When you think about what top performers do better and differently, consider this. It’s almost impossible to overfill your sales pipeline. So if you focus on making sure that you’ve got more there than you actually need, you’re going to be in much better shape.
Just look at the numbers, if you’ve got a hundred people in your pipeline and 1% of them close today, you made a sale.
If you’ve got ten people in your pipeline and 1% of them close today, you did not make a sale. So from that standpoint, just the basic numbers say you want to make sure that you’ve got enough qualified leads in your pipeline so that somebody can close today.
David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing what $100,000 per month producers do better and differently. Welcome, Jay.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I really can’t wait to talk about this, because it will allow people to look at what they’re doing and compare themselves.
And sometimes when you don’t have that, it’s hard to know if you’re doing things right. And you’re kind of more shooting in the dark than actually being purposeful about your daily activities.
David: Exactly. And I think a lot of people, if they just really enjoy what they do and they focus every day on meeting new people and interacting and trying to find solutions, that’s all great.
But if you want to be able to start achieving some of the financial goals that you have for yourself, then it really makes a lot of sense to say, okay, what are the people who are doing this extremely successfully from a financial standpoint, doing better and differently, or at least differently than what I’m doing now.
Jay: Yeah. I saw in your ebook that time is significant. Top producers leverage their time better than others. How do you go about leveraging your time better?
David: You know, it seems so difficult, and yet when you really boil it down, it’s actually pretty simple. If you think about the idea of being in front of a prospect or a potential client, and if that person has the ability to spend a thousand dollars with you, that’s different if that person has the ability to spend $10,000 with you, or $50,000 with you, or a hundred thousand dollars with you over the course of the next year or the next couple of years, or their entire working lifetime.
And so leveraging your time can start with things as simple as deciding in advance what types of prospects you want to be in front of. And ideally, they’re going to be the type of people who actually need what you have to offer, purchase it on a regular basis, have decent budgets, have the ability to spend, the willingness to spend and the money to pay the bills after they’ve ordered it.
Jay: Yeah, so identifying that client, first of all. And then I think that there is a tendency, especially for the smaller business owner, to get caught up in things that they could be having other people do.
And so figuring out where your time is best spent is going to be a key to being able to grow.
David: Yeah, no question. And so if you think about leveraging your time, that does go directly to that point, which is to say, okay, which activities are not worth the amount of money that I’d like to be making on an hourly basis, daily basis, weekly basis.
Because if you’re engaged in those activities, they will just never pay more than they’re worth. If you’re doing administrative tasks, that could be done by somebody else for 10 or $15 an hour. Then those tasks are not going to produce a hundred dollars or 200 or $500 an hour for you. They’re only ever going to be worth that amount of money.
So by delegating those things to the extent that you can, that is another way that you can help to leverage yourself, leverage your time, and make sure that you’re spending or investing your time in the right ways to get the results you’re looking for.
Jay: Right, and what’s really cool is in today’s world, you know, people are like, well, I can’t afford to hire an administrative assistant and have payroll and all of those things.
There are so many great services out there now where there are freelancers standing by, ready to do piece work or whatever to take some of that burden off of you. I just love that part of how technology has made that easy. Your assistant could be in another part of the world doing things for you while you leverage your time better.
David: Absolutely. And also I think there’s a chicken and egg scenario that people get into. I can’t afford to hire somebody else for whatever, $15 an hour. Well, if you can’t afford to hire somebody else for $15 an hour, it probably means that you are already engaged in activities that are only worth that much or less.
Right? Because if you were engaged in activities that were worth. $50 an hour, a hundred dollars an hour, $500 an hour, and those are generally going to be marketing and sales related activities, then you would be able to generate the revenue you need to pay somebody else a lower amount of money to be able to do those tasks that aren’t worth as much.
Jay: So if I’m going through this process, trying to figure out how I’m going to leverage my time best, what would you recommend that I focus on? Or, which activities do you think are higher up on the scale?
David: Well, I mean, you can look at the activities that you engaged in. I think it’s a great idea for people to just sort of log their time every now and then. And say, okay, how am I spending my hours each day right now? If I’m putting in eight hours a day or 10 hours a day, or whatever people are putting in, what did I spend my time on?
And then ask yourself, what are those individual actions worth, generally? If you’re doing administrative work for the bulk of the day, you can see that that’s not going to pay you the amount of money you need to earn. And then you need to look at the activities that are generating the revenue. And for the most part, it’s going to be something that’s marketing -related where you did a promotion that got a bunch of people to contact you, and then you had conversations with those people that turned into sales.
And you can look at the amount of hours you spend there. You can see how much you generated in gross sales, and you can pretty well determine that those hours are likely going to be worth a lot more to you than the hours that you spend when you’re not doing that type of thing.
Jay: Yeah. I love the idea of logging your time.
I think that people would be shocked at what they spend their time on and how much they’re spinning their wheels in certain places. I also noticed that you indicated that top producers spend more time interacting with existing clients. Talk a little bit more about that.
David: Yeah, that’s a great takeaway because so often, particularly as salespeople, our goal is to find the next one and the next one and the next one, and you sell somebody and you move on to the next one.
But ultimately, if we’re building the type of relationships that are going to stand the test of time, if we’re trying to cultivate the type of clients who are going to be spending money with us on an ongoing basis, and if they have the capability to do that, then it’s a big mistake to do the hit and run. You know, to just sell to them and then move on to the next person.
If you’ve got a really good, solid client who provides you with ongoing revenue, you want to spend some time there. You want to make sure that you pursue those relationships, penetrate those accounts as fully as possible. We’ve done entire seminars on that topic. You know, the idea of penetrating the good accounts that you have. And the people who generate the most money are generally very good at doing that.
They are very good at fully monetizing the relationships they’ve established, rather than just going around and not going fully into that relationship. There’s a book called Essentialism and it’s got an illustration that talks about important things. And one of the illustrations in the book is a circle with a bunch of arrows, short arrows coming out of all the sides, and it basically says, this is how most people use their energy a little bit in a lot of different directions.
And then they have another illustration, which is a circle with one line coming straight out, going in one direction. And that’s where, when you’re focused on one thing and you’re accomplishing it. And so I think many salespeople could benefit from the idea of going deep with their existing customers, making sure that they’re interacting with them, finding out what they need, when they need it, which problems you can solve for them, and really helping them as much as possible before just sort of wandering off in another direction.
Jay: Yeah, especially when there is, most likely, a customer acquisition cost to get them on board. And so if you’re having to pay that cost involved with every sale, because you’re doing the more, turn them and burn them, you’re not going to make as much money. You’re not going to do as much sales. If you can cultivate those existing clients and build those relationships on the next order, that customer acquisition cost is not there. And then every time after that, it’s not there.
So it just makes better sense financially and time wise to focus on that existing clientele.
David: Yeah, and I think a lot of sales people also struggle with the idea of dollars. They think because somebody places a large order with them, if they think, wow, that’s really a lot of money, they might think, well, that’s all they have. They spend a lot of money with me. I don’t want to go back and ask them for more.
But we can’t just keep looking at things through our own eyes, through our own lens, because there are many businesses that that may be completely insignificant for them. And when we apply our limitations to other people, we’re not doing ourselves a favor, and we’re certainly not doing them a favor, either.
Jay: Yeah. And I think that if you do have that relationship, we think, “oh, they’re going to be offended by it.” Or ” they think I’m harassing them” or something else. As opposed to what if you could get them to think that you are helping them and your desire is to help them, and that’s the whole goal of the products that you offer.
So the phone call or the contact is, “Hey, I know we helped you a little bit here. We’ve got something else that we can add to that, that can really pump the needle up more for you. If they can feel like that’s what you’re trying to accomplish, I really think you’ll get a lot further.
David: Yeah, and I’ve heard so many sales people use the term “pest.” I don’t want to be a pest. And whenever someone has said that to me, I’ll generally ask them. I said, well, are you being a pest? Are you being a nuisance? Are you being annoying? Are you just calling them and looking for money all the time? They’re like, “no, no, I would never do that!”
Okay, well then you’re not being a past, right? You can put that idea behind you if that’s not your approach. If you are looking at ways to help them and you’re communicating different ways that you can help them, and you’re having dialogue, not just a monologue where you’re trying to sell them something, then they’ll let you know.
They’ll tell you if you’re being a pest or if your communication is coming across in a way that indicates that you don’t have their best interest at heart. That comes across as a pest. But as long as you’re focused on helping them, and as long as they’re able to see that in you, then they’re not going to view it that way.
Jay: Yeah, I agree. You know, I think one of the things that’s difficult, David, is people tend to focus more on numbers or on people. What would you say? What should their emphasis be?
David: It’s a great question, because obviously we need to be focusing on the people that we’re working with and the people that we’re trying to help.
But I think we also have to do that with an eye to the numbers. The people who are successful at this, they know their numbers inside and out. They know when they’re hitting the goals they’ve set for themselves, and they know when they’re not doing that. So I think it’s a little like driving a car. You always have to keep your eye on the road, which is the customer.
But you also have to glance down every now and then, check the speedometer, check the odometer, make sure your oil’s adequate. You need to check your diagnostics. You need to check your numbers.
And so I think the bulk of your focus needs to be on people. But you always have to know exactly what’s going on with your numbers too. Because if you don’t, it’s going to bite you real quickly.
Jay: Yeah. I love the analogy of driving on the road and keeping focused.
Let’s talk about sales pipeline just a little bit for top producers. Is there a different sales pipeline for those who, who are producing at the higher levels?
David: Well, there’s certainly a quality difference. And that’s something we touched on earlier. You have to be focused on the types of clients who are going to allow you to get to the type of numbers that you want to get to. So the quality aspect of it is very important, but also the quantity aspect of it.
Top performers don’t have “just enough” prospects in the pipeline. It’s not just, “oh, okay, well I have a couple here and I’m trying to get them closed.”
If you’re in that situation, it’s a losing battle. Because you really need to have more prospects than you can handle, almost, in your pipeline.
Not that you can’t handle the prospects, but that if they all turned into business, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. You need to have enough prospects in the pipeline so that when they say no or when you say no to them, you’re still left with enough, people to allow you to get to your numbers.
Jay: Yeah, and I’ve always heard, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying.” Right? Because there is going to be some attrition, and so if you are just eeking it out every single month, you may actually be falling behind and not know it.
David: Yeah, so I think just thinking in terms of trying to overfill the pipeline is probably a good idea for most people. It may sound like a negative, but hardly anyone ever does it.
It’s almost impossible to overfill your pipeline. So if you focus on making sure that you’ve got more there than you actually need, you’re going to be in much better shape. If you just look at the numbers, if you’ve got a hundred people in your pipeline and 1% of them close today, you made a sale.
If you’ve got ten people in your pipeline and 1% of them close today, you did not make a sale. So from that standpoint, just the basic numbers say you want to make sure that you’ve got enough qualified leads in your pipeline so that somebody can close today.
Jay: Yeah. And what I love, once you have this kind of set up, is you’ll have a pipeline and you’re getting new customers. But then you’re getting orders from this clientele that you’ve already established.
And when those come in and you’re closing new customers, now, I think that’s kind of where the top producers live and breathe.
David: Right. And when you’re focused on the customers that you have, and you’re cultivating those relationships, you can spend more time with your customers and less time looking for new people.
Absolutely.
Jay: So how do people find out more?
David: Well, for the next couple of days, you can go to TopSecrets.com/YourNext100K. That’s TopSecrets.com/YourNext100K. Get access to the ebook, the video series, the cheat sheet, and it’s all designed to help you to create more results in your business.
Jay: Yeah, I love it. Get there now. Take advantage of all this great information. Thank you, David. It’s been real fun talking about this issue.
David: Thanks, Jay.
Ready to Grow Your Sales & Profits?
If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:
- Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
- Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
- Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
- Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.