Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Surviving Outside
Sales podcast hosted by Mike
O'Kelly, presented by SalesBuilder Academy.
The goal is to survive andthrive all phases of outside
sales, whether you're getting in, dominating or getting out.
Surviving Outside Sales.
Now on with the show.
Welcome to the SurvivingOutside Sales podcast from your
(00:25):
host, mike O'Kelly.
We are winding down with themonth of June and with that
comes another quarter.
It's another opportunity toprepare for what lies ahead.
In fact, I spent most of thisafternoon doing my Q3 plan and
one of the things that Irealized is I'm actually going
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to be taking quite a bit of timeoff.
So I will be out of pocket for11 of the 65 selling days.
Now selling days are Mondaythrough Friday.
There are 65 selling days andthen you start taking out
holidays.
So the 11 days I'm taking offinclude two holidays Labor Day,
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4th of July.
Now, I'm not taking a lot oftime around 4th of July, but I
am going to go on a little microvacation with the family around
Labor Day weekend.
But I have two salesconferences coming up in Q3.
So I will be out of pocket for11 business days and two weekend
days I'll be involved withconferences.
So I'm not going to be workinga lot.
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54 days over a three monthperiod is not a lot of working,
and so you have to understandthat.
If you're going to be takingtime off, it's never too early
to start thinking about the nextquarter.
But you got to put a plan.
You got to really put pen topaper.
Okay, what am I going to do?
What time am I taking off?
How many days am I going to beworking?
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Because if you want to hit yournumbers, if you want to hit
quota, if you want to hit yourgoal, you got to figure out how
to get there, and if you'regoing to take the time off, like
I am, it's going to be 11business days off, that's more
than two weeks off out of 13.
So I have to make sure that Iwork especially efficient this
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quarter and I work as hard as Ican and I optimize the time and
I'm as productive as possible.
So it is kind of crazy thatwe're almost halfway through the
year, but I want you to do acouple of things, go back and I
want you to really analyze thefirst half of your year.
Did everything go according toplan?
Did you hit your goals?
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Did you hit your numbers?
Did you hit quota.
And if you didn't, just behonest with yourself, don't
blame anything else except foryou.
Don't blame your companybecause your quota was a little
bit too high.
That's an easy cop out, okay,no matter what your company set
your quota at, you had theability to make it happen in the
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field, but you didn't.
Why?
Now, I didn't say you couldn'tblame market forces.
I'm going to mean blame atribute, that's a better word.
I don't want you to blame.
You start getting into theblame game.
You stop taking accountabilityfor your action.
You lose power over yourbusiness.
Remember, you're in control.
Your territory is a smallbusiness.
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Don't forget that.
You're running a littlefranchise inside your larger
organization.
So if you didn't hit your goals,why did you not do that?
What is the reason?
Was there no preparation orlack of preparation?
Did you not have a good planwhere you focused on the wrong
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activities?
There's always a reason.
There's always a reason.
Did you not work hard enough?
I'm just throwing ideas outhere, cause when I talk to sales
professionals and they talk tome about quota and they talk to
me about closing and they talkto me about their goals, I ask
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okay, what do you think impactsit, and the first thing they say
is always something companyrelated budget, marketing
materials, product samples it'sthe first thing they say, and I
don't know.
I probably would have said theexact same thing earlier in my
career.
It's all about what the companycan provide for me, but it's
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never been a better time toutilize what is out there in the
world, especially in the salesworld, digital marketing, social
media.
It's never been easier to getin touch with people.
I mean, shoot, ai is takingover everything.
So what is the reason why youdid not hit quota and I know
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that it's probably a largeportion of the audience.
I'm just gonna go on a hunchthat a lot of people that listen
to a sales podcast aresearching and seeking for
answers.
The people that aren'tlistening to podcasts probably
might think they know it all, sotherefore they're not seeking
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out more information.
That's just a hunch.
That's my experience.
I've very rarely met a lot ofpeople that have reached out to
me that are hitting quotaroutinely and just because
you're hitting quota, you'redoing the bare minimum.
I mentioned on one of theprevious podcasts and it's my
belief.
Quota is artificial.
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It's made up, it's anartificial number that your
company puts out there and thereason why it's artificial.
It has nothing to do with thebusiness opportunity in your
territory, because if you wereto leave and somebody else were
to take over your territory,their quota would not be what
your quota was.
Let's say you quit Friday, onthe last day of Q2.
And let's say your companyalready gave you your Q3 quota
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number and let's say it was$30,000.
And if they had to rehiresomebody to fill your spot,
their quota would not be 30,000.
It would be lower.
That's the reason why it'sarbitrary.
It has nothing to do with whatbusiness opportunity there could
be in the territory.
It's all based on, when youstart, how many quarters you've
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been in the field, what you didthe previous quarter, and they
just try to dangle the care infront of you.
That is the old schoolmethodology about quota
attainment.
I disagree with it.
I think companies need to bedoing a better job of deep dive
analytics into what thepotential of the territory could
be.
But that's a discussion foranother day.
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We're talking about yourplanning and your preparing for
Q3.
Just remember, if you don'tcrush it in Q3, it's not like
you can just roll into Q4 andhope to have a monster quarter
to save your entire year.
I know that's the sales processof a lot of sales professionals.
I've talked to them.
They're like well, you know, q4is a big buying time so I'm
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just gonna wait till then.
Good luck with that.
Good luck with that.
I'm gonna tell you right nowit's not gonna work.
Sandbagging in sales does notwork.
Period, point blank.
It takes a lot of time to buildrelationships.
It takes a lot of time to getpeople to know, like and trust
you, and it just doesn'tnecessarily happen in just a
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couple weeks or a couple months,because people now are not
necessarily searching for thebest product.
If that were the case, a lot ofthe larger brands, the biggest
lasers, the people that had themost marketing dollars, the most
budgetary dollars they would bewinning all of the deals.
But they're not.
Why is that?
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Because it's not about theproduct per se.
Yes, the product has to work,but a lot of buyers and a lot of
consumers assume that a lot ofproducts will work the same.
It's about the experience.
It is about the belief of whatthat person is saying and will
they get them to the goal thatthey're promising them.
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That's pretty much it.
So you can't just sit aroundand wait.
I'm just gonna wait till Q4.
Bad, bad move.
So when you're thinking about Q3, are you preparing for holidays
?
Are you preparing for kiddosgoing back to school?
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Now, my kids are not in formalschool yet, they're in daycare,
so we don't have to deal withthat.
But I didn't take into accountthe month of August, where a lot
of people are gonna bedistracted and a lot of people
are gonna be busy and there'sgonna be a lot of vacations.
There's gonna be a lot ofvacation time.
So I have 54 days, but arethose gonna be 54 regular days?
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I don't know.
There might be 30, some regulardays, and then 20 distracted
days where it's a lot of swingsand misses.
Trying to connect with people.
It's a lot of people bookingappointments and then they just
cancel, which happens from timeto time.
It's amazing how, in Q4,meetings tend to be booked and
less people cancel, but like Q2and Q3, there's a lot of
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cancellations.
Q1 not so much.
I don't know why.
I don't have a big sample sizeto go on, but it is very
interesting.
So when you are planning outyour Q3, remember your goal is
to work on your business, not inyour business.
It's not about the activity,it's about your productivity.
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Treat it like a small business.
You have a budget.
Just think of that as aninvestment from your company.
So, your small business.
You have a group that'sinvested in you, which is your
company, or you can think of itlike where you're running a
franchise.
But it's time to take ownership.
It's time to take ownership ofyour business, and that means a
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different mindset, a growthmindset, not a limiting mindset.
Limiting mindset is I'm gonnawake up in the morning and I'm
just gonna work, I'm gonna dowhat my company says, I'm gonna
do the bare minimum and I'mgoing to just get through my day
.
I can go home, sit on the couchwith my husband, my wife,
girlfriend, boyfriend, what haveyou and just binge Netflix.
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If you do the bare minimum,expect the bare minimum life.
But if you want anextraordinary life, if you want
the life of your dreams, you'regonna have to do things that
you've never done before, andyou're gonna have to do things
at a level that most are notwilling to do.
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That is the only way you'regonna achieve your numbers and
that's the only way you're goingto fulfill your potential, not
only yourself, but also in yourbusiness, and that is what you
should be focusing on.
The quota is the floor.
Quota is the bare minimum.
That's not the top floor,that's not the penthouse.
The penthouse is what yourterritory could possibly do,
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because tomorrow is not promised.
We don't know what's going tohappen.
So why would you just shoot foran arbitrary number that was
created by your company?
Why would you not try tosqueeze every ounce of potential
out of your business?
Take every commission dollar.
You can now build andstrengthen those relationships,
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build those advocates and thenrinse and repeat the next
quarter.
Just because you're gonna crushit in one quarter doesn't mean
you're going to hurt yourbusiness in the following
quarter.
That is the biggest sales mythI've ever heard.
Well, I don't want to blow outquota because then next month,
next quarter, I'm gonna have towork even harder.
If you are a transactionalseller, yes, it will be harder,
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but if you run your businesswhere it's relationship based,
you're building advocates,you're having other people sell
for you.
Being relationship based isn'tjust oh, a bunch of people know
me, it's obviously do they know,like and trust you, but do they
share what you do with them?
Do they share what you do forthem?
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Do they tell other people, arethey willing to recruit other
people for you?
If the answer is no to any ofthose, you're only working in
your business.
You have a lot of.
You don't have relationships.
You have a lot of oh crap, I'mlosing the word associates.
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You have a lot of associates orfriends of friends.
You know how when you go outwhen you're younger, in your 20s
, and you go out to a bar orrestaurant and your friends have
friends, you don't really knowthem but you kind of know of
each other, but you've neverhung out by yourself.
It's an associate, buteverybody's like oh yeah, my
buddy, do you know them?
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Have you ever hung out withthem?
No, that's kind of how it is.
You're an associate, you're arep, you're not a professional.
Professionals have a book ofbusiness.
They have relationships thatthey can leverage when they need
and they have people that arewilling to sell for them.
They're willing to vouch forthem.
They're recruiting others intothe seller's world.
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That's being a professional.
Being a professional isbuilding a Q3 plan like there's
no tomorrow.
Set the bar super high.
See what happens.
I guarantee you right now, ifyou're listening, if you set the
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bar super high, even if youfall short, you'll be shocked at
how well you perform.
I guarantee you you'll crushyour quota.
Just remember quota is not themaximum your territory can do.
Quota is an artificial number,as I mentioned before, created
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by your company based on acouple factors.
Usually it's just hey, it's 10%or 15% higher than the previous
quarter has nothing to do withthe potential.
In most times, the quota shouldbe considered the floor of your
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territory, the bare minimum.
Quota attainment is not a badgeof honor because your company
might have really messed up andset the bar really low.
I see it all the time Quotaattainment, quota attainment how
did you perform based on yourpotential?
That's what you should befocused on.
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If you hit your quota halfwaythrough the month, are you done
for the year?
Are you done for the quarter?
No, you're not going to kickyour feet up and wait till the
next quarter.
Are you kidding me?
If you run your territory likeyou run a small business, you're
going to absolutely crush it.
What is one of the things that Iteach in the Sales Builder
(15:09):
Academy right now?
Sales Builder Blueprint is howto run a business of your own,
how to stop being a sales repand becoming a sales
professional Working on yourbusiness and not working in your
business.
If you are interested, go tomikeokellycom slash sales
(15:32):
builder blueprint and check thatout.
If not, thank you so much forlistening.
I'm going to ask you todownload the episode, share it
with like-minded individuals andtalk with your friends.
What are you all doing for Q3?
Have you set your goals?
What are your plans?
I know Q2 hasn't ended yet.
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That's okay.
What are you doing to prepare,share ideas and push each other?
The goal is to elevate everyone.
Somebody else's success doesn'tmean a detriment to yours.
Just remember that.
Thank you so much.
I really do appreciate it.
I hope everybody has afantastic rest of their day.
We'll see you tomorrowSurviving outside sales.
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Bye.