business consulting

3 Great Time Management Tips

We all need help with Time Management. Time waits for no one.

We can all learn from books like “4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss and “Today Matters” by Dr. John Maxwell. These may be the 2 greatest books I’ve ever read on the subject.

I recently came across an article in inc.com that asked 15 “highly productive” c.e.o.’s to define EXACTLY how they go about their day. They provided great input on how they get so much done on the same precious 24 hours that we all have. Each of their techniques were COMPLETELY different in how they went about setting up their day.

I peeled out what I thought were the 3 segments that our upper management needed to read.
It was brought to my attention that if I thought it was important enough for our management staff to read each of the 3 following articles, I may want to make this a permanent post to our site.

My guess is that after reading each of the following executives feedback you will make some immediate changes, I know I did.

Get out your pencils…

The Iron Man: Jordan Zimmerman of Zimmerman Advertising

www.inc.com/magazine/20100301/the-iron-man-jordan-zimmerman-zimmerman-advertising.html

The E-Mail Zealot: Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks

www.inc.com/magazine/20100301/the-e-mail-zealot-mark-cuban-dallas-mavericks.html

The Gracious Host: Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group

www.inc.com/magazine/20100301/the-gracious-host-danny-meyer-union-square-hospitality-group.html

Growth Consulting for Today
-Ken

Growth Options

March 13 By Ken Courtright

content/growth-options

2009-11-04 11:39:42 -0600

<img src=”/sites/default/files/offerings2_1.jpg” />
<p><a href=”/sites/default/files/offerings2.pdf”>Click here to view PDF<a><p>

Filed Under: Consulting, Growth Tips Tagged With: business consulting, growth consulting, ways to grow a company

Business Growth Services, Grow Fast, Grow Now

January 18 By Ken Courtright

Business Growth Services is the name of a new department inside Today’s Growth Consultant. This division assigns weight to different departments inside a company.

I thought I’d share with you how we strategize a new client for growth.

If you have found yourself waking up lately saying, “how can we increase business” and going to bed lately thinking, “how can we cut expenses”, then this post is for you.

As of January, 2010, our Business Growth Services division tracks the following indices.

1.    Proven “Working” Model
2.    Written Business Plan
3.    Web Presence Plan to support Written Business Plan
4.    S.E.O. and S.E.M. of and for the plan
5.    Growth Nuggets in place
6.    Face
7.    Front
8.    Facility
9.    S-Curves
10. Divisional Leadership and Potential Flags

I’m going to touch on a Proven “Working” Model a bit here, but I’m going to roll out 10 posts over the next few weeks that will break each Index into detail that can be implemented into any company for growth.

The first Index, a Proven “Working” Model, is the most important of all. It is our belief that a high percentage of companies have yet to recognize that the model they were operation under a few years ago is no longer the same model.

Here is a list of a few changes that have happened over the last 10 years that we feel drastically affect a working model.

Transportation Costs
Outsourcing Services
Internal Training of Emerging Technology
Economy
Merging Markets
Client Access to Information
Global Economy
Global Employment Options
Marketing and Advertising Mediums

In some capacity, your company has been forced to adapt to a few of these volatile shifts. These changes take place slowly and slowly erode a working model. The erosion is like osmosis, it happens so slowly that it is almost invisible. It is like management wakes up one day and says, “What just happened”?

Let’s break this down. Proven Working Model.

Proven – It’s been done before. There is evidence that can be researched and studied. It can be duplicated.
Working – It’s currently working. The model is yielding the desired result.
Model – “X” + “Y” = “Z” You know before hand, what “X” and “Y” will yield.

A working model is nothing more than a business model that can be documented, studied and duplicated. The components of a working model are:

Ingredients (products and / or services)
Recipe (Business Plan and Management)
Heat (Economic conditions that allow the plan to yield desired result)

When we study a company to see if we can help, we first check to see if the company is operating in a “working” model, or is the model broken.

If you’ve ever heard of a “turnaround” expert, they are most known for taking over companies and quickly breaking and rebuilding the model.
After I completed my first job for a publicly traded company I asked them why they originally chose me. They said it was because I mentioned that I had an innate ability to re-invent a company or an office. They were correct in hiring me, I went in and threw away their model and implemented and trained them on a proven model.

I use the term “Genetic Code” quite often. I strongly believe in measuring the “Genetic Code” of a company, a division or an office.

It is easiest to define the “Genetic Code” of a company with an example.

Have you ever walked into an office and everything is in disarray? Papers are everywhere, it’s unorganized, and nobody greets you right away? You look around and the magazines on the table are a year old. You can get a figurative smell of a company by their first impression. Now imagine, later that day you happened to walk into another company, everything is immaculate, your are greeted right away and you sense a true concern for the client or customer by what you see and feel in the office. That is the “Genetic Code” of a company. The “Genetic Code”of a company or an office shows us a lot. It tells us if the company is O.K. where they are or if they are in the hunt of growth. It tells us if they are loosely ran or very tightly ran. It shows us the core beliefs and principles of management and ownership. It displays the pride of the company.

Have you ever walked into a dentist or doctor’s office and immediately got the feeling that you weren’t sure this was the right place for you. That feeling is the “Genetic Code” of the office talking to you.

I bring up the “Genetic Code” in this piece about “working” models because “Genetic Code” is sometimes the very thing that causes companies to rise quickly and also, crash hard and fast. The “Genetic Code” of a company starts from the top and works its way down. It is usually very Tight, or very Loose. It is always a direct extension of ownership and / or management. It is a process or a philosophy of how things are ran. Companies that are very loosely ran are usually the first victims of a shift or a change in their “working” model.

They fall prey to broken models because of the following:

First, the loosely ran company may not even understand that their initial success was because they created or tapped into a working model.
Second, the loosely ran company usually feels they don’t have the time to track and inspect numbers inside their working model.
Finally, I’ve ran into companies so loosely ran and so focused on next quarters growth that they spend very little time on the actual raw numbers of their company or industry. They lived by the motto…. “We are growing, don’t confuse us with the facts”.

Remember “X” + “Y” = “Z”?

Working inside a “working” model is near stress free. You plug in “x” and “y” and you get “z”. It actually IS that simply. Ask the management of McDonalds. Their working model has allowed them to have over a dozen c.e.o.s in over 40 years and they’ve grown and profited in all years but one. They contribute their success to their “working” model and their ability to track their important indices, NOT the leaders at the head of their company.

A wealthy billionaire was recently asked why he bought a train company for 24 billion dollars. He said something along the lines that he was looking for a company that could run itself that was in a model that wasn’t going to change any time soon. He said that the companies model was so well built that a cardboard cut-out could run the train company.

The train company knows exactly what they have to put in to yield a predetermined result.

Everyone reading this can put their company through the following exercise…

1. What is your “X”, “Y” and “Z”?
2. What are the factors, components and ingredients that affect them?

Ie.

Here’s a very simplified version of a working model that breaks down.

A town of 7000 people has had an independent gift shop called Sally’s Gifts for over 30 years. All is well until Walmart moves in 2 miles away. Sally’s closes. What did Sally do wrong?

Nothing, but Sally’s business model changed.

“X” was Sally’s product offering
“Y” was Sally’s zone of influence (population base within driving distance)
“Z” was Sally’s desired result

Sally’s product offering went from being 100% of the options her zone of influence had available to them, down to probably 20% of the options her zone of influence had available. Going from 100% of options to 20% of options broke the model. She went from a “working” model to a broken model.

Companies that are loosely ran with a “Genetic Code” solely focused on growth are usually the first to fall prey to a shift in the model because they are focused on growth and not on the model. I can tell you from experience, it’s better to profit than grow.

Let’s go back to the exercise.
What is your working model?

Everyone reading this can put their company through the following exercise…

1. What is your “X”, “Y” and “Z”?
2. What are the factors, components and ingredients that affect them?

Such as…

What do you sell?
How do you market your product or service?
What is your zone of influence?
How many actual competitors are in the zone of influence?
Who do you sell to?
What is your competitive advantage and how can it be measured?
What is your competition? (Not just who, but what, the internet, lack of education, lack of sales force, etc.)
What economic conditions need to be in place to yield desired result of “Y”?

Can you find a way to numerically track each of the above?
Can you find someone to help you evaluate the above from the outside?
Can you find an accountability partner to hold you accountable to tracking the above?
Can you track dollars spent marketing and advertising to an exact return?

Why don’t you make it a goal to map out and create the model you are now operating under and see if you can figure out if it is a “working” model or a “broken” model.

If it is “working”, you’ll be able to create it quite quickly and be able to analyze it and work with it.
If it is “broken”, you’ll have a hard time creating it because there are no constants to benchmark.

Although this post is a bit vague, I hope it plants a seed to tighten things up. I hope if you are running a tight ship you consider asking someone new to take a look at your model and see what they see, you may be surprised.

Final mention. If you’d like to give your company a boost, try this accountability maneuver.

Try reaching out to someone who has retired from your industry and ask them if they would be willing to meet yourself, or members of your company for coffee or dinner. Tell them that you know they retired from the industry you are operating in and that your company is at a crossroads and you’d love their opinion on a few things.

Create for them what you believe is the “working” model for your industry and show them how your company fits in. Show them the strengths and weaknesses your company currently carries.

Ask them what they would do if they were you.

If you, or members of your company, have never done this, you may be very surprised what comes out of that cup of coffee.

Growth Consulting for Today
-Ken

Filed Under: Consulting, Growth Tips Tagged With: business consulting, business growth services, growing a company fast, growth consulting

Growing a business in Today’s Economy

January 10 By Ken Courtright

This post is actually a stripped-down version of the preface of my first book,

Today’s Growth: Bridging Yesterdays strategies with Today’s Technology

The goal of the book is twofold.

1. Growth PRINCIPLES need to stay, STRATEGIES need to change
2. Business Models evolve

Let’s start with number one. Growth Principles need to stay, Strategies need to change.

Let’s look at the oldest Growth Principle: TELL MORE – SELL MORE

Talk to any business owner, entrepreneur or manager and they will confirm the obvious principle of Tell More – Sell More. This principle has been taught many different ways but suffice it to say that if you expose 100 people to your product in one city and 1000 people to your product in another city, the odds are pretty strong that you’ll sell more products in the city that had 1000 people exposed to your product.

My book is going to deliver case studies that include the likes of singer Colbie Callait and the shoe company Zappos. They both embraced the good old Growth Principle Tell More – Sell More, they simply did it without advertising. When I explain to clients how Colbie Callait used MySpace and how Zappos used Google Product Search, Google Alerts and Twitter Follow, they are amazed that hundreds of millions of dollars of business was generated without an ad campaign or paid marketing of any kind.

The principle of Tell More – Sell More did work, they just used a more current strategy. Instead of good old fashioned advertising, they used free Google tools and social media. Many people ended up hearing about the now Grammy nominated singer and Grammy nominated songwriter, they just didn’t hear about her on T.V., on the radio or read about her in the paper. This is an example of embracing technology to the fullest. Zappos has now credited close to 25% of their Billion dollar shoe and clothing company to free Google tools and Twitter. I devote a complete chapter to what went into Colbie’s and Zappos’ meteoric rise and how any company can embrace these technologies. While many business owners are turning their noses up to twitter and facebook, Time magazine is writing cover pages that read, “How twitter is changing the way we live”.

Point number two. Business Models evolve.

Let’s start with an obvious one, Real Estate. Looking specifically at the short term model of buying properties, fixing them up and selling them. For nearly 50 years this simple model of buying a property, fixing it up and selling it within 90 days to 5 years was a very solid model. Ask anyone today if this is currently a “Working” model and you will get mixed reviews. On one side you’ll get the savvy investor that will tell you that if you buy foreclosures it will still work. On the other hand, it is believed that the market has weeded out maybe up to 20% of all real estate investors in just the last 36 months. What happened? Very simply, the model evolved.

For nearly 50 years residential property has appreciated approximately 1% – 10% per year across the country. For example, my parents bought their first house in 1972 for $27,000 and sold it in 1981 for $72,000. They turned around and bought their next house in 1981 for $115,000 and today, 29 years later, it’s worth approximately $320,000. On paper it looks like everyone should jump right in to real estate and make their fortune. What the above numbers don’t tell you is that my dad’s house was worth $370,000 just 2 years ago. It has dropped almost 15% in value the last 2 years, and by all accounts, it’s still dropping.

When it comes to business models, they change.

The real estate business model of buying and selling homes has been altered by the economy. When the economy caused median home prices to drop consecutively, the model was drastically altered.

The easiest way to understand how a business model works is to understand how a cake is baked. To bake a cake you need 3 items:

Ingredients
A Recipe
Steady Temperature

When it comes to a business model, they also need three items:

A Product or Service (Ingredients)
Management of a Business Plan (Recipe)
Economy to Support the Product or Service (Temperature)

In the case of short term real estate investing someone turned the oven from 400 to 325 degrees.

Now if we were able to call the late Julia Child and tell her that we have a cake recipe that calls for 400 degrees, but our oven only goes to 325 degrees ( the down economy ), there is a chance that master chef might have said something like “Well, swap out the butter for good old fashioned lard and just cook it longer” meaning that if you truly understand your model you can adjust the ingredients or the recipe and still come out with a pretty good cake.

Along these lines, we were recently contracted to strategize and build the site www.buyfixandprofit.com. The client is a company right in the middle of the short term buying and selling market. Barely surviving the last 36 months, they want to ensure their success in the future by helping others in real estate stay laser focused on the “profit” side of the short term market. It has been very enlightening strategizing with this client and learning how quickly the real estate market changed.

I was very excited when the client included the word “profit” in the domain name. It is a constant reminder in our strategy sessions to make sure we remember that one of the main points of any business is to “profit”. It continually reminds us to provide the future readers the best real estate resources and materials to help them navigate the turbulent industry.

I’m writing this book for 2 reasons.

First, I’m in shock at how many companies today are still using growth strategies from 1975 and watching their businesses slowly slip away. To make it worse, many managers are increasing their same ad and marketing campaigns while not knowing their model is now “broken”. What they aren’t realizing is that they are adding more ingredients to the same recipe without understanding that the oven ( the economy ) may not heat up in time to bake their cake. The question is, how do you explain to businesses that have been very successful for many years that if they don’t change HOW they are going about growing their business, they may soon not HAVE a business? How do you explain to the previously wildly successful company that while they are slowly slipping in market share many companies in their industry are growing quite well?

I’m writing this book to explain, in plain English, what some companies can’t seem to see is the very thing that some companies can’t live without.

They say that hindsight is very clear and I’m living proof.

The second reason I’m writing this book is because 15 years ago I owned 2 very different companies. The first company was a marketing and advertising company that had 30 reps in 6 states. In that company we built a working model that was able to double the company’s gross sales 5 out of the first 7 years. At the same time, I also owned a small chain of video stores that grew rapidly for a handful of years, only to hit a brick wall.

Remember the independent video store? They were the stores you would walk in and give the clerk a few dollars and leave with 3 VHS tapes. For a few years, the video store chain was on the same hyper growth as my marketing and advertising company but unfortunately we came face to face with 1998. This was the coming out party for DVD’s. Although we brought in DVD’s, these little discs were the pre-curser to “DVD’s through the mail” and what is now “movies on demand”, movies downloaded right to your laptop or HD T.V..

I was making the same mistakes I see so many businesses making today. I was pushing my “Tell More – Sell More” button without checking what other buttons I had available. As I was pressing harder with more balloons on rooftops, radio promos, grand re-openings and cross promotions, I was paying no attention to the strategy called “STACK IT DEEP, RENT IT CHEAP”. I was so ENTREPRENEURIALLY BLIND that I dismissed major chain stores offering very large amounts of money to buy my stores.

Sometimes the most obvious is also the most invisible.

As Tiger Woods famously said, I have a coach because I can’t see my own swing.

I didn’t realize at the time that the independent video store model was dying. The national chain model was growing. The model of “stack it deep, rent it cheap” was beating the model of “support your local business owner”.

Oh how I fought that one.

Instead of building something to be proud of and selling to a larger outfit, I blindly missed the change in the business model from the “independent store with customer service” to the “national chain with a deeper selection”. I missed it so badly we ended up selling the inventory for 30 cents on the dollar to others that wanted to gut it out in the video business.

It wasn’t until recently when I noticed that one of the largest national video store chains of all time showed a stock price of $.40 per share that I realized that in only 48 months the whole video rental model of “national chain with a deeper selection” shifted again to “movies through mail and immediate downloads”. We didn’t see movies through the mail until 2005. The model had evolved again. Sounds a little like the real estate industry?

Today, in the video industry, technology is leading the way. It is a battle to see which 2 or 3 companies can get there first and fast to dominate the immediate download market of HD and BluRay videos. You see, in my video stores,

NO MATTER WHAT WE DID,

we never had a chance. The model had BROKEN.

The business model evolved. The Ingredients and the Recipe no longer mixed.

The real question involves you. Is your industry going through something similar? I’ll bet it is.
I don’t know you and I don’t know your industry but I’m going to make a few assumptions ( and we all know never to assume ).

You are not as sure about your growth as you were 36 months ago
Your industry is hovering or downsizing
You have found yourself saying, “We should try this” much more often.
You know your business plan or business model should be revisited but you don’t have time
Your spending time on the expense side when you’d rather be on the growth side
You know in your gut you are in the right industry, you just don’t know exactly how to navigate right now
Instead of “causal” management, you’ve found yourself in “reactal” management

My hope in -

Today’s Growth: Bridging yesterdays strategies with Today’s Technology

is to present enough solid and current evidence of growth in Today’s market, that causes you to rethink your current growth strategies.

I believe we can all add a dash of technology to our high-touch companies and prosper in years to come.
If this book does it’s job you will be forced to ask yourself the following few questions:

Are we using the most current technology to grow our business?
Are there others in our industry progressing faster than us?
Are we operating in a “Working Model”?
Can we predict our gross sales and net profit 6 – 12 months out, and if not, can we build one?
Do we have our hands on a product or service people need or want?
Do we have proven management of a solid business plan?
Does the economy support our plan or are we selling VHS tapes?

Here’s to Bridging Yesterday’s Strategies with Today’s Technology.
Here’s to Growing Today !!

-Ken Courtright

Filed Under: Consulting, Growth Tips Tagged With: business consulting, economy challenges for business, growth consulting

How to Increase Sales

December 20 By Ken Courtright

How would you like to increase sales and improve your sales force IMMEDIATELY.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “that’s a great business model”?

How about, “that’s a great sales model”?

All businesses work inside a business model. At the same time, ALL sales organizations work inside a sales model as well, yet few managers and business owners use or understand the premise of a sales “model”.

At the time of writing this our country is going through a major real estate correction. For close to 30 years almost any form of investing in real estate yielded a nice return. Investing in real estate “WAS” a great business model. These days, with the economy the way it is, the last couple years have been a blood bath in real estate. It is predicted that for the next 3 years the average value of American homes will drop 2% per year. The real estate as a “Model” is broken.

It is believed that over 70% of sales forces and sales managers do not know that they can place the sales division of their company inside its own “model”.

You know your company and / or your sales force is working inside a “model” when you can predict, with near certainty, your gross sales 6 months from now.

The reverse is also true. If you can’t predict your sales 6 months from now, you are not operating your sales division in a “model”.

How much more productive and relaxed would you be if you could predict your companies gross sales 6 months from now?

If you are not working inside a sales model you are scratching your head or grabbing a scratch pad.

In all 3 publicly traded companies I managed in, we were able to predict, within 15% certainty, how much business we would bring in over the next coming months. It made life and business very predictable.

There are a few great sales models out there. One model that every company of any size can adopt is to simply switch their sales force from an “Activity” model to an “Accomplishment” model.

An activity model is when a company or a sales manager does a version of the following:

Activity Model

Places a Quota on a sales rep
Provides a territory, a leads list, or the motivation to “cold call”
Provides a form of management or mentorship
Expects a 9-5 good solid effort
Manage the sales reps
Hopes for the best

In the above method there is no predictability. There is no way to GUARANTEE what will be produced in 90 days.

An Accomplishment Model operates completely differently. Instead of managing activity, productivity is managed. Below are the fundamentals of a solid Accomplishment Model that any company can initiate next week.

Accomplishment Model

Determine and post DESIRED monthly gross sales
Determine and post the average sale amount
Determine and post the amount of sales needed to hit DESIRED sales amount
Investigate and post the companies closing ratio
Determine and post the necessary number of monthly appointments to hit Desired sales amount
Determine and post the necessary number of weekly appointments to hit monthly appointment amount
Determine and post the necessary number of appointments per rep per week
** Work the week backwards (this is the simple key to this model )
Manage the amount of appointments per rep per week

Here’s an example of the above with some great tips and advice to ensure success.

First, set a DESIRED monthly gross sales amount that would get both the sales reps and the management excited if it was hit. Post the dollar amount in a public area of the business, such as the lunch room or sales office. We’re going to use an example company with 4 sales reps that does about $1,200,000 in sales each year, but would like to increase by 50%.

Goal – Monthly sales next March $140,000

Second would be to actually take the time to go back and average the last 6 to 12 months worth of sales. This step is not optional. Some companies still have poor sales tracking software and look at tracking this type of information as a waste of time. The Accomplishment Model, which provides immediate increases in business, can not be done without this step. Once the average sale is calculated, post it below the desired monthly sales goal.

Monthly sales next March $140,000
Average sale amount $7,000

Third, determine how many sales would be needed to hit desired monthly sales amount.

Monthly sales next March    $140,000
Average sale amount                 $7,000
Sales needed to hit March sales       20

Determine company closing ratio

Monthly sales next March    $140,000
Average sale amount                 $7,000
Sales needed to hit March sales       20
company closing ratio                   25%

Determine monthly appointments needed

Monthly sales next March    $140,000
Average sale amount                 $7,000
Sales needed to hit March sales       20
company closing ratio                   25%
Monthly appointments needed         80

Determine weekly appointments needed

Monthly sales next March    $140,000
Average sale amount                 $7,000
Sales needed to hit March sales       20
company closing ratio                   25%
Monthly appointments needed         80
Weekly appointments needed          20

Determine weekly appointments needed per rep

Monthly sales next March          $140,000
Average sale amount                      $7,000
Sales needed to hit March sales             20
company closing ratio                         25%
Monthly appointments needed               80
Weekly appointments needed                 20
Appointments needed per week per rep    5

Here’s how to manage this “Model”.

The first thing to understand is that business is VERY predictable. If over a 12 month period of time your company averaged $7,000 per sale, the odds are very strong that the next 12 months will probably average the same. What is great about finding the amount of your average sale is that the only thing that needs to be managed in the above model is the last line, “Appointments needed per week per rep”.

In my near 20 years of managing and consulting sales reps, the absolute most explosive single tip I can give a sales organization is to begin working their sales week BACKWARDS.

The result of increased sales is literally IMMEDIATE.

Most reps at most companies make their sales calls whenever they can fit them in. Most reps don’t have any system at all. Many organizations have found that after a detailed evaluation of their sales force, nearly 30% of the sales week is wasted. It is wasted either driving to appointments, shuffling business cards, long unnecessary meetings, and the infamous “call reluctance” of the average rep with a low self image.

Most people hate making sales calls. Even worse, on this same point, is that the average rep in the average company is in an actual closing situation less than 15% of the week. That means in a 40 hour week, the average rep is in a closing situation only 3 hours a week.

If there is one thing you take from this lesson on how to increase sales is to immediately institute a BACKWARDS work week. Having a sales force that works its week backwards simply means that the first appointment a rep sets that week is set for the latter part of Friday, say 3pm. The next appointment this rep sets will be for around noon on Friday. The third appointment this rep sets will be for 9am Friday.

When it comes to the point in the sales call to set the time and date for an actual sales appointment, no matter how open the reps schedule is, the appointment will get set for Friday, or Thursday if there is no way for a Friday appointment. The reason for this is because it has been PREDETERMINED that the single most important factor in the reps week is to make sure they set 5 appointments that week. Please understand, in this model, the most important piece is not closing business, the most important piece of the model is making sure each rep sets 5 appointments for the week.

If each of the 4 reps in this company sets 5 appointments each week, we know this company will hit it’s sales goals. The closings will take care of themselves. Using the above method will leave Tuesday and Wednesday open for cold calling and the calling of provided leads for the rep to hit their PREDETERMINED accomplishment model of 5 appointments that week.

Lets say Monday finishes and the rep called all day long and the rep set 3 appointments. In a company that is not working under a model, that rep may have an appointment for Tuesday, one for Wednesday, and maybe one for Friday. The rep and the company probably will classify that as a successful Monday. If I’m managing that rep, they get an “F” for the day. I would actually not mention anything to the rep, I would give the manager the “F” for allowing it to happen.

What happens in the above case is that the rep is going to spend the necessary time prepping for the sales calls, driving to the sales calls, and then driving back to the office. The driving back to the office is the real productivity killer. What a waste of actual time. If you run a sales team with 5 plus reps, driving back to the office is like burning $1,000 bills. The rep should be driving to the next appointment, not to the office.

If I’m managing a rep that set 3 appointments on a Monday they would for sure set 2 for Friday, and maybe a third for Friday. Sometimes an appointment set on a Monday will be set for a Thursday. The reason becomes obvious. The rep can now come into the office Tuesday morning with a clear mission for the day, set 2 more appointments to hit their target of 5. Because the rep didn’t mistakenly set one of their 3 appointments for Tuesday, they are not driving around, or planning for an appointment, they are laser focused on hitting their managed target.

Remember, you can’t hit a target you can’t see. When you give a sales rep a quota of monthly sales, there is no quota on appointments. Thus the target number of appointments needed per month and per week is not clear. The goal at this point is to stay as busy as possible.

Instituting an Accomplishment Model into a sales force is the equivalent of holding a magnifying glass between the sun and a piece of paper. If you hold the magnifying glass in the perfect spot, the paper will catch fire. When you take a sales force and focus them on the weekly number and you actually clear their schedule so they can hit the number, it increases productivity IMMEDIATELY.

It is great to witness what happens to a sales team when they have hit their combined 20 appointments by Tuesday afternoon. The rest of the week is very exciting because there is an obvious decrease in the usual pressure that comes with being a sales rep.

The best thing about an Accomplishment Model for a sales manager is that they can stop managing reps and start managing the model. Productivity increase is near immediate. Under this model the reps know exactly what they are responsible for. They no longer need to be motivated. Under this model, the management knows exactly what they are managing. It takes away office politics, sales rep self image challenges, call reluctance, and the general ups and downs and highs and lows of a sales force. The sales force is now operating inside a model.

If 60 days into this model a manager notices the average amount per sale is dropping, it obviously changes the rest of the numbers. Now the manager can simply add another sales rep, or increase the amount of appointments needed per week per rep. The point again is that the management never has to wonder why a rep is not producing. Management can simply manage the one factor of why a rep is not setting 5 appointments over a 3 day period of time.

Over 80% of the lack of production in the average company I’ve managed or consulted is because of the severe lack of appointments being ran per rep. When we set a very reasonable target for appointments set per week per rep, if a rep can’t set that amount of appointments between 9 – 5, over 3 days, then sales is not for them.

I will take a great appointment setter, over a great closer, ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.

The number one reason that the average rep sets a very low amount of appointments per week is because they confuse activity with accomplishment. The rep feels because they are setting some appointments each week and running those appointments each week, their week FEELS full. It FEELS like they are doing something because they feel BUSY. In reality, this rep is simply confusing their activity with accomplishment. When a rep switches to working their week backwards you will see a near immediate increase in their self image and productivity.

The reason for this is psychological. When a rep starts to realize that they themselves are now operating in a predictable model, they can now relax. This is where the statement “Relax in the Numbers” comes from. Some of the greatest sales coaches of all time teach sale forces to simply “Relax in the Numbers”.

When an individual rep comes to the realization that over a given period of time, if they set a predetermined amount of appointments, they will manufacture a predetermined amount of commissions, they become energized. It is believed that between 5% – 10% of a reps week is spent thinking or communicating about their worry of not hitting their numbers. Another huge drain on production.
When you educate a rep on what it means to work inside a model, they become super-salespeople. I’ve seen reps that haven’t produced in years blossom into very productive sales reps in a matter of 2 – 3 weeks.

Of the 400 plus books I’ve read on the topic of sales and management, I consider the book Psychology of Selling, by Brian Tracy, to be the best sales book of all time. The book has been mandatory reading for all sales reps and all management of the 6 companies I’ve owned. There are 3 chapters specifically dedicated to the self image or self concept of a sales rep and the factors that contribute to their self image. The book proves that the amount of appointments a rep sets in a given period of time is directly related to their self concept.

I’ve proven, over the past 12 years, that even a rep with a low self image that is taught how to begin working inside an “Accomplishment” model will out-produce a sales stud that is setting appointments whenever they can fit them in.

Any rep that works their week backwards, only setting appointments for Thursday and Friday, keeping Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, strictly for appointment setting, will always out-produce a rep that will book an appointment for any time and day of the week.

When I first learned about adding an “accomplishment model” to a sales force I owned a company that had 7 sales reps. By managing the model, instead of the reps, I was able to double our gross sales 5 of the next 7 years.

I’d recommend adopting an Accomplishment model and start predicting your sales.

Growth Consulting for Today
-Ken

Filed Under: Consulting, Growth Tips Tagged With: business consulting, growth consulting, increase sales, sales growth