Introduction

[00:00:00]  Rob: It’s July, and it’s time to check in. How are you doing in your sales? Have you hit your goals so far for the year? Are you on track, and are you gonna make it by the end of the year? There’s only about 122 days left this year. Does that scare you, or does that make you feel good? Let’s get started.

Sales Goals and Tracking For End of the Year

Rob: So yes, we’re halfway through the year. There’s only about 122 days left before the end of the year, and here’s what I mean by that. There’s about 22 weeks of five-day weeks, let’s call them, and then there’s a few weeks in there that are just m- small changes. So you’ve got Labor Day that’s coming up, right? That’s a four-day work week.

And the other thing to keep in mind is that when you get at those four-day work weeks, um, that week before, that Friday, more than likely people aren’t gonna be around very much. So you gotta keep that in mind. But I incorporated that into my numbers. You’ve got Thanksgiving week, which I kind of wrote off. It’s not a week you’re not gonna be able to sell much. It’s a check-in week. You’re gonna be able to talk. You might get a couple leads come in, but most of the time it doesn’t

[00:01:00] develop much into something. And then the last week, couple weeks of the year, you’re probably not gonna get a lot either because it’s the holidays. People are traveling. You may get a lead or two, but let’s not count on those, right? So there’s about 122 days left in this year, give or take, by the beginning of July. So how do you know if you’re on track? Well, first of all, what are you tracking? Do you know how your sales are for the year? You should probably know where you are in terms of your total dollars brought in, your total number of leads, your total number of leads that you’re working right now.

You probably all, all know all that stuff. But what are the things that you should be measuring for the remainder of this year? If you think about it as you’ve got six months, you’re gonna feel like, “Okay, I’ve got plenty of time.” But if you think about it as, “I’ve only got about 122 days to work leads, to bring in leads, to work them through the process,” and if your lead time is 90 days, you could have a problem if you’re a little short on your leads, right? Or if you’re not in the process with somebody. So what you need to do is start to think about

[00:02:00] what are the numbers that you should be measuring.

What Numbers To Track For the Rest of the Year

Rob: So let me share with you some of the numbers that I always keep track of as I go through the end of year. The first number that I use is, is how many meetings do I have? So if, in other words, if I have a meeting coming up next week, I mark that down as I have a meeting scheduled. The second thing that I always measure is how many pain conversations have I had? So in this last week, if I had seven pain conversations, that means I’ve got seven leads that I’ve worked through, I’ve had the meeting, and I’ve determined that there’s pain there. 

So what you might see is you might see, let’s say, 10 meetings that I have, 15 meeting, whatever that number is, and then there’s a lower number typically of pain meetings, meaning pain conversations, meaning that out of the 15, maybe only 10 of them actually had the need to continue in the process. If they don’t continue, they don’t get marked as a pain conversation that’s gonna move forward. The next thing that I’m gonna keep track of are the number of estimates that it’s time to move into that point of writing an estimate and going through that. Now, remember, you’re not gonna

[00:03:00] share that estimate just willy-nilly. You’re not just gonna send it to them. You have to have that meeting. So what I do is I say, “Okay, I’ve got a meeting that has gone through the pain process. I know they have a need. Now I know I need to write an estimate.” I might track the number of times I write an estimate so I know it’s worth going through that step, right? But then once I have that meeting, did they go through and did we move forward from that estimate?

Tracking Numbers for Sales Success — Last Half of the Year

Rob: So how many times did I have an estimate review meeting is one tracking number, and then the next tracking number after that is gonna be how many yeses and how many nos at the end of that estimate review meeting.

So if I’ve had, let’s say I’ve had three estimate review meetings that I go through in the last few days or the last week, and one of them’s a yes and two of them are nos, okay, I know what that is. But there should be no three reviews and only one yes and nobody else has given me a no. That’s a problem, right? So you should always be tracking how many yeses and how many nos. The other thing you can start to track on top of that if you really wanted to be more detailed and granular

[00:04:00] is you could look at it and say, “If I got a no, what was the reason for getting the no?” Because then I can back up in my pain conversations and start asking questions that are related to that possible no. And when I know that there’s a problem that comes up during the estimate review process, and I get no’s because of one reason or another, and I don’t track that, what happens is, is when I’m in that pain conversation and I’m not asking the right questions to address that possible issue that could come up. So if it comes up more than once, if it comes up more than twice, if it comes up more than three times in the last month, that’s an issue.

Now I need to say, “Okay, what in my pain conversation am I not covering that’s gonna prevent that problem from coming up?” So I need to make sure that I’m addressing that. So that can come in the form of a question, and basically what that means is like, “I don’t suppose this would be an issue,” or, “I don’t suppose that’s a problem for you,” whatever that pain thing is. And I have to phrase it in such a way that would make somebody go, “Yeah, you know what? That is a problem.” Or, “I hadn’t thought about that. We should talk about that.”

[00:05:00] Because if that comes up again and again and again, I wanna get ahead of it into my pain conversations. And finally, the last measurement that I always try to measure is how many dollars did I bring in? So if I track the number of dollars I brought in, now I know if I’m on track for sales, number one.

How Many Sales Do I Have To Make By Year End?

Rob: Now if I’m measuring the amount of dollars that I’ve brought in, and I know I’ve got 122 days left, but I know my remaining amount of sales that I need to do, just for round numbers sake, let’s say 100,000 for the next 122 days, that means it’s $817 per day, selling day, that I need to bring in. That doesn’t mean that every day I gotta sell 800 and some odd dollars, but what it does is it breaks it down to the day.

So if I take three days to close something, then I know it’s 817 times three that that value should be, or higher. And then I can multiply that out so I can figure out how much per week, how much per month I need to be bringing in so that I know approximately how many deals I need to close so I can hit my sales number. Now, for everybody, that number of 100,000 is just a number so that it’s easy to round number everybody can put their head around. But if that’s a million, if it’s three million, it’s

[00:06:00] seven million, or whatever the number is, it doesn’t matter. Divide that out per day and you’ll start to figure out what is the average day s- sale that I need to do, and then what does my average ticket size look like. So is that one deal or is that seven deals? That’s the question that you need to know. So you can back that up into your numbers that you’re tracking and saying, “How many meetings do I need to have so that I can then hit my numbers for the end of the year?”

You’re halfway through. Are you halfway or more in your sales numbers? You really should be, by halfway through the year, you should be about 60% of the way to your sales goal by now. ‘Cause if you’re not, you’ve got some hard weeks ahead of you where you’re not gonna be able to close anything ’cause they’re h- on holiday. They don’t care. They don’t wanna be there. They don’t… They’re not working. They’re not in their work mindset. That’s normal. Just incorporate that into your numbers so that you’re planning on that and it doesn’t surprise you at the end of the year. ‘Cause the last thing you wanna do is come across as needy in December because you’re not hitting your sales goal, right? Now is the time to

[00:07:00] get ahead of it, now is the time to start to work on it. Let me pause for a second. If you found this to be helpful, would you mind sharing this with somebody that you think might be able to use this information for themselves? Because as we go through halfway through the year, you’ve probably heard somebody make a comment about, “Hey, I’m struggling with this,” or, “I’m struggling with that. What do I do?” Uh, this might be helpful for them. And until next time, remember, slow down and close more.