What's your run rate?
What's your run rate?
Sales is like cricket. To hit your sales targets and reach your revenue objectives, you need to do the numbers. In the World Cup Semi Final on Tuesday, New Zealand needed 297 runs off 43 overs, which worked out to just under seven runs per ball. By chipping away over after over, the Kiwi’s eventually made it (it was a little tight for my liking, but it made for a spectacular finish).
On the blackboard of the Black Cap’s dressing room they break down the total runs into bite sized chunks. They set goals of where they want to be after 10 overs, where they want to be after 30 overs and where they want to be with five overs to go. To work out your run rate, you need to do the same. Break down your annual revenue target into bite sized chunks and work out what you need to do to get there.
When I did this for one of my clients recently, it worked out that to hit his monthly sales target he needs to do 8 sales appointments, 4 proposals and 2 sales each week. Sounds easy right? Well it is in theory. In practice, there are a lot of things getting in the way trying to prevent you from doing the numbers.
In cricket, you’ve got the competition trying to bowl you out, run you out and catch you out. In sales you’ve got external resistance (in the form of distractions) and internal resistance (in the form of fear, doubt and reluctance) . Hitting your sales run rate requires that you have to remove external resistance and overcome your internal resistance.
I’d love to hear your thought’s. What’s your run rate? What external and internal resistance do you have to overcome?
Happy selling!
Mark.
Mark Windust is the founder of Mastermind Business Solutions Ltd and is an influential Thought Leader in the areas of Business Development, Sales Growth and Entrepreneurship. Since Mastermind’s inception in 2007, Mark has worked with 1000's of business leaders, salespeople and entrepreneurs’ to help them grow.