We all know that it’s hard to track which particular sales activities result in sales. It might be a conversation that you had years ago, a newsletter you sent might have triggered their memory, or a photo of your kids. But even if it’s difficult to track the efficiency of each activity, we also know that the total amount of time you spend on sales activities is directly correlated to sales. Think of it like chaos theory, all clouds are very different but mostly look very similar.
Because of this disconnect, sales activity can feel like hard slog. Not the sort of feel-good rewards some people get pulling a poker machine handle. Poker machines are designed to make you think you can predict the payouts. That’s why sales teams have celebrations and rewards, trying to link activity with feeling good.
With poker machines very little you do changes the payout percentages, but the more time you spend playing the more you loose. The more time you spend on sales activity the more you win. Sure, you have to do the right things, but time spend doing anything is better than not doing it. You could write your phone number in the sand on the beach. No don’t do that, and not those stupid rock piles. Leave the beach pristine.
Having said that, whenever you do more of you get better at.
Equally the more time you spend on admin, the lower your sales, and although we don’t think so, admin makes us feel like our actions get results. But, like poker machines, the more time you spend doing it, the more you loose by not selling.
If you work 50 hours a week and spend 10 hours selling, swapping 10 hours of admin could double your sales.
Obviously admin, just like service delivery, has to be done. Unlike sales, it’s easy to predict what that will cost you. Yes, another bloody plug for outsourcing, but also think about using more internal resources like sales support and admin peoples.
Internal or outsourced, or Upwork, it might seem like wasting money but how much are you losing pulling the admin handle?
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash