Increase Sales Conversion Using the 12-Week Year

Rob  00:00

When do you think that the majority of those sales come in?

Lane  00:03

In a 12-month? year?

Rob  00:05

Yes,

Lane  00:06

October, November, December? Yeah,

Rob  00:08

sure enough, at the year you’re like, Oh, I gotta get this going. I gotta get these done. I gotta get, I gotta hit my numbers. Welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch Podcast. And there’s Lane. How you doing over there, Lane?

Lane  00:33

I’m doing great. Rob, how are you today?

Rob  00:35

I’m doing well doing well, Hey, I just realized that it’s already almost halfway through the year.

Lane  00:42

What?

Rob  00:43

We’re almost halfway, almost halfway through the year, we are quickly approaching the end of the first half of the year. And I’m kind of curious, how are you doing with your sales?

Lane  00:54

Just knocking it out of the park man, knocking it out of the park?

Rob  00:56

You’re a liar. Where are you at?

Lane  01:00

For halfway through the year, I’m nowhere where I should be

Rob  01:03

See. And I wonder the same thing of how many other people are out there in the same boat, you know? And why is that you? You’re not where you should be?

Lane  01:10

I don’t know…I think I’ve lost track of time, I guess.

Rob  01:12

Yeah. And that dawned on me, I think this would be a good reason for us to have a conversation. I think one of the things that I realized is I float right on through weeks, I float right on through days, I float right on through a month. And next thing you know, I’m six months into the year. And I’m like, What happened? Where am I? And why am I not near my sales? So I thought today might be a good time to talk about the 12 week year. Alright, we did let’s talk about the 12 week year. All right, and there’s a book out there. This episode is not going to be a book report on it. I didn’t you know, just go read it. So we could talk about it that way. I read a long time ago, it stuck with me. And here’s the reason why I stuck with me a couple years ago, it was recommended that I read this book. When I get done with I was like, Whoa, there’s a whole other look at the year that I should be taking in sales. So while the 12 week year talks about goals, goal setting and getting things done and and you know, being productive with your time, I thought this episode, we should talk about how to apply this to sales, because there’s some obvious correlations and connections that we can make with a 12 week year.

Lane  02:15

It sounds like you’re really about to flip the the one year, five year plan upside down here.

Rob  02:21

Yeah, we don’t need a one year plan, we need a 12 week plan. That’s what we need. All right. So here we go.

V/O  02:26

You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob  02:34

So he talks about in his book, just from a high level, everybody kind of understands that there’s like there’s eight major things that go into high performance. And the eight things are vision planning, process control, measurement, time, use, accountability, commitment, greatness in the moment, that’s all well and good. That’s all well, and you know what you should, if you’re going to want to learn more about it, you should read it and understand all those little pieces. What I want to try to do in this episode is kind of break it down into something more related to sales than all of that stuff, because those are all good points. And those are all good elements that you need to put together to make that all work. However, in another episode, we talked about sales, sales goals, and how to set them, and then how to kind of break them down into daily, weekly goals. And those are all great. But if people don’t do that, if you don’t go and set a goal like that, and then break it down. you’re you’re you’re not doing yourself any good because you’re not really measuring to measurement that you can get to where you want to go. But if you start thinking about my year is only 12 weeks long, you start to look at things a little more urgently, because here’s what I see. I say I want to hit X number of dollars in the year. So if I said I want a million dollars in a year, when do you think that the majority of those sales come in?

Lane  03:53

In a 12? month here?

Rob  03:55

Yes.

Lane  03:56

October, November, December?  Yeah,…sure enough, at the end of the year you’re like, Oh, I gotta get this going. I gotta get these done. I gotta get I gotta hit my numbers. And instead, it would be so much easier if end of the first quarter like I’m ahead. Alright, second quarter. I’m ahead. Third quarter. You know what if I miss a sale? It’s okay. Because I’m ahead there. Oh, now I’m even for the year. Oh, perfect. Okay, I’m not scrambling now the last quarter I can work as hard as I do in any other fourth quarter. Yeah, now I blow my my sales away. Here’s what I would say salespeople. You people out there, myself included? lazy, you’re lazy. You don’t work any harder than you have to. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t have a 12 week sales goal, and you don’t have a 12 week years, you might wait a little too long before you get to your sales goals. Right. So let’s talk about how you would break it into 12 weeks. So going back to the eight elements very high level. The first thing I would recommend is something called a vision board. And a vision board is pretty easy. And if you’ve never done one of these before it goes like this. Grab a bunch of different magazines that you have that have pictures of have places that you want to go or lifestyle, things of travel or boats, or helicopters or big dream things, right? That’s your goal stuff that you want to do. So where is it you want to go in your life, get together on a big like a foam board thing, and cut out the photos or images, words in magazines, newspapers, any place you can find it, if you have Google searching images, whatever, put it on the board, paste it on the board, so that you have visually in front of you, these are the things that I want in life. These are where I want to go, for example, I said on my board that I wanted to visit Ireland, this is a couple years ago, so put it on my board, it just a picture of Temple Bar area. And it was interesting that I put it on the board. And then in the next year, we had this thing come up where it was like, Hmmm, here’s an opportunity to go to Ireland, let’s do that. So I was able to go, but if I hadn’t put it on my board, I probably wouldn’t have thought of it again. So in the moment, while you’re putting all this stuff together, think about what would be kind of cool to do in your lifetime. It doesn’t need to be tomorrow, next year, in 10 years, it could be 20 years away, Fine, whatever you want to do. But whatever it is, cut them out images that represent what you want, put it on the board, and then put that board somewhere where you can see it anytime you want to see it or where it’s easily accessible. So you can refer to it every once in a while and kind of keep your eye on the ball, right? That’s what a vision board is for. Now break that down into what is the number attached to that to get to where you want to go on one or two or three of those things, whatever number you want to try to get done, and then a certain amount of time. So if it’s a year, five years, whatever it is, and now break it down to the month, and then to the day to the week, whatever you need to do, break those down to a yearly goal or an annual goal. Now, with a 12 week year, you’re gonna break it down further into that quarterly number. And you can front load your quarters, so you can be further ahead early, and make it up as you go if you need to. Or you can make it evenly split along all quarters. Yeah, but either way you do it, you’re working your way towards your goals and where you want to go from that you’re going to break down some very, I call it you know, basically actionable items, items that you can do, just by looking at this is my list of things to do today, these are the things that are going to get me to wherever I need to go. So in the case of I wanted to go to Ireland, is what it’s gonna take, it’s gonna take this many 1000s of dollars to get there for a week or two weeks, or whatever I wanted to do. And then we break it down, how many calls do I need to make? So every call that I make, I’m now thinking about every call is another step closer to getting Ireland, right. And so there’s a little bit more of a purpose for my call and a little bit more of a reason for me to feel like there’s a good reason to do it, then maybe I’m breaking it down into how many meaningful conversations am I having? And do you have any idea what a meaningful conversation is? What does that mean? Does that make any sense to you? A meaningful conversation would be one that’s, that’s getting you closer to that to that sale, but then you’re getting closer to that?

Rob  07:51

Yes, yeah, it’s it’s one more conversation, that you’re getting some trust built, they feel comfortable continuing to talk, there’s a reason to continue to talk. You know, it’s not like you’re talking to somebody and they’re like having a great time and talking about sushi, let’s say, right? That’s a reference to another episode. But you know, you’re sitting there talking about one thing, and it has nothing to do with what you do. That’s not a meaningful conversation. But if the conversation kind of goes, Oh, you do that and tell me more? What is that going to cost? How much does that work? Oh, now you got some interest. So that’s a worthwhile conversation that goes in transitions to a meeting. Okay, well, is that a meeting with a purpose? Does that count as my next step?

Lane  08:32

Yes,

Rob  08:32

That’s something else I should be measuring. Right? So number of calls would be something I’m measuring how many conversations that are really meaningful or good. And then another thing you should measure is the number of meetings that you have with with a purpose. And then obviously, the outcomes. Was it a Yes? Was it a no? And then I track. I think I’ve shared before I track No’s, I track it when people tell me No. Why do I track that? Do you think?

Lane  08:55

Well, you want to know your batting averages?

Rob  08:57

Yeah, exactly. You want to know how many people you’ve talked to. How many are … what percent is gonna say no, what percent is gonna say yes. From all of that, I know that every day I do these numbers, they’re going to get me to where I need to be by the end of the month. More importantly, at the end of my year, which is only 12 weeks long. There’s a motivation there. That’s there’s a fire there that’s underneath your belly, all of a sudden, when you start to have that problem.  You’re like, I’m getting to the end of my 12 weeks, and I’m not…

Lane  09:22

I feel panic, just just thinking about it…

Rob  09:26

Well, you’re only weeks away from the end of the half a year. So you should feel

Lane  09:29

Oh, yeah.

Rob  09:31

So if I were you, I would think about certain questions that kind of come to my mind is to help me motivate so I think about the vision board. Now let me ask you this question Lane. Let’s pretend you have a vision board. Let’s pretend you have your goals broken down. And now I’m going to ask you this question. What’s going to happen if you don’t do these goals, what will happen?

Lane  09:54

I’m having to take something off my board. It’s not gonna happen.

Rob  09:56

Yeah, or you’re just not going to get it right. You’re not going to get to where you need to go, and so either you have to take it off, because you’re never gonna get there, you know it because there’s a deadline to it, or you’re just gonna have to work harder. And that’s not a good thing. But wouldn’t you want to know that in the 12 week period, then you would, oh, it’s October, and I only have, you know, 12 weeks left and maybe 10 days now, what am I going to do?

Lane  10:21

Yeah, I’d rather be panicking about this in late May, rather than stressing over the holidays, that I didn’t hit my goals for the year. And I can’t buy Christmas presents for my kids.

Rob  10:33

Yes, and that would be a bad thing. So you’d want to know this earlier, rather than later. And there’s nothing but no better time than early in the year that towards the end of the year, the knowing that, right? So if I were you out there listening, I would say, Alright, create your goals. But I want you to answer the question, write it down underneath, or some put it next to your vision board. What’s gonna happen if you don’t do your goals, your actionable items, what happens? And I don’t mean, just one of them. So if you make you miss one call, kind of no big deal. You miss all of them for a day. Kind of a big deal. Right? So now the next question is, what will it cost you income? Now let’s put it in numbers. If you don’t do your day full of calls, what does that cost you? So if you know that every call you make is one step closer to a deal? And every deal you make is $5,000? How many calls does it take to get to the $5,000 and divide that out? So if it takes you 100 calls to get $5,000? How much is that, that’s all you do is figure that out. So you’ll know that it’s $50 for every time you miss that call, right? So every time you miss the call $50 out of your pocket. Now, what if you decide you’re supposed to make 10 calls every day, you decide to miss one? What if you just decide, listen from now on every time I miss a call, I have to take a marker, you could take a marble, you could take a box of pencils, you just put them in a pile and take a look at it every day. There’s a pile of marbles. So you put a little jar and every time you get to put a marble in there, it’s $50. And at the end of the month, kind of how many marbles are left? That’s going to motivate a little bit too, right? So So start to think about really putting the numbers to the things that you’re doing. Another piece, what is it going to do your health or your family? You brought up Christmas? Same thing? Now put that down, right? The answer to that question, what’s going to do your health? Or what’s it going to do your family, but not doing these actual life? Now, let’s flip it. What happens if you do do these things? Then what happens? Well, I get to go on my trip, I get to do this, I can do that. Whatever that is, write those down? And what will you do when you achieve your goal? I think this is really an important one. Obviously, if you hit your goal, number wise, what are you going to do to reward yourself? And yeah, the obvious answer is I’m gonna go do what I had on my vision board. Yeah, that’s obvious. But there are steps along the way. So if you hit your 12 week goal, your 12 week year goal? Yeah, you should have a little reward for that, because that’s job well done. And you should celebrate that

Lane  12:58

Maybe the boss lets you go for beers?

Rob  13:00

Maybe! That would be nice, wouldn’t it? So the next piece is, is why is this important? And why is any of this important? Like why is it so important that you get this trip done? Or why is it so important that you do X, Y, Z, whatever is on your vision board, attach all those things together. And that’s gonna make a huge difference in how you approach your 12 week here, because you start to have purpose behind it, you have a goal, and you know what you need to do to get there. Actions make things happen, that make you get results in those that are stuck. When people are stuck, where they’re like, I don’t know what to do, the first thing you should do is do something, you’ll feel better. I don’t care if it’s the wrong thing, do something that’s related to get you to your goal. Instead of making phone calls, you decide, I’m going to go door to door for a little bit just to see if I can meet some people, fine, it doesn’t matter, do something. Because if you get some results, great, but by doing it, you’re going to start to get feeling better, you’re going to have a better approach to things your mind gets better than just sitting around worrying about everything. Okay, plan your work, break it into the days, and then work your plan. That’s really what it’s all about. Right?

Lane  14:07

Right.

V/O  14:09

This is The Slow Pitch Podcast.

Lane  14:13

I guess a trip to a to Walgreens or CVS is in the is in the is in the books I gotta get. I gotta go get my board and get my vision board up. And I’ve only got only a few weeks left in this this quarter.

Rob  14:28

You know, and the other thing is, is it’s it’s one of those things that doesn’t matter where you are in the year. So if you’re listening to this in its fourth quarter right now, that’s okay. Now’s the time. Doesn’t matter. Just get started.

Lane  14:38

Just get started. Yep.

Rob  14:38

Yeah, get started. So if you’re panicked out there, and you feel like holy crap, I’m almost to the end of the year, or I’m almost in my 12 week year. That’s okay. Start now, because there’s no better time than starting right now. Until next time, we’ll see you.

Lane  14:51

Bye, Rob.

V/O  14:55

Thank you for listening to the slow pitch. Do you have a question about sales call or text your question at (608) 708-SLOW, that’s 608-708-7569 or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com. Slow down and close more.