It's a new year. I always like January because it heralds new beginnings. Our slate is wiped clean, and it's time to look forward to meeting and exceeding goals.  As sales people, time is money. We have only so many "billable hours" each day, and how we spend them determines our paychecks. We need to determine which daily activities make us money and which are time wasters. To do so, requires that we measure our activities and learn which we need to improve to increase our effectiveness.

Keeping track of your personal selling statistics will allow you to predict your success. You'll know how you are doing before your manager tells you.

We need to be selling every day. Prospecting (Phase 1) is the activity that puts clients into your sales pipeline. Prospecting is calling on people who may or may not need your service.  Until you know if they are qualified prospects, they are suspects.  Some of these suspects won't talk to you.  Some won't need your service. Some won't give you their time to discuss their needs and pains.  Of those who do give you their time, some won't have the money or be willing to give it to you to solve their problems.  As you go through the qualifying process, many of these "suspects" will drop out of your pipeline.  Those who are left become active prospects.

To keep track of your numbers, you need to begin when you walk into someone's office or pick up the phone to call them.  We'll call this activity "approaches". Each time you actually talk to someone will be a "contact". This has to be a real, live person: voice mail messages don't count!  Much of the time, you will first speak with a receptionist or other gate-keeper.  Each time you speak to the actual decision-maker will count as a "dialogue".  Some of these dialogues will result in an appointment.  We define "appointment" as a face-to-face meeting with the prospect. (Those meetings which are  cancelled don't count toward your numbers). Of these appointments, some will result in sales.  Much of the time, the sale doesn't take place on the first "ask".  You want to keep track of the number of visits required to close the sale.

Here's what the numbers from a day of prospecting might look like:

• 15 "approaches"...you called or walked into 15 businesses.
• 10 "contacts"...you spoke to 10 people.
• 6 "dialogues"...you spoke with 6 decision-makers
• 4 "appointments"...you got 4 appointments with those decision-makers
• 1 "sale"...you closed one sale (assuming a 25% closing ratio)

Let's say your average order size is $1500.  At a 15% commission rate, you earned $225 off that sale. That means that every contact you made on the way to that sale (every hang up, every turn-down, every "I'm not interested") was worth money to you.  Using the numbers from our example, every "approach" was worth $15.00.

You can also use the numbers to figure backwards.  If you want to increase your income by $3150 in the next quarter, and your average commission is $472 on each sale, you need 7 additional sales.  The numbers indicate that you need to schedule 28 "appointments".  To get these 28 appointments, you need to make 105 additional "approaches". If you prospect every week, you only need to make approximately 8 more "approaches" per week. You can do that!

Measuring your numbers will allow you to know exactly how you are performing.  It can also provide a road map to take you to greater performance.  This year, measure it and manage it!