You could be doing necessary things, but if you’re doing them incorrectly, they can take a whole lot more time, be a lot more annoying and frustrating, and just not get you the numbers. So it takes less time to grow sales right.
David: Hi and welcome back. In today’s episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and I discuss the topic, it takes less time to grow sales right. Welcome back Kevin.
Kevin: So we’re talking about your idea that it takes less time to grow sales right? Can you explain that in just a general way?
David: Yeah. A lot of times, I’m talking with business owners or salespeople and discussing some of the things that if they change them, could potentially improve their results. And a lot of times what they’ll say is they don’t really have time for that.
They don’t have time to, whatever, to learn a new approach. They don’t have time to do whatever’s going to be necessary to implement whatever it is that we would recommend that they do. And I know that when this happens, they’re not taking into consideration a really important point:
When you are doing things right, when you’re doing things well, it takes less time than when you’re not.
So if you’re looking at your sales and saying “they’re not where they need to be,” don’t think it’s going to take a whole lot more time to get them there. Recognize that there are very likely things you are doing that are burning hours and not generating revenue.
Kevin: Yeah, it comes down to efficiency versus just the amount of time you’re spending.
David: Exactly
Kevin: Right, yeah. Why do so many businesses miss that? Why do so many businesses take that long hard road when it comes to growing sales?
David: I think we get into the habit of doing things the way we’re used to doing them. We’ve been trained a certain way. We have certain things that we do. Habits are big. I mean, we all have habits. You get up at a certain time in the morning, you either hit the snooze or you don’t. Everybody’s got things they do, that you’re sort of programmed to do these things. I think a lot of it has to do with that.
People are trained to do sales in a certain way, so that’s what they do. They may look at, okay, I’m doing cold calls for my outreach, and that may be a good idea for some people. It may not be a good idea for some people, but just the idea of saying, “okay, well what if I were to change the method of first contact that I’m using with a new prospect?” That by itself can make a huge difference in terms of the amount of time it takes to do it.
If you’re making phone calls, that can take a long time. If you did something different, if you did some sort of outreach in terms of direct mail or if you did something via social media, you could potentially get a whole lot more out in a lot less time, and get those people qualified in or out faster.
But when you’re used to only one way of doing things, and you’re thinking you need to generate more business, the big temptation is to think that you have to just do more of it and you have to do it all faster. And that is not at all the reality.
Kevin: You were saying things about doing it right. Obviously that’s different depending on the business and the person. Everyone’s got their own way. But what does that shift to doing it right look like in strategy and execution?
David: Well, it’s definitely different for everyone, and to me, doing it right means that you are engaged in activities that you’re, first of all okay doing. Because if you hate taking a certain act… some people are like, I hate social media.
Well, if I said to you, we have to do social media to generate sales, that’s not going to happen. So I started out with saying, all right, what do you like doing? What are you willing to do? What do you generally do well? And then say, okay, how can we adapt that to help you get more business more quickly and consistently?
Because those are the two biggest things that people seem to have trouble with. It’s like, okay, I can’t get enough new customers in the door fast enough. And I can’t do it consistently. It’s feast or famine. Some months I bring in a whole lot of people and other months it’s crickets. So much of that has to do with the procedures and processes you have in place that when you’re able to fix those things, the time, money thing starts to line up.
You’re able to spend less time to generate more sales.
Kevin: You know, we have all heard the classic term “spaghetti marketing.” Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Do you think that’s part of the problem? Are people trying too many things at the same time?
David: Well, some people are trying too many things at the same time and some people aren’t trying anything.
Kevin: Right. Yeah. So it’s all across the board.
David: Yeah, and both are a big mistake. Once again, if you try to approach things strategically, you say, alright, what are some of the things that I can test out very quickly to determine if they’re going to help or if they’re not going to help. Because if it takes months to find out if some change that you’re making is making a difference, it’s kind of too late. Now you’ve lost months.
If you’re able to do that in a matter of days, or maybe a couple of weeks, it’s well worth doing. You test it out and you find out, not subjectively, but you find out objectively, what actually works better. When you know that, you can just do more of that and be confident that you’re going to generate more of the clients you need in less time.
Kevin: I think a lot of people would hear this and go, “okay, yeah, I’ve got to find some shortcuts.” We’re not really talking about shortcuts, are we?
David: Not necessarily. I mean, it’s not a shortcut in the sense that when you are interacting with the right people, you’re NOT interacting with the wrong people. That saves you a whole lot of time. When you’re putting out messaging that is focused and targeted and makes perfect sense to people, it takes less of their time and less of your time for them to understand what you’re saying and for you to understand what they’re saying.
Each of these things, when you look at them, and you address things properly, you can objectively see how it does take less time. It is more time consuming when you are just sort of doing “business as usual,” than if you are focused on the tip of the spear.
Kevin: Are there times where some people think that they’re coming up with ways to make it quicker, but they’re actually making it slower?
David: Yeah. And part of that is just the iterative process, right? It’s a matter of trying things, and you probably are going to have to do that a time or two. You’re going to have to test something that might work, or it might not work.
But again, I think the real key here is that if you’ve got procedures and processes in place that allow you to do all of that quickly, you can make those mistakes and get them out of the way.
So many times when I’ve done live presentations with audiences, I’ve said to them, “Hey, look, the reason I’m standing up here is not because I’m particularly smart, is because I’ve made every single mistake you can positively make along the way. And if I can prevent you from making just one of those mistakes, then it’s worthwhile.”
I think this really ties to that. It’s the idea that by eliminating the things that don’t work quickly, you are able to engage in more of the things that do.
Kevin: Yeah. Sort of setting yourself up for success. Right?
David: Exactly.
Kevin: Yeah. I talk about that all the time in my personal life, my career, everything. In the things I do, I want to try to set myself up for success. I know what I’m not going to do. You know what I mean? I’m not going to say like, I am going to work out six days a week, because it’s not going to happen. I know that’s not going to happen.
So set myself realistic goals and I do better. That’s the kind of same thing, right? You set yourself up for using the right methods and the right techniques, and doing them in an efficient way so that you can have better rewards.
David: Exactly. And it applies just as much to exercise as it does to sales, as it does to marketing, as it does to all these things. There is generally a better way to do things than we might be doing them. Not always. Sometimes people are doing everything perfectly all the time, but for most of us humans, there are probably some things that we could do a little better and a little differently that would save us enormous amounts of time, not take a long time to learn and take even less time to implement than many of the things that we’re currently doing.
Kevin: What are some actionable ways that a business owner can look at their sales approach and see if there’s room to make it more efficient and waste less time?
David: Well, I’d start out by looking at what you’re spending the most time doing. What are your daily activities? Probably everybody in time management has always recommended making a log, right? Writing down what is that you’re doing during any typical business day. We hear that and we’re like, “I don’t want to do that. I don’t feel like doing that.”
But it’s a really good exercise to do, just to get a feel for where are these hours going? Because a lot of times, you can go online to check social media and two hours later it’s like you’re coming out of a hypnotic state, and you don’t know where the afternoon went.
So a lot of it is to look and say, “where am I spending the most time now?” And then asking yourself, is it generating the desired results? I mean, if you spend a couple hours on social media, and you’re getting most of your business from there, and you’re generating high value, high dollar clients as a result of that work, then keep doing that. That’s not a wasted time.
But a lot of it is just looking for the connection between what is it that I’m doing, and what results is that generating for me? If you find that you’re putting in a lot of time on something and not getting the desired results, it may be time to look at what you need to tweak to make sure that time is no longer being wasted.
Kevin: Do you find that by doing this, these shifts can really help scale that a good pace?
David: Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that it does is it just makes everything more fun. I mean, a lot of times when I’m talking to my clients, I will say to them, Hey, look, if this isn’t fun, when we’re doing it, we’re doing it wrong.
And the reason it’s fun is that when you are taking the right actions consistently, in the right order, you’re generating more sales, you’re generating more profits, and you’re just happier, right? You’re happier about it. You’re happier to test out these changes, to make the tweaks and to integrate them, and to test them out and see how they work.
And when they work, you’re like, this is great. Because once you’ve done it, it’s part of your system. It’s part of your process, and you can do it again and again and again. And it’s going to continue to save time just as it did the first time. So that’s a big part of it. And when you’re looking at how can I get better results, it’s just a great way to start.
Kevin: You mentioned the exercise of writing things down and where you’re putting your time and all that stuff, and I think a lot of people are like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Okay, fine. I’ll do that someday.” And then they don’t do it. What are the dangers of not addressing some of these bottlenecks, if you will, or the extra time you’re spending on sales that aren’t generating?
David: Well, it’s that you don’t know, which goes to exactly the question that you asked when I talked about writing the stuff down. I almost hated making the recommendation because I always hated hearing it. I know nobody’s going to like hearing it. But the only answer to the question that you ask when you’re looking to connect your activities with your results is say, “okay, you have to know what your activities are.”
If you can come up with another way to do it, other than writing it down, then by all means do that. But the only way that’s ever going to happen is to know exactly what you’re doing and then saying, okay, the stuff that I’m doing is generating the current result that I’m getting. If I want to get a better result, what do I need to change in terms of my activities?
One of the things we have in our Total Market Domination program is something that I refer to as an Activity/Results Audit, where you’re keeping track of a lot of these important things that have to happen along the way.
How many new prospects did I add to my list today? How many of them did I get qualified in or out as quickly as possible? How many sales presentations did I make even before that? How many conversations did I have? All of those tiny little metrics are going to determine what your sales volume is going to be for this year and the following year and the year after that.
Kevin: Yeah, I could see people being resistant to some of those things, but they really do help.
I mean, they seem silly, the lists and all that stuff, or they seem easy or whatever. I’ve heard this before, but it really is like if you don’t have a good picture of where you’re spending your time and what you’re doing, you can’t make effective changes.
David: Yeah. If you get to the end of your day and you’re not exactly sure what you did all day, that’s a good indication. Maybe you don’t have to write it down, or maybe that’s an indication that you should write it down. I’m not sure, but I know that there are a lot of people who do that. They get to the end of the day and your spouse will say, “how did everything go today?”
And you’re like, “good,” but you don’t know what you did, right? So I think if you are in a situation where you’re not getting the results you want, you have to start with your activities. You have to look at what is it that I am doing to produce the results I’m getting? Because if you’re not happy with your results, unfortunately, I have to say it, it’s because of the activities that you’re either engaged in, or the ones you’re not engaged in, or it’s the way that you’re engaged with them.
You could be doing necessary things, but if you’re doing them incorrectly, they can take a whole lot more time and be a lot more annoying and frustrating and just not get you the numbers.
Kevin: What’s the best way for people to learn more?
David: Go to TopSecrets.com/shift. Pick up a copy of our free PDF. It’ll give you an idea of how you can sort of look at where you are now, look at where you want to be, and connect some of those dots. TopSecrets.com/shift.
Kevin: Awesome. Thanks, David. Great seeing you as always. We’ll see you next time.
David: All right. Thanks a lot, Kevin.
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