Time, Numbers and Consistency - Part 4

Part 4 of 4 

T, N & C is a simple recipe that actually works. The challenge is found in following the steps... to the letter. There are no shortcuts to successfully growing a sustainable business - better, faster or easier.

Trust me, I know because I tried them all.

The struggle that “sales-centric” people like us endure each day is finding that next new customer. It has to be a constant focus, for part of our day… every day. The challenge, is not allowing ourselves to get hypnotized by the inbound “ringing” of our telephone or “binging” of our e mail alerts. For most of us, maintaining our existing customer base is the easy part. Hearing the phone ring inbound or receiving a load request or tender from an existing account is like an addict getting their next fix. It makes us happy, upbeat, giddy, we feel unstoppable. We’ll move mountains to make sure the rate we offer is as sharp as it can be & that the customer specifications are met… “to the tee”.

The problem is… we do all of that work, at the detriment of making “new customer” calls. We kid ourselves into believing that we’re just “too busy”.  This is the biggest mistake we make, as a group. This path will eventually lead to us ask ourselves “why is our business so slow?”. Could it be because we stopped consistently calling on “new customers” BEFORE we built a truly diversified customer base? Did we follow the T, N & C process… or not?

I’m convinced, many of us “too busy” ourselves right out of business.  We’ve all experienced the burn of losing an existing account before… but did we lose it because someone else was being more attentive to our customers’ needs than we were at the time?  The more common reason for losing an existing account has nothing to do with how we managed their business.  More often than not we lose accounts due to circumstances completely out of our control… and yet… in the end… they still left.

Keeping our focus on growing new customers and servicing existing customers has got to be the number one priority in our business day… Until we achieve “sales nirvana”. Only then can we relax. This only occurs when we’ve grown and diversified our customer base to the point where no one customer represents more than 12% of our net revenue.  Only then can we confidently go to bed Friday night, knowing that come “hell or high water”, our businesses will still be there on Monday morning.  That’s not to suggest that we can’t lose our largest customers… or that it won’t be painful.  It simply means our businesses are secure enough to allow us to go on without having to make any of those excruciatingly hard decisions.  Decisions like the ones people that relaxed… before attaining “sales nirvana”, will definitely have to make. Decisions like… do I have to fire employees or even worse… family?  Do I have to cancel my vacation or even worse put my house on the market?  All because we allowed ourselves to relax when we began hearing our phones Ringinggg or e mails Binginggg.  All because we convinced ourselves that we were just too busy to make those calls… AAaarrggh!

There is nothing more distressing than growing a strong, profitable business based on wayyy too few accounts and waking up Monday morning to find out we lost one that represented 15 percent or more of our earnings. Stronger people than I have found themselves lying prone on the floor, in a fetal position… sucking their thumbs and wishing it was all just a bad dream.

So by now you’re probably asking yourself… where’s the "good news" part of this article??

The good news is this… by following the Time, Numbers and Consistency recipe… to the letter… you can reach “sales nirvana”. Sales is not a life sentence of continual new business calls and negativity or some act of penance we have to pay for being so bold as to think we deserve some sense of normalcy and calm in our lives.  Instead, let’s think of Sales as a journey, full of extreme highs and lows. Just like all of life’s worthwhile journeys… there is a payoff in the end that far outweighs the short term sacrifice.

Don’t take it from me. Ask the most successful people you know, how they got there.  Exclude those that have been fortunate enough to have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  I would venture to guess, a great majority of them worked some version of T,N & C.

 Time – The longer you pursue a qualified, quantified lead, the greater your chances for success

Numbers - The more contacts you call on, the greater your chances for success.

Consistency – The more persistent and tenacious you are, the greater your chances for success. (this truly is the “game changer).

Thanks for your time and attention to this series. I hope it was of some benefit to you.