Sales 101: Compounding Efforts Consistently

We all know what compound interest is, right? It’s when you add up all of the interest you have made on your investments, time and time again – which can ultimately show you substantial growth. This is why we tell our children they should start saving cash as soon as they can, rather than trying to save for retirement when it is too late.

The same applies to the efforts you put into selling your products or services, which is the exact reason why so many sales people fail.

Far too often I see someone get really excited about selling a new product, proclaiming this is something they want to do for the rest of their life, to just give up a couple of weeks or a couple of months later. Then, they jump over to another company, product, or offering, just to fall into the same trap after a short amount of time.

The problem with this behavior is, a good sales person is successful at selling whatever they sell. It has nothing to do with the product… it only has to do with compounding consistent efforts over and over again, continually building upon the efforts of yesterday, the day before, and even the month prior. This is how someone becomes a success, and why most sales people should think about going into another field. If you are willing to make a single excuse about why you aren’t making sales, point blank, SALES IS NOT FOR YOU.

The truth is, selling is hard, and building a sales pipeline is really the only way to make consistent income. You build your pipeline by identifying prospects, presenting to them, and closing them. While it sounds simple, every single one of your prospects can and will be in a different frame of mind as well as various stages of the sales process. Sometimes your prospect needs to be spoken to 15 times before they buy. Sometimes someone needs months to make a decision. And sometimes you will close a sale the first time you talk to them. But the path to consistent income is consistent efforts. After all, you still need customers a month from now, so why not keep at it?

Let’s say you make a goal of performing 100 cold calls the first half of your day, and spend the latter half of the day following up with prospects or leads, knowing 10% of those calls will eventually close. Well, if you are performing these tasks 5 days a week for 4 weeks out of every month, by the end of the month you have made 2,000 phone calls with a potential 200 closed sales. But, if you start out on day one with 100 calls, get discouraged, and make 50 the next day… get down on yourself and make 20, then 10, then 0 – and don’t follow up with anyone, why are you so damn surprised you haven’t closed any sales?

Do you really think going to another company to attempt to sell a different product is going to yield different results? Because I can assure you, it will not.

You can bounce around from company to company giving half-ass efforts, and waste everyone’s time in the process, or you can buck up, start making 100 calls a day, and keep doing it day in and day out. If you stay consistent from day one, there is absolutely ZERO way you can fail. 10 to 30% of people are going to buy your offering simply because you are offering it. So, if you are making zero sales, it is because the only thing you are being consistent about is the excuses you keep making, which is why you continue to fail.

Your success and your failure has nothing to do with the product. It only has to do with you.