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Your Sales History is Your Window to Your Sales Future
If you’ve been in sales for any amount of time, your sales history tells the story of your sale life--where you are, how you got
here, where you’re going if you continue doing things the way you’re doing them.
No matter how much we might wish otherwise, if we continue to do what we’re doing, we’re going to get the same results in
the future as we have in the past. It’s just that simple.
But how do you know what has worked and what hasn’t if you don’t take a good, long, hard look at what you’ve
accomplished---or not accomplished?
You can guess. That’s what most salespeople, professionals, and business owners do. They simply ‘feel’ that something is
working or not working and they make their moves based on their feelings. Sometimes they guess correctly, sometimes they
don’t. Well, most of the time they don’t.
Their analysis method is the old ‘trial and error’ method. Try it; if it doesn’t work, try something else. They keep trying until
they find the right thing--or go out of business.
Is it any wonder that over 40% of all salespeople fail and are out of sales within two years of entering the profession? Or that
45% of all the other salespeople never manage to advance past being just average or slightly above average in their industry?
Trail and error may eventually lead to success. That’s relying on chance, not on solid analysis and planning.
Your job is to examine your past history to find out what really works and what really doesn’t work--and then to develop a plan
that gives more opportunities to do those things that work and eliminate those things that don’t work.
Simple, right?
If you’ve already read SuperStar Selling, you know the answer is ‘not on your life.’ Analyzing your sales history and then
creating a plan to capitalize on those things that have worked well, emphasizes your personal sales strengths and minimizes
your weaknesses is anything but easy. It’s hard work. It takes real dedication and commitment. It takes time and effort.
But the payoff can be tremendous--years and years of top producer income. Emotional and physical wealth that only the top
producers enjoy is the payoff if you’ve done the job well, created a well though out plan, and executed that plan correctly.
What do you need to know about your history?
Numbers. In order to analyze your history, it must be reduced to numbers over a reasonably long period of time. The longer
the timeframe you use to analyze your numbers, the more accurate the information you’ll gather. I recommend you analyze a
year’s history--6 months minimum.
What if you’re new to sales and don’t have a production history to analyze? Get with your sales manager and get their idea of
what “average” numbers would be. Base your projections and sales goals on a percentage of the ‘average,” say 70% of the
averages your sales manager came up with. Then track your real numbers religiously from day one when you begin to sell. If
you’re already in the field, but haven’t been there long enough to analyze your numbers, again get with your sales manager,
take a percentage of the ‘average,’ and begin keeping track of your numbers for future analysis.
What numbers do you need?
Actually, a lot. There are all kinds of numbers that can be created from your sales history, but at a minimum you need the
following:
Prospecting and Marketing:
- If you cold call you need to know:
- how many dials you make
- how many contacts you make
- how many appointments you set
- with that information you can figure out how many dials you must make to set an appointment
- If you use direct mail you need to know:
- how many pieces you mail
- how many responses you get from the mailing
- how many appointments you set from the responses
- with that information you can figure out how many pieces you must send out to set an appointment. In addition, if you use different marketing pieces, you can figure out which are the most effective
- If you network you need to know:
- how many ‘prospects’ you’ve met networking
- how many you end up setting appointments with
- with that information you can figure out how many you must meet to set an appointment
- Whatever other prospecting and marketing methods you use must be dealt with in the same manner
These prospecting and marketing rations--that is, the number of dials you must make to set an appointment--will be used in to
set realistic sales goals. In addition, once you have these numbers for all of the prospecting and marketing methods you use,
you can figure out which ones are the most effective and which are the least effective.
Sales Numbers:
Prospecting and marketing numbers are just the beginning. You must take them further in order to be really useful.
You need to know:
- How many appointments it takes to make a sale
- How much your average sale is
- What the product or service mix of your sales are
- What the average commission is per sale
- What the averages are per prospecting and marketing method
- Which prospecting and marketing methods you use actually produce sales
These numbers are just be minimum you need to know. As mentioned and demonstrated in the book, you can garner a great
deal of helpful information about yourself, your market, your marketing methods, your prospects and clients, and other aspects
of your sales business by closely analyzing your numbers.
But before you can do anything, you must recreate your sales history. Not an easy or pleasant task, but it is the cornerstone
of understanding exactly where you and what changes you must make to get where you want to go.
Some Basic Excel Spreadsheets to Help
In the book there are examples of how to reconstruct your sales history to mine it for your numbers and ratios.
Below are links to the various Excel spreadsheets used in the book. These are the most basic spreadsheets which anyone,
even those with little Excel experience can create. I’ve chosen to use these very crude sheets simply because anyone can
recreate them. However, if you know a little about working with spreadsheets in Excel, I encourage you to create your own.
Creating a more sophisticated spreadsheet will make the process go more quickly.
Sales Spreadsheet 1
Sales Spreadsheet 2
Marketing Spreadsheet 1
Marketing Spreadsheet 2
Marketing Sales Report
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