Consistency is a Good Cause of Sales Success

What is it about things that are really obvious, like consistency being a key to success, that cause people like me to feel they must expound on it?  Well……inconsistency. 

Let’s cite the case of a well-intentioned individual on a quest to lose 20 pounds. After developing an exercise regimen and selecting a suitable diet, he begins the program with enthusiasm and optimism, exceeding both the diet and exercise requirements for the first week, quickly shedding 5 pounds.  Boasting about his success, it begins to seem easy, not at all like the “no pain, no gain” marathon for which he prepared.  As a result, he enters week 2 overconfident and, instead of overachieving as in week 1, slacks off, skips two exercise programs, cheats on his diet and actually gains 2 pounds. His doctor, when questioned, says that inconsistency is to blame. What happened? 

In sales, I usually see a very similar scenario playing itself out.  A salesperson sets her goals and during the first week, performs the activity called for in the plan with anticipation of great success.  Calls are made, appointments are scheduled and there is reason for optimism, despite the lack of sales during the first week.  She begins the second week with additional confidence and, while not as good as the first week, her performance is certainly acceptable.  Yet due to the nature of the sales cycle and despite the hard work conducted in the first two weeks, all she has to show for her efforts are some appointments that don’t appear in her calendar until week three.

Many salespeople begin the breakdown process right here where the following 5 factors may contribute to this round of failure:

1) GenX – Generation X salespeople and managers know of nothing other than instant gratification.  Microwave dinners, 1-hour photos, drive-through pharmacies, fast food, movies on-demand, video games and the internet all contribute to a sense of “if you want it, here it is, come and get it.”  Performing weeks of grunt work, including cold calls, only for the possibility of positive results, weeks, or perhaps months, from now, would cause this group great discouragement.

2) Tunnel Vision – Not everyone has the ability to see the big picture and as such, won’t recognize that the hard work performed today can yield the big deal and many smaller deals that can come to fruition in several weeks or months.  This failure to understand why they are doing this grunt work today will also cause discouragement.

3) Lack of Accountability  – Like most humans, salespeople will usually take the path of least resistance which, when sales managers are not holding their feet to the fire by demanding that they follow their plan, looks like busy work – they’ll invent work to keep from having to prospect for new business.

4) Lack of Coaching or Training – Not all salespeople are successful following their plan during weeks one and two.  Many will fail completely, unable to reach their prospects or have similar difficulties scheduling appointments if they experience success making contact.  For this group, the level of discouragement is even greater because they don’t have any appointments to look forward to.  Sales managers cannot allow salespeople to fail this long and must provide intervention instead.  Coaching, debriefing, strategizing and role-playing are called for here.

5) Unrealistic Goals – Sometimes the goals are just plain stupid.  For instance, in my business, where salespeople are supposed to be quite strong, one needs to close only 2 accounts per month to be considered successful.  For a strong salesperson, that shouldn’t require more than 4 new appointments per month.  Yet some of them, believing that a lot of appointments are better than 4 quality appointments, set a goal to book as many as 10 appointments per week!  And what happens?  First, when they do get the 10 (hardly ever) most of them are weak appointments and the resulting lack of business causes discouragement.  Of course, during most weeks, they don’t come close to the 10, which causes more discouragement.  So what happens next?  After a few weeks of this we begin to see the effects of the “why bother” syndrome as the actual number of appointments begin to dwindle each week and the quality of the appointments fails to improve.

In our earlier examples, inconsistency was to blame. While we have the right to blame anything we want, blaming inconsistency is like blaming death as the cause of dying!  One doesn’t blame the fever for being sick when the fever is the result of being sick.  So we must not blame the result when there is a real identifiable cause.  In each of these examples, temporary, even anticipated failure or, as I like to call it, delayed success, leads to discouragement and gives birth to a new mindset – “why am I doing this?”  If salespeople don’t have very strong reasons for doing this grunt work, they will begin to find other, more “important” things, to do instead.  This is the cause of inconsistency – the lack of a strong reason, or mission, for doing the work.

What is your mission for consistently following your plan each day? 

Do you have one? 

Is it any good? 

Will it motivate you always? 

If not, shouldn’t you modify your mission today?

It’s for a good cause.  Consistency.  You’ve heard it before.  Moderate exercise.  Moderate drinking.  Moderate.  If you do anything with moderation and do it consistently, you will always have a positive result.  When you do something to excess but only when you feel like it, you will always feel like you worked too hard yet lack the results to show for your efforts.