Part of the work I do is talking about measuring progress – another part of what I do is THE ACTIVITIES I talk about with inside sales teams. Seeing if what I say… actually measures progress: from a sales perspective.
In the old days – I remember that some companies had a minimum number of calls set at 100 for their inside salespeople. I worked for an organization that measured you by phone time and 33 1/3 % of your day you had to be on the telephone.
Of course, that was before email – social media – text – chat – all the other tools (or distractions some say) of modern sales… yes I’ve been in sales longer than the internet has been used by corporations to sell.
Wednesday – I set my focus for the day on reaching out to as many different people as possible. Starting as I always do by dialing the phone: 71 phone calls, which resulted in only 16% phone time… which means that 77 minutes of my day was actually ON the phone: one measly hour and 17 minutes.
Not that calls can really be averaged… but that means ONE minute long calls = no real business conversations.
At the end of the day I could feel defeated – depressed – despondent (to be alliterative about it).
Instead – I felt great; I’d completely adhered to my focus, reaching out. In fact I’d nailed it!
The next day – it felt like the phone kept ringing, people were calling me BACK. Plus the conversations were long, meaningful, productive.
Part of me believes those long conversations were because THEY knew how much time they had to spend with me when they called. People were more relaxed than when I “catch” someone on the phone. At that point I’m more of a distraction from what they’re working on than anything else… except when in that exact moment they NEED me.
While I’d love to say I proved my point – that focusing your day on ONE thing brings progress – this easily, this quickly all the time; it’s NOT the case.
Two Days together doesn’t REALLY prove anything… not scientifically anyway, it is anecdotal evidence at best.
Which is why I will keep focusing my days on a theme, to see what happens.
For now I know that in two days: 90 calls for a total of 4 hours, 19 minutes customer contact or 27% phone time is the result of focus.