it into small, measurable parts
3. Monitor progress
4. Prepare for setbacks
5. Celebrate all along the way
6. Evaluate performance throughout and at the end
Our sales team was clearly hopping.
After about a year of this, I became the manager of another division of the company which also sold advertising, but our publications were annual instead of weekly and they, and our sales reps, were spread out all over the country.
Each rep had a total goal, divided into weekly and daily goals. Progress was monitored with charts on the wall that looked like United Way thermometers.
Each rep called in daily to report the number of ads and dollar volume sold. I cheered with each one who made goal for the day. With those who didn’t, we problem solved a bit – ending the call with encouragement that with hard work, the next day would be better!
If disappointing reports became a trend with one of the reps, I got in the car or on a plane to go visit in person – doing a bit of field coaching to try and pinpoint the problem.
All of this certainly kept everyone hopping.
I’ll have to be honest though. I was doing a heck of a lot of hoping that my pompons would pull them through.
It worked most of the time. But sometimes there were surprises. Sometimes the star salesperson who seemed to be raking it in at the start, came to a crashing halt. And sometimes the seemingly hopeless slowpoke surprised us with a victorious finish.
How and why did this happen?
I was willing to take blame for the first instance, but certainly couldn’t take credit for the second. More importantly, I couldn’t identify concrete lessons that would enable me to prevent or repeat accordingly.
I had a very smart boss who asked good questions.
Q: What does a person have to do to make goal?
A: Close enough sales.
Q: What does he have to do to close enough sales?
A: Make enough presentations.
Q: What does he have to do to make enough presentations?
A: See enough decision-makers.
Q: What does he have to do to see enough decision makers?
A: Make enough calls.
We had all the answers. Until...
Q: How much is enough?
We guessed. We estimated. We theorized. But to substantiate, we asked each salesperson to keep a stat sheet, recording each activity every single day. Our intent was to analyze the stats of our most successful reps in each market to determine how much of each sales activity was enough to make goal.
While collecting and analyzing this data, some mysteries were explained. The star rep mentioned earlier must have called on all her renewal accounts right away, sold the exact same ads and then crashed – not understanding the importance of increasing current business – or of adding new. The slowpoke must have methodically, strategically worked his territory door by door resulting in a huge payoff at the end.
We converted the stats of the most successful into performance standards for future reps; giving them a guide for how much of each sales activity was needed each day to reach goal for the season. The importance of this was summarized in a poster we gave to each rep during training. It read:
and not your performance standards,
your success will be shortlived.
If you are making your performance standards
and not your sales goal,
your sales will improve.
We still asked for dollar results in our daily check in calls but we focused more on the amount of sales activity. If, over a period of time, a rep consistently missed the standard for number of calls made, we knew he needed help with time management. If a rep consistently missed the standard for new ads sold, we knew she needed help with prospecting.
Hard work was still good. Luck was still helpful. And pompons were still used when appropriate. But now - now we had a diagnostic tool that helped reps focus on the activities needed for achieving results and helped identify skills they needed to strengthen.
Before - we had kept our reps hopping while we kept hoping that the stars would stay stars and the slowpokes would become a pleasant surprise.
Now - we could do more than hope.
Now - we had a concrete way to keep them hopping efficiently and effectively and in the right direction.
Could this concept help you?
Are you using more hope than hop?
Or are you hopping a lot and still don’t have much hope?
Or have you lost all hope AND hop?
If you haven't already, I hope you will stop for a while –
long enough to specifically determine the hops needed to get to where you truly hope to get.
copyright 2006 by Business Class Inc.
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