Know Your Numbers

Sometimes it helps to learn what other people in the sales industry are doing. Checking out their strategies can help you have those “light-bulb” moments that shine a light on what you’re doing and help you see things in different ways.

This week, I received an email from a client, a photographer who specialises in portrait, modelling and business photography. His is a very competitive industry, so drumming up new business has been a constant challenge for him.  This is what he told me,

“2 weeks ago I made 90 prospecting calls in 3 days!!!  Never have I made this many calls in one hit, one day I made over 45 calls!!  Now I'm in the swing of it and tracking the calls every day and am a lot more diligent in making sure they happen. If it wasn't for your course and the role play and your encouragement I would never had made these calls. Thank you :)”

He didn’t say how much business he got out of the 90 prospecting calls he made, but then, he didn’t have to. He and I both know his conversion rates because we worked together on this very issue. If he's making this many calls, I know he’s converting enough of them to keep his business ticking over nicely. So this brings up a question….”Do you know your numbers?”  

How many prospecting calls does it take you to get an appointment? How many appointments does it take before you make a sale?  How many sales does it take to make budget? How many sales will it take to earn the income you desire? Once you know this, you then also know how many calls you need to make each week to bring in enough new business.  If you don’t know your numbers, it’s time you did the exercise to find out. Why? Because knowing where you stand right now helps you chart a course to where you want or need to go.

If you don’t know where you’re coming from, then it’s very difficult to know where you’re going to end up. You’re like a rudderless ship going round in circles in the middle of a very big ocean. It might be nice drifting around out there for a while, but eventually you notice all these luxury yachts hurrying purposefully past you. You can tell they know where they’re going and you can also tell they know how to get there.  If you keep on drifting aimlessly,  you’ll soon run out of things like food, water, clothing. Keep drifting aimlessly in sales, you'll soon run out of business.

So, what are you going to do about it?

Know your numbers, chart your course and get the results you want and/or need.