Some salespeople think of discipline as a burden. But smart salespeople see it as a tool that frees them from sabotaging their achievements.
Discipline frees salespeople from mistakes that can cripple their best efforts. It liberates them from wasting time on useless endeavors and failing to close sales.
Best of all, discipline removes the blinders of self-delusion we use to kid ourselves into being more productive than we really are. Nothing exists that’s more uplifting than being free to do what we’re called to do—to close more and better sales.
And few self-disciplines free us up more effectively than a personal, key performance indicator (KPI). That’s because a personal KPI reinforces what we know, but often ignore: What gets measured gets done. What doesn’t get measured gets ignored.
Salespeople who excel tailor a KPI to their specific needs and track it daily, weekly, and monthly. They measure leading indicators—behaviors under their control—and lagging indicators—behaviors not fully under their control.
Intelligent salespeople know where and how to spend their best efforts. They know that 20 percent of their prospects will buy from them no matter what they do or say, and 20 percent won’t buy from them no matter what they do or say. Thus, they work hard to win over companies and organizations among the 60 percent who need help to close.
Tracking one’s KPI makes it easy to set and monitor sales goals, subgoals and mechanisms and to build in the critical ingredient of accountability into one’s performance.
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