The Importance of Consistency and Persistence in achieving our goals!

We've all seen the statistics: 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt (IRC Sales Solutions). 92% of salespeople give up after no sales on the 4th call. 60% of customers say no four times before saying yes (IRC Sales Solutions). 50% of buyers choose the vendor that responds first (IRC Sales Solutions) - I've seen these or similar statistics published on Linkedin many times - And while I'm not sure that any of these have been reached through rigorous testing with a scientific approach - I am sure that there is truth in the messages that are being conveyed.

As most of you that read me regularly know, I've only been posting Articles here on Linkedin for a little over a month, I've already noticed a striking similarity between the benefits of consistent efforts in publishing posts and in consistently working your craft as a salesperson, keeping in contact with your prospects and customers on a regular basis. I've been posting regularly in order to achieve a goal for Post impressions that I defined even before I had a good idea of what the goal should be. This is similar to a Sales Goal for a new product or a startup company: You of course have a plan, but until you actually hit the street and try to close sales - you really don't know if your defined goals are realistic relative to your products value proposition and product market fit. I've had a really positive outcome in that my Post Impression goals were far lower than they should have been - I'm exceeding my original goals by as much as 16X!

What's really interesting about this is the repeating patterns that I see in my posting. I'll capture a 90 Day post impressions shot below so that you can see what I'm talking about:

If you look back to December 28th through until about February 19th - it looks almost like a flat line - If the two peaks that have emerged since I started posting regularly weren't there - you'd actually see that there were some peaks in the past when posting was sporadic and irregular but none of them reached the levels that the Consistent effort has generated. I see a direct parallel to sales efforts: You'll get some wins and bring in some business with sporadic and inconsistent effort - but it will rarely be spectacular! What's the old saying: 'Even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut!'

You'll note the absolute peaks on February 28th and March 19th ... These days included a post that resonated particularly well with my audience - The February 28th data included my announcement that I was Open To Work - Which included a direct request to my network to 'Like, Share, and Comment to extend the reach' - and the March 19th post included a link to some Illustrations that I found online that I thought were particularly interesting. The details aren't that important - the parallel I see here is in the Product / Market fit and the differentiated value --- those posts that have resonated with my audience have led to significant outlier peaks in my post impression performance. The same thing is true with truly differentiated products and those that have strong Product / Market fit! - The difference between strong products and posts on Linkedin is timeframe - A post is replaced by a new interesting post within a few days at maximum - A product with a unique value proposition may have a staying time that is measured in years (2 years?) but a similar peak will be observed. The real key being without Consistently introducing that topic or product to your audience, you'll only end up with the 'Flat Line' results that you see in my December 28th to February 19th postings!! - This is true for either a Product or Post Impressions as well!

The other parallel I see is the reward for Persistence! In sales leadership situations, I've always liked to say that you create your own luck. It's really funny how the reps I've worked with and managed over the years that have been called 'Lucky' all seem to have on thing in common - Persistence. These are the people who make repeated follow-up calls to eventually reach the target, or make repeated visits to that prospect who has been hard to get on the phone, or persistent (and consistent) check-ins on the CapEx budget approval that their sponsor has promised is 'coming soon'. I see the same thing in action here in my world as a content creator on Linkedin. You could say that my two peaks in post impressions are 'Lucky' - I mean wow more than 20,000 Impressions and then more than 45,000 impressions - look at how lucky he is! While I do agree that some luck is involved - Hitting topics that resonate and go viral as these have, do include a degree of luck --- what's really important to notice is - I Didn't have any 'Lucky Days' when I was posting inconsistently and without persistence!! - This is what I mean by making your own luck - the Consistent posts, just like consistent and persistent follow-up but me in a position to benefit from those topics that resonated. The same is true for sales - Hopefully, the Peaks and Valleys aren't as extreme as what I'm seeing with post impressions (That's one of the things I love about the short cycles and extreme nature of the post impressions - it makes the cycle really obvious!) - but they are there none the less and you really don't hit the peaks without consistent and persistent efforts!

The last thing I'll point out is the crazy similarity in the shape of the two peak post impression days - they are very near to identical - just different amplitudes - the reaction of the networks to the posts that resonate seems to be really consistent. I'll also submit that this is often true for the reaction of the market to a product with a strong product/market fit. The length of the Peak will be longer than it is for a post, but if you don't continue to innovate - it will eventually drop in sales, just like these posts have dropped in impressions!