What are KPIs? KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators. These are the measurable sales practices you can track to determine what works and what doesn't. Last week, the Sales Throwdown team discussed goal setting. Goals and KPIs go hand in hand. To track one, it works best if you know the other. What your KPIs are and how you track them will depend heavily on your industry and possibly on your DISC profile. But to have the best chance at hitting your goals and being consistently successful in selling, you need to track them. Each of us feels a little differently about our motivation for KPIs, and we definitely have very different indicators that we track. But as our sales knowledge and success has grown, the KPIs we track and how we track them have evolved to a level that is consistent and repeatable, the two things you need for a truly successful career. If you're grappling with where to start with KPIs, or you haven't been able to see any success from it yet, reach out to us. Or send this to someone else you know that is struggling. And if you’re not sure where you fit in the DISC personality spectrum and want to find out, let us know. We can get a DISC personality assessment for yourself or for your team. Email us at assessment@salesthrowdown.com for more information. Sign up for our emails: https://www.salesthrowdown.com/ Connect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Salesthrowdown Check us out on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salesthrowdown/ And keep up with us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SalesThrowdown
Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss
Fanatical Prospecting - Jeb Blount
Let's get ready to Throwdown!
I never left seventh grade. The locker room at least.
Because you couldn't pass it.
Barely. I was dumb as a fucking stone. All right, where's Neil deGrasse when you need him, scientific thought.
All right. Here we go, here we go.
Welcome to the show everybody. Today's show is brought to you actually by Audible. And audible is a great tool because books are one of the best ways to get improvement. But when you're in sales, you don't have a bunch of time to sit around and read always so Audible allows you to listen to books, in your car, at the gym wherever you are, and improve. We gave some books away whenever we launched the show, and we're going to be putting some links to that. A couple of books that we recommend, Nan.
The Bible.
Absolutely.
Extreme Ownership all day long. Yeah,
Absolutely. Al? You got one?
Never Split the Difference. Yeah, by Voss.
Jeb Blount's Fanatical Prospecting is also pretty good as well. So if you go to salesthrowdown.com/books, you'll be able to take a look at it. Give it a shot,
But my actually all time favorite is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, one of the beginning ones. I think it was published in like, 1954.
I have a no, I think it's earlier than that.
Is it earlier than that?
Yeah. Because I have a, I think a 30's edition of that book.
Okay, yeah, I'd like to challenge that. But yeah, let's go back and take a look and see when that...
Let's put some money on it gambler.
Bring it. I don't know for certain you, you're more about the numbers than I.
Usually. So this is January, everybody, pulling back the curtain a little bit. This is our first recording session of the new year, 2020. So, and we're going to talk about like one of my favorite topics and I was a little surprised whenever Al brought it up, and I was game on. So talking about KPIs, right, and if you're not familiar with that, it means Key Predictive Indicators. And Al, you want to talk a little bit more about yours or what you think about them or...
Well, you know, I come from a fly by the seat of your pants kind of attitude and a lot of things that I've done my entire life, and it's worked out fairly well for me. So I don't have a ton of complaints about that. But when I look back, there's nothing to look at. I didn't put anything down on paper. So I had my bank account, then I can look at what that reflects. But that's not the entire story. And when it says scrap of paper on one side of your desk and one over here and one over there, you know, you know what you did, but did you put it down. I mean, if your life or your sales world is worth doing, it's worth recording, it's worth reflecting upon. It's worth you know, looking in in gaining some experience from where you've been to take you to the next level?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You were scribbling furiously over there. What'cha got?
Well, because, you know, when I hear KPI and then you say the three actual words of it. Two of those stand out, huge is predictive is one that in, literally, you're going back through past data. And what doctor said is, I didn't collect any. Right. And, and in John's business, that's where you come in very well, and you know how to track all that data so that you have indicators to predict off of, but you have to track something at some point to be able to get that. Absolutely.
You might want to say and that works both for success and failure.
Yeah. 100% What do you mean by the failure thing?
Uh, well, if you didn't accomplish a goal, you need to look back in and figure out what what led me down that path that wasn't successful because we learn so much more by that than by the end zone dance because we want?
Well, yeah, in in the military that's called an AAR right, After Action Report or review and you go back and you look at what worked and what didn't and then that's how you improve. The thing is most sales people just want to stick your head in the sand and say, I close everybody, I talked to and you don't even know my numbers and all of these things that you know, we've all heard from other people that we've met.
Salespeople are inherently lazy. Well, first of all, everybody's inherently lazy. If either the the the organization allows it, or you personally allow it. Yeah, and and KPI, I think, or I don't think I know, it allows you to take ownership, because I have other people who collect data. So I do see bits and pieces of it that I don't even really have to do too much to get my hands on. But at the end of the day, I also see my bank account, and when it reflects poorly, man, I wish I had the data that would show me where I went wrong. Yeah, yeah, I know when I go right. I go to Vegas. Pretty simple equation.
So for me, it's more about customer satisfaction and retention, not so much the numbers. So I get have always engaged, just how are they feeling? How are they? Are they still satisfied with what I'm bringing to the table? And I'm just now getting really diligent. And it kind of reminds me of journaling, your manager, it's just keeping more of a, you know, qualifying and quantifying and making sure it's all working, boding well basically. But I agree with what you said about the failure. You also need to gauge that as well.
Yeah, because if you if you only look at the success side of it, let's say that you need a million dollars in sales a month and you win that in one job but you failed at 52 to close at 52. Right? So you got so that that to me is called lucky. You got lucky, something hit and just absolutely many got lucky but 51 those failed, right? You bid 52 jobs, 51 failed. The key indicator for me there is to focus on the 51. What did I do wrong? And what made that one so good that it won? And we got that on the books? Yeah. And how do I get back to maybe been 20? And when in two or three, or one out of 20, right, because that's a better hit ratio than the 52 and one.
Can we talk about the conversation that you and I had on the phone the other day? You were talking about the fact that, uh, before you came into your new role, you guys were pumping out tons of bids. Man, I mean, I mean, you talked about looking at the board and seeing all the bids on there. And you were just like losing your mind because they they were trying to keep someone busy, right as opposed to...
They're trying to keep an entire department busy. Yeah. And it blows my mind. So one of the things that we talked about is I literally went to the board and I just circled one. Well, I asked everybody which one of these is the is the best chance, and everybody said well, we do that one. Now that one's not good. Don't do that one. So when I hear those words like, and we shouldn't even be betting that, well, the yrt, right? That's a huge, you know, huge, mind blowing thing for me to hear is that we're bidding this but you don't even think we should, we can't even win.
Which brings up a really good point. When you focus on KPI, you get rid of the trash, right? Yeah, because you realize it helps your prospecting because you're really focusing in on what became successful and what became a failure. And sometimes it's not you. Sometimes it's a bad pick on a process.
Sometimes it's just the other data out there. That's not anything to do with you or your team. Right? But you didn't like you said you didn't prospect it right. You didn't vet it.
But you'll you'll bring the two together, right. You'll bring your process to your prospect with your KPI, and like you said, so if you start hunting 20 to get to there, there are better 20 than the fifty than you had with one.
Aim small, miss small. Yes, aim small miss small, right? Yeah, I think it's she is so big. So you know in that thing, John that you're talking about. I circled two out of the board of, you know, 15 or something that we're going to do that week. In my business, let me tell you, if you're bidding 15 jobs a week, construction jobs, there are so many drawings and so much data to pour your heart into to really get the stuff you need to get a job. And if you have 15 of those, there's not enough time in a day, if you work 24 hours a day, you couldn't get through all the data. So now you're pumping out 15 terrible...
Right, you're not going to be successful.
Bids, right. And instead you circle to and you say okay, these are the ones are going after. We have all the things but what leads you to get why those two are good is KPIs. Right? And past data.
It's clarity, right? Because when when KPI showed up in my world, before it I was the guy I had I didn't have an outlook of abundance, right? It was an outlook of limitations. And there was only so much business that I could get in the world, right. And so that meant that I needed to try to get a yes from every person I talked to. And I was essentially the annoying guy that were trying to product push on, like all my friends, because I was still B2C, right? So when I worked at at&t, I was trying to tell me, you got to come in and get a phone, you got to come in and get a phone for me, I'll take care of you and everything else. And I wore that like a badge of honor. Like I was super happy about it. And then when I started learning about KPIs, and it was just this idea of, whoa, I can shut this off. Like, I don't have to chase down everybody, because we have these numbers, right? And we're going to talk a little bit more about this, but it's kind of an experiment, right? If you don't have past data, you make some assumptions, and then you go do it for a while, right? And then if that's not working towards your goal, then you have to make adjustments right. And this is where, like, I kind of live and you know, we talked about KPIs all the time, right. I mean, that's like a key part of like everything we do, I mean from you know, the show to like how we all sell and everything else. And so I just make this assumption that everybody sells the same way and that everyone is like super focused on KPIs. And it's not true, right? I go talk to these like companies and I'm like, Okay, what kind of KPIs are you measuring? And what are you holding your people accountable to? Like a just a quota? Oh, okay. You know.
But a quota of what? Yeah. Well, it's just as, calls, closes.
No, it says it's a fulfillment, it's it's 30 million a year.
Yeah. Right. It's, like I said just a second ago, one big sale...
Blue sky. It's a 30,000 foot view. Yeah. So KPIs are what's in your furniture. What kind of furniture do you have? Yeah. How do you pick it out? Yeah, what's in your kitchen.
They're the measurable things. You need to be doing weekly, monthly and yearly to get to your goals.
But let's go a little bit slower. let's let's let's break that into smaller segments for people so that they you know, because if this is the first time you've been exposed to this, you're like, where do I start and every industry is going to be a little bit different. So everybody's KPIs gonna be different. Yeah,
Absolutely. Right. So most of my KPIs now are more about creating content and posting on social media and stuff like that, because I get a lot of clients from those from those networks. And that gets me more than cold calling and cold knocking and really even the networking, the networking used to be like a godsend whenever I was still doing websites, but now for the things that I'm doing most of the people that I network with don't have a budget to do what I do, because no one gets out of bed and they're like, hey, I need to hire a CRM consultant. Okay, yeah. And so, I have kind of scaled back on my networking and then I gotta figure out, Okay, what are the things that I'm going to do that I can hold myself accountable to so that way, I'm making sure that I'm moving towards things right. And it's like creation of content, engaging in these different platforms, talking to people and moving it over into DMs and and things like that and then getting onto a call so I, you know, kind of know my percentages and kind of work that plan.
But let's break it down a little bit more. Its objective, right? It is a specific segment of what you do. And it's measurable. Yeah. Okay. And so I mean, let's just clearly make this, obtainable. Well, okay, but that's alright. But in the beginning, you don't you know, you're trying to Okay, I started as a blank slate. What's a KPI? Sure, well, you know, what would that mean? I mean, what I go pick first.
It's something you have control over, right? Yeah. So if you're out prospecting, and you can't make someone need you, or have a budget or anything else like this, but you can count the number of conversations you're going to have, right? And then we have to know that not everyone is going to make it to the next step. And that's okay. And that's where I kind of live and that's fine. But that's what that's what you're being held to. Right?
But let me stop you there. You pointed out for you. It's the number of conversations you have, right yeah. For a business owner, it may be how many people walk through the door from this promotion? Oh sure. KPI any goal will not I don't think you can any goal right so what's a goal you you think you can't KPI what would be one that I cannot KPI. Okay, so Okay, it would be just the or it becomes more difficult if it's a second hand removal like the number of patients that come in because of other patients that are referral referrals, okay, that are unbeknownst to me other than if I can connect the dots.
Unless you've asked for a referral.
Exactly. So then you place the KPI on the number of asks you make for referrals.
Exactly. You can if you can find the link that takes you out there. But what I'm talking about the guy out there, the gal out there, that's like where do I start? But if you're a KP King like you, then yeah, you can extrapolate all that I'm talking about. Let's back this down, because we're not all let's get we're not all C's, some of us like to go out to the sunshine some. That's
That's fair. So I laid out my goals for this year right for all my different businesses and I have some personal goals as, as well. And one of my personal goals is I'm gonna get down to 200 pounds, right? I'm gonna be 40 this year, I'm 6 4. So at 200 pounds, I should be, you know, be pretty happy with that. And just in and of itself, that's a terrible goal, right? Because there's nothing to hold myself attainable to or accountable to or anything else like that. So what I've done is I've set weekly KPIs and things that I'm doing right. Clinton, I had a conversation the other day about intermittent fasting and like eating windows, so I only eat within an eight hour window. I'm doing a clean January right now. So I'm the only one up here without any alcohol in my cup, but...
I only have water in my cup.
I don't have anything in my cup.
Well, you know, you guys are slacking. Yeah, Clint does.
I just told a lie. I figured nothing, nothing. Lie? Honestly,
I've also got a count of like, of like, how much training I want to do, right? So right now my goal is that I'm going to jujitsu three times a week, right? I joined a gym last night and got up at 630 this morning to go to the gym. And so I'm gonna hold myself accountable to these things.
What about that hair, you gonna train it? What's that? What about that hair, you gonna train it? Dude, I love that hair though, man it is I get it.
I'm just happy it's there.
So you're bringing up a really good point, because right now in January, whether you're in sales or not revolution, everybody's making resolutions, right? Which which we can compare to sales goals, right? For sure. I'm gonna crush it this year bro, I want to lose weight in 2020. So what happens in February when you lose one pound because you didn't eat that day? Did you obtain your goal? And now is it over? So this is what happens with sales goals, right? We say we're going to sell more. And if you look back at January 2019, he sold $2 million. And this month, he got lucky and he sold 2.4 Are you done for the year? Because in your mind, mentally you might be. You might just say this can be a great year. I'm over. I don't do anything different. I'm winning.
So okay, great point. Right. So my birthday's in September. 9/11.
Happy birthday early, right.
My goal is to be 200 pounds by my birthday, right? So I was I was 240 at my high point right about about a month or so ago. And so I set all these goals right, I'm not going to eat, right? I'm not gonna eat starvation all the time, right? I've got some weird kind of head trash around, you know, food and in eating but no drinking, only eating within an eight hour window, not eating in the mornings, all these things being very, very deliberate about my day. And then I'm checking the scale periodically to see if I'm tracking and moving forward because you sometimes have to adjust right? I've never done this process before. So this is all kind of an experiment. So I got to be realistic with like my tracking and my data kind of sound like such a C right now, it's crazy.
So hard on for all of this.
This is just such a simplistic example of KPIs.
But I do want to interrupt you a little bit because the checking the scale thing is a, it's a good thing to talk about because if you check your scale twice a day, right and you don't see results, you mentally go to failure, right? Even though your body's adjusting, right? And this is going to happen to your sales goals as well, right? So you're going to see some failure, it's you're going to step on the scale one day in February and your sales cycle, and it's not going to be where you want it to be. But you got to give it time, right? You know that you're on the path.
You need a big enough sample size for like the data to like actually have any weight to it.
That's exactly right. You stretch it out.
Or reassess. You have to look at it and go Okay, well, that didn't work. Let's try to do...
Let me bring you another example. I drive by John's house and there's a stack of scales out on the curb, right. None of those work! These are all broken! So you actually have to maintain some sanity while you're digging into it and some honesty.
And realize what the, honesty, realize what the real problem is. It's not the scale that's broken.
So my daughter is so sad that like I've said, because part of the clean January for me is I'm not eating any fast food and no sodas, right? So my daughter,
Who loves cheesecake
She loves, man, she so this shirt was actually a gift from my daughter, right? So donuts and she loves donuts and fast food. And every Saturday morning she's like McDonald's, because I would love them a griddle and I'm like, no baby.
You're making her suffer through this as well? Man, drive her down there,
Here's the deal,
bitch and you buy her a McGriddle, and you just suck it up and get her to the house.
Right? And part of this is knowing where you're weak. Right? I know that if I hit that drive through. I mean, I'll blackout and drive through and come home with like seven items from Taco Bell.
But okay, can I can I can I reference that for a second? Of course. So a few episodes ago, Nan, you said something about a lady in her car that would not get out of the car to go meet something right? Scared to death that if she goes in there, she's going to fail. John, same thing. You go to McDonald's, drive through with your daughter. You're getting her something, not you. You're scared to death you're gonna fail. Yeah, but what a triumph it is when you take her there, and you drive through that bitch, and you walk away clean. Sure What a triumph it is. So it's okay. It's weightlifting, I'm sure.
Eventually I will get to that point to where I can do that, and I'm going to be okay, but like,
Just not this week.
You don't get out of rehab and go like that night to the bar. Like, you gotta, I mean.
But the point of it is, is that you set a goal and you stick to that goal.
Yeah, yeah, that's the most thing because we also have to know ourselves.
One fucking McGriddle, it's over for most people. Yeah, it's over. Yeah, I mean, there. Yeah, exactly. They're back to last year's routine, they back to KPIs and sales and you know, the month of January and closing it out.
So So let's talk about this, right, because let's say that someone who isn't you shows up at your company, right? And they say, Oh, my God, what happened all the bids, and then there's all this pressure. So you got to have some alignment from the top all the way down. These have got to be like clearly expressed, and they got to be on the same page. So that way, they can be like, hey, You said that this was super important that we do it this way. Right?
So, so step one in that situation is buy-in from my own self that I know that I'm about to cut seven or eight bids off this board. Right? And everybody's gonna go this fucking guy's crazy. Yeah, right. So step one is, that's what I'm doing. That's the plan. I believe in that plan. Because I either seen it successful, I think it's going to be successful. Sharing that plan. We got to get buy-in. Get buy-in from not not me, from everybody, that's, that's not me. Yeah. Right. And when they buy into that, that's the plan that we all stick. Stick to. And in the first month when it fails, you gotta say guys, you gotta give me time. Oh, yeah, time.
Okay, but let me bring up a key point. You have to be able to, in your own mind, understand your process through this KPI, right? You know, the objective nature, here's what my metric is. Right? And be able to then measure it. Yeah, track it. Right. Look back and you know, see what your data reveals, make some adjustments along the way. Sure. And explain that and have buy in from the from anybody else that's involved in that process. In your case, it's a bigger company. Yeah. Where you've got other players who may push back. Sure. So So the key thing here is, you know, be able to put this in a book, put this in a bind, write this stuff down, and then be able to have a spreadsheet it, track it, and go CRM it.
So I can, so CRM is really crucial here on proving that your KPIs work for the data at the end of the month. And whether you use some fancy program or a spreadsheet or or a notebook, it doesn't matter. You handwrite it out for all I care.
You know, I
It's harder to manipulate.
Listen, it's not efficient. I'm just saying it's better than not
Okay, so that's fair.
I will say this to if you if you get to the end of the month, right, and let's say you're in my situation, and you dumped half the bids that you normally do, but you still close the same amount of money, right? People are gonna say, I brought you here to grow. But let me tell you bidding half as much and winning the same amount of money is huge growth. Absolutely. Because it cuts your
Absolutely, becuase it cuts your overhead.
Absolutely, but, but you don't see that right? Because you see revenue, right? Somebody at the top of the spreadsheet says revenue.
And you still have the 15 estimators on the books that you might not fully need right now.
And I'll tell you a true story. The reason I do any CRM management period, because I don't like it. It's not my thing. I don't want to do it. The reason I do it is to prove on paper that I'm right. If you do it for that reason only. Yeah, it'll work.
I was interviewing for a bank job was a long time ago. And this manager, I really...
Like a heist?
Nothing that cool.
You robbed a bank? Cool story.
And this guy who was managing the bank, you know, I just got this really good vibe off him. And about halfway through, we're talking about, like, how I sell and everything. And this is before any of this stuff. And he goes, Hey, look, I got to tell you one thing, I said, Sure, what do you got? And he goes, you don't have to do it my way. But you can't do it your way and be wrong. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, damn! that's good. Like, like, like this nice little gauntlet that has been presented to me.
And most people are out there doing that. most people's direct bosses in sales are going to say, maybe not say that, but they're thinking that hey, look, you go out there and do whatever you want to do.
No, I don't think so. I think that because you're not going to let guys on your team just have free rein and keep winging it and bringing in a bunch of bids that are unqualified and doing, doing it the way they were.
But what I'm saying is most people will tell you that to your face. And of course you can do that. Oh, yes, you should go out there and do that. Yeah, accountability. Look, I'm not going to know whether you're clocked in at 10 or 830. As long as you're winning, they won't know. Right? Yeah, they just won't they don't care, you're winning. But the moment that you fail in their eyes, failure means whatever failure means, right? Because you got to be able to track what failure is. But in their eyes, if you failed in their eyes, perception 99% of reality, you failed, and they were going to tell you every step along the way of how to do this, and nine times out of 10 if they're in that spot, they probably don't know how to sell anyway. Yeah, that's why they hired you. I would hope.
Yeah, right. I would agree with that. One of the hard things about this is it. We Okay, so we all know a group of guys who work for one for one company, I'm being vague on purpose. And they all have the same KPI, right, 50 dials per week, right? And I hate this.
Glad you brought this up because I really wanted to dive into. Because, this repet if it's a repetitive scenario.
Yeah, well, because I'm all for it being repetitive, but I think it's got to be adjusted to the person. Absolutely.
Then you're hitting on it. So go,
Because if I close, you know, at 40% versus the guy who's closing it like 2% why, KPIs are way different. Yeah, right, they got to be adjusted for the individual. And they've got to be specific towards the goal that you're trying to hit too, right? Or get too sure. You know, setting a KPI just like arbitrarily without like, thinking that it's going to get you to where you want to go is a waste of time, just like setting a sales goal of just like, well, I want to make 10 more or 10% more, so let's just add 10% to the board, doesn't make any sense.
But we also have to take into consideration some people don't have the ability to adjust what the metric is that the company has imposed upon. Sure. Okay. Absolutely. But it's okay. If he get in there and and the companies screwed up with their metrics or they're screwed up with the, the, you know, the expectations from the KPI that they're pulling. But if you're going to be in that position, wouldn't you like to know? If I was going to hone down? Maybe, instead of bitching? What should the KPI be?
Yeah, lead them.
What should the metric be? So perfect example of, this is why you ask the question, why constantly?
Oh, there, all of this is built around. Why are you using this metric?
So you tell me I need to make 50 phone calls a week? Why? Right?
And I don't suggest that right off the bat, I suggest you put your work. Well, me, okay. You come in at a different level. I'm talking about the entry level guy that's out there. And he doesn't have a whole lot of pull. But if he shows up on time, if he's grinding, if he's showing initiative, and and he's likable, they'll listen to you. Yeah, right.
I was talking with someone yesterday, and he's like, Man, I'm trying to like fix all these things. And I said, Okay, you know, how are your numbers and he was like, not that good. And I said, Well, you know, do you think you have a lot of clout at this point? And he was like, What do you mean? I was like, no one wants to hear from the guy who's not killing it, right? You can't, you can't impact change if you're the guy on the bottom of the totem pole. Right? So sometimes you have to just go along with the plan and then be like, Hey, boss, that doesn't really seem like this is working out for us. Can we make some adjustments?
And sometimes, you know, for, so I'm going to speak to a probably a lot of salespeople out there that have entry level getting in, and they have this top dog salesman, right? There's this guy in this company that and a lot of companies have this that that guy could sell ice to an Eskimo, I've heard that phrase 1000 times, right? That guy's a cash back sales, but you can talk to anybody going to be one of these days, you're going to be that guy. So I've worked for a company where we've had that guy where everybody said he is the ultimate sales guy. And I've watched him fail. And I've watched him do half the half the amount that I've made, half the profit that I made, because all I do is focus on data. This works. This is what I'm doing. I'm growing my business, my side Watch him get win big lose big win big lose big lose big lose big win big, right? But he's a hero because it's all talk. It's all smokescreen. It's all that stuff. So if you're that guy out there and you have that guy and people are judging you, compared to that guy, forget about it. Yeah, leave it alone. Just keep doing it. Do your thing. And I promise you, you'll be because that guy's the traditional salesman. He is the bagel buyer for whatever city you're in. He should buy stock and doughnuts and bagels. Because that's what he does, right? Yeah. I mean, that's how I classify it. A true salesmen don't even know their name, don't care, right? They're doing their job. They're providing services to people and getting it done.
And they're, take this another step further. They're not just serving food or bringing tchotchkes they're having engaging conversations relative to the business that they're in. Their nose is pointed forward, and they're finding pain. They're finding, you know, is this a good prospect? they're they're they're they're narrowing down on the kill, right, which is the winner, and then figuring out how to reproduce that. And how what does it take to get right back to the win? Yeah, right back to the money zone.
I mean, bringing bagels is very short term.
But I can tell you, I could show you, I could count on one hand, how many receipts I have from buying bagels or donuts first customer over the years that I've been doing this on one one hand, right? That doesn't make me completely right. And I'm not telling you not to do that stuff. But I'm telling you is it doesn't matter, right? That's a smoke show. It's a smoke screen. If it helps you get in the door or in an office building.
Helps you feel better.
As a tool and you're just bringing stuff by Hey, look, I'm not doing. But people will not buy your product because you brought them Dunkin Donuts. Yeah, they just won't. And if they do, you don't want them as a customer any damn way.
That's true.
Because they go on a diet, you're screwed.
Because they're not a partnership, right?
Yeah, you can you see the CEO going Oh, John, donuts again.
Tacos! Oh, John's here, it's Taco Tuesday.
Getting in and walking in, in John's like.
And it might work, can we talk, but that's a very shallow ended sale. And where does the buck stop? does it stop at tacos? does it end of the brown bag money full of cash?
And I live in that world. Feed, feed.
You live in that world, but you don't play that world and you still are very successful.
I've got the gauntlet of people that expect to be fed. I almost want to throw it down like just
But you get to a point eventually that you do not have to do that. No. Well, I mean, I rarely do that.
You just have, you made a phone call this week, right? And he said, Just come on by. Right. There's where you want to be. Just come on by let's have a conversation. Not sure if it's fit. Come on by.
So, I'm just I'm just what I'm trying to get out I guess is bringing people donuts and drop them off with your business card on top.
It's not KPI, guys.
I mean it could be.
I spent $10,000 on doughnuts this month,
It could be
It's a bad KPI.
for the things that we do. Well, I mean, I guess if you're in donut sales, right?
Any any one of these numbers without like another number that goes along with it is just noise, right? And we're talking about this like before, before we turn on the cameras. Because, you know, not every lead is going to buy and that's okay. But you should have some sort of ballpark. Right? So if it takes me 10 leads to get to two sales. And I want one more sale, I need to go talk to on average five more people in when when you can manage your numbers and you got that clarity. I'll never forget it was it was very early on. We're working with Geof and we were talking about KPIs and everything and we laid them out. And so I had my accounts of what I needed to do for cold calls and networking and asking for coffees and things like this. And I got done on Thursday. It's like It's like I'm sitting there and like, I don't know what to do. I'm like, Alright, cool, like, let's go like more and more and more. And Geof was like, What are you doing this Well, I think I'm done. It's like you're done. I said, Yeah. And it's like, you feel good? And I said, Yeah, it's like, let's go get a beer. Yeah. And it was like, such this, like eye opening moment that we because the other part of it is you have to trust the process. Right? Because if you don't have trust in it, then it becomes problematic. And, you know.
And that process needs to be built around an algorithm, right? That says this specific action or thought, more inaction. Draw the line out, yes or no, if it fails, or it wasn't a good fit. You have two choices, jettison it because it wasn't a good fit for next year.
Learn from it.
Well, but I'm just talking about if you're just running your numbers, right, your algorithm isn't what you're trying to learn from it is the pathway that you take as you go through the process. Yeah. So you get here, you pick up the phone, not a good fit, click, make another phone call, right. That should be the other side of that algorithm. And then if it's an engaging conversation, yes, schedule an appointment if you'll just one All of that out. It takes this whole worry when I mean, we worry about it because we all stress, but it gives you a clear picture that you put in front of you every time you attempt that process. Yeah,
Yeah, I know a sales team and they do this thing where everybody has this little like bucket on their desk, and they have to make calls. And everybody has to do the same amount of calls, which I have issues with, but you know, whatever. And they have black poker chips and red poker chips. And at the end of the day, in the beginning, they don't care how many are black and how many are red, right? Black means bad fit. Red means, you know, got an appointment, right? They just want you to have the 20 things or the 20 chips in the bucket. Right? And so when we're talking about things like going for the no and not being attached to the yes and making sure that you're qualifying and not chasing bad business, those things become super important.
Until, until there's a measurable time whether it's in maybe in your company, it's one month or six months, that that bucket is entirely filled black chips.
Well, at that point it becomes a coaching issue, right?
Well, maybe or maybe your KPIs aren't correct and you have to adjust and all that and all those black chips are the data that you have to have on why they're all black and one of them is not red.
Yeah. And we adjusted this week because we met three goals and Al was like, Okay slow down now because it's not going to bode well if you get all three. So you are constantly even
Because we can't service everything potentially sitting there so we then have to understand that the we're going to lose by not being able to service.
So if you aren't keeping track of what your success and your failures then and you have success even you can overload and screw up on
Your back of the house has got to be able to fulfill.
Exactly that but but that's where the back of the house and the front of the house. So yeah, welcome to you know the business it's our size. If you're just a frontline guy in your company can service everything that you can put on the plate, man That's real narrow, real specific. And if you can live in that environment, go kill it. Just you once you get, you know, you open Pandora's box and you figure how to get that key in there and pop it open, go, go, go, go go and buy the jet airplane. I'll love you for it.
Well, even when I was in pharmaceuticals though, I could get 10 offices in one week writing well, and I couldn't go the next week and get 10 offices doing the same I had to maintain just like that right now I have I have certain accounts. And you have so you have to have those guidelines. You have to know that the
But you're the service side, not your sales, service and fulfillment. Right.
Right. But I think I think retaining business is part of your caveat KPI as well. So you have to be really careful with, no?
Well, it depends on the industry because I bought a I bought a an appliance years ago from a major department store, to the refrigerator. And they just want to sell refrigerators, but if the frigerator gets out there and it's broken or it's damaged or you know it's like that's not on the sales guy he doesn't care. yeah Now Sears cares, whoop, did I say, they're out of business.
You're fine, you're okay. I don't think they're fully out of business, but they're close.
Now they might care.
So when I call down I can't find a sales guy at that point but it didn't matter because that's not part of where he was plugged into.
There's a big difference between like a relationship sale in the in the salesperson has got to be part of like ongoing service everything else, in a transactional thing.
Yes. And that's all I'm pointing out everybody's going to be in a little bit of a different scenario and and so modify what we're talking about to fit that. Don't say this doesn't work because it does is it's it's it's out there utilize it.
Yeah. And and I do want to point out in you guys can correct me if I'm wrong cuz I know you will. The KPIs are literally what it says, it's it's indicators right? It's not it's not goals. They're, they're indications that you need goals or to change goals and better your goals are back things off, turn things on, right they're indicators. And that helps you get to a goal. And I just happened to be listening to, I think Bill Burr, yesterday comic, stand up comic, if you guys ever heard of, one of my favorite, right? So he was talking about sometimes when he does private shows, he gauges what he says by laughter. Right indicators, right? Very, very good indicators as I in the now in the moment. And I was thinking why he said that, hey, I said this joke about bread. And they didn't laugh. So don't mention bread again. Right? So what I was thinking about is I've been in a lot of meetings, right? Where I get a lot of indicators, body language, tonality, hand gestures, movements, close the book type stuff. And it's like, you have to realize those right because the KPIs that we're all talking about now are 6 month progressions to see what the results are. But sometimes they're in the meeting that you're in currently. Right? And you got to pick up on those indicators that say, Oh shit. I said something, I did something or I said that good. And they're interested and I got to keep rolling with that stuff. So KPIs can be short term too.
Well, I well, of course they are. The short term goal is how do I get to a sales conversation? I mean, that's the shortest, the KPI curve. So
I'm, I'm probably way too involved with KPIs, you know, because my girlfriend who works on my team, we were kind of actually going over her KPIs for this week. And I said, hey, look here, because it's a new year. Here's my expectation of like, what you're doing each week, this and this and this and this and this
Look at you big dog, tell her how it's done.
It's not that, it's just, you know, I don't have time to look over her shoulder.
When does she clean the kitchen?
Well, because here's the thing, right? We both work out of the house. And so when when you work out of the house, it's super easy to be like, I need to go for the laundry or I'm gonna, you know,
Do the laundry? What does that really mean?
Oh come on guys. But your
It's alright, I did it myself.
Your actions express your intent, right? So if you don't have clarity about 'I got to do these things before I can allow myself to do anything else,' then you have competing priorities.
Right? But it comes down to discipline though. I mean, because this is not emotional. You don't you don't have to get excited about it. You just have to do it. And then you have to be proficient in it. And then you know, you can get emotional about wins and you can get emotional about losses you can you can get excited or you can cry.
See, I get I get less excited about the wins and the losses because I because I have this.
Oh, see, I love the wins and I hate the losses.
Because for me, hate the losses. It's just data. Right? Cool. You're you're one of the eight I'm not coming close this week. Fine.
Okay, but the black chip, I just want to I just want to destroy black chips. I want all red chips. And all I want to see is red.
Sure which which I want to see that but I don't have any attachment to that.
So I know. it doesn't it doesn't
It doesn't, it doesn't make me upset. Sorry. Sorry to cut you off.
Well, no, but I know, I know doc. That's what, that's what he wants to see. And I know you don't do this. I'm gonna speak me personally. But a lot of people pile up the red chips, right? They just put the winds out in front of them. And
oh, it's like my aunt who goes to Vegas, she never loses, ever. Right? Right. She only remembers what she wants.
Sweep the black chips under the rug and you forget, well I'm winning, I have red chips, I'm winning.
You can't be a liar guys a lot to yourself. At least it doesn't it doesn't help you know, I will because you're just pulling the wool over your eyes. And what you want is the exposure to the truth of where you are on the on the sales ladder where you on your proficiency proficiency.
I mean, you know, poker chips isn't a bad analogy. If you play poker for, you know, you start out with 50 grand and you play 50 hands and you lose every one and you go all in on the last one and you happen to make your, you know, your your money back. doesn't make you a winner, makes you a really good bluffer that got lucky. Well, right. But a lot of people sales people live in this world.
Well, and that's, that's my biggest struggle, right? Because they don't want the oversight because they want to, like live in this realm of hope. Hey, boss he's gonna close any day now. Right? We just got to give him a little bit more time. And
Hope's the bitch that left the building man.
Well, the thing about poker is that there's a there's a thing of variance. Sure, right, that pops up and that happens with KPIs as well.
And so and some people lose hands that they should have never lost based on statistics.
Yeah, you can be 95% to win and still lose.
And guess what, it happens. ,
yeah. And you move the fuck on?
Yeah, I mean, the dealer draws into six card 21 against your 20 you're like, No way.
No way. I'm gonna lose it. But you do? It goes what, it goes in the record books and you move the fuck on.
If there's a chance to win, there's there's a chance to lose right, there's the other side of the coin.
Right up til they sign on the line, which is dotted.
In all reality, especially in like a blackjack. It's literally a 50/50 game. It just is, you can count the
Is blackjack 50/50?
Yes, you either win or you lose.
Well, it's 5050 on that particular hand, but oh,
I knew a poker player that that played that way he was
Just under 5% in the house. That's all they need. In some cases, it's closer to three.
I'm just saying in poker, you're playing one deck, you're playing some odds, playing other people's hands and tells and gestures. It's not a 50/50 game. blackjack is a little more shit. It's five decks, four decks. Yeah, I'm playing what it is, right? So the whole point that to me is though, is that you? You trust the statistics, and you play each poker hand that your data tells you you can or can't win and you play the winning hands? Yeah, sometimes you're going to bluff some shit. And you're going to probably lose on it. But don't get discouraged on it right? But But let me tell you if you win big on one out of 50 Hands and you beat, what's a famous poker players? Johnny Cho? Johnny Chan? Yeah, Chan, there you go. So you beat that guy one hand, right? But he's beat your 50 in a row, does not make you a winner and get that shit out of your head. Oh, for sure. Focus on the 52 that you lost?
Well, so the thing about poker is that there's a lot of overlap with sales, in my opinion, because you can do things wrong and back into a win, right? You cannot track this guy. You cannot hold him accountable. You cannot set your frames, you know? And then he just happens to say yes. And then you're like, I'm the greatest guy ever. Right? You can play seven Deuce and win and crack aces and you're like, man, I am so good. No you got really lucky. Do it again. Yeah, right and go to 100 more times and let's see how many times it turns out in their favor.
That's a really good point, though. Is is Do it again. Right. So when you have a win, go do it again. Yeah, and if it does...
Follow the same process, the same metrics, same same KPI.
And I and I will say this every time I leave a job interview not not for like a position, but an actual project interview right with a general contractor.
I was about to say, is it that bad?
No, that's what we, you know, we call them we call them in the biz. I just thought it'd be funny. But you know, if if you say it every time I leave an interview is that shit? I didn't follow the same tempo or pace that we did last time. And we won this one and not that one. And my metric in my head is screwed up, because I don't know what I did to win this one. But it's on paper. That's exactly right. So you go back and you after action reports are huge, right? Yeah. Somebody said this. He did that I did that. We talked about this. Yep. Those are really important. Because if you don't write that shit down, you don't know what worked.
And from a DISC perspective, right? I'm the only guy here at this table, right? And C's are the only people who really want to go dig into that data, arguably. So much so that it keeps them from doing the behaviors that are Super necessary to go out and close business.
You preemptively do it, naturally. I proactively do it naturally. So when I fail, I want to know why. Right? So you're not the only one and S's tend to be a little more that way as well.
But I'm seeking it out.
I's are usually more fly by the seat of your pants.
Yeah, but it still pisses me off to lose, and I will sit, I won't harbor it.
The difference is, Al's gonna hire somebody to find out why.
Shouldn't you hire everybody for everything then? There you go.
Michael Jordan had like seven coaches. Yeah. You don't need one? Yeah, I mean, because that's what a consultant is really, you know, outside eyes and fresh eyes and a fresh point of view.
Can you do it in two minutes? If not, delegate, if not, schedule,
Man, when you said this the other day, I was like, this is it. This is just blowing smoke, right? Like, like anything, but he's been sticking to this, right. I mean, every time we've hung out recently,
Anything under three minutes, do it. Anything then delegate and if you can't delegate it, schedule it.
And this is only pertaining to business not
I do my laundry that way too. My personal laundry.
He's gonna be stepping in for me because I can't do it in under two minutes.
Whoa, we are so off the rails. How do you how do you track those numbers? Let's get back on track. Okay, so what else do we have on KPIs, right because we were talking before this and, you know, because it's also a little bit like goal setting, right, which we've talked about in the past, but you know, Al was talking about SMART goals.
But your goal is, okay, out here. Yeah, right. 30,000 foot view. And the KPI is the indicator that tells you that you're going in the right direction. And allows you to bail on, you know, you know, once you get accustomed to the, you know what your KPI tells you, your process should be in the algorithms in place if you get to a no, okay, next, you just go back to the start and, you know, moving forward like you did before.
I was I was working with a team recently and we were setting up your CRM and and I was talking about how long do you think it should take for you to close a deal? And this guy was a D, and didn't have any patience for me, did not want me there at all. And he goes, man, if it takes longer than two weeks, screw it, I'm out. And I was like, Okay, how big is your or what is your average client bring in and he said, you know, about $2500. And I said, Okay, you're telling me that if someone is potentially looking at doing a $10,000 deal, you're not going to be willing to spend a little bit more time with him. And he goes, Well, yeah, of course. And I was like, Okay, well, shouldn't there be like some process and some guidelines around like These different levels so that we have some clarity around how much time you should be spending with these different levels of clients. And at that point, his his, his eyes kind of went on and was like,
Oh, he kind of bought into what you were talking about. I like that.
Yeah. Very good.
because, you know, the same thing with like referrals versus like, cold, cold prospects, right, the process has to shift a little bit because the referrals going to come in, there's already some, like, rapport and there's some trust, you know, and everything else, the cold is going to take longer, right. And if you're gonna sell a million dollar deal, versus like a like $100 deal, there's got to be some adjustment for the size of the deal. Now, you can't hunt elephants all the time because you'll go hungry, right and won't close anything. So you need you need deer and antelope and other various sized animals. Clint's shrugging.
Unless you're a badass elephant hunter.
Full time.
When you're, when you're when you're hunting with a tank in Africa, you're probably pretty good.
Alright, so let's get to the throwdown. Alright, so KPIs, goal setting, 2020. You know, any, anything in this realm? Let's kind of go around the table and talk to our specific teams. Clint, what do you got?
I mean, I gotta kind of got a recap on what KPI really is because I think it it gets confused. If you know a KPI is because you've been through some training, you're going to instantly think goals and setting goals. And you're going to get you're going to get a little clouded here. If you're brand new to this. So what I would tell you is that a goal to me a long term goal is I'm going to sell more this year. My short term goal is that by doing to sell more in the year, I'm going to sell this much a month, right. And what KPIs to me means is that you're looking at all the leading and lagging indicators in your data to get you to some more that month in that short term goal right? End result to get to your long term goal. So indicators, like you really got to look at what the word means, it's indicators, it's things in your data pool that you've tracked, that you're keeping a hold of, that you analyze, to say, this is how I move forward tomorrow. And you adjust that stuff the next day and the next day until you have a good process. And you move forward with that. And as your market changes, and as your sales changes or grows, you have to adjust and those indicators and all of your data tell you what to do.
That was maybe the most C statement or C thing that you've ever said. I'm so happy right now, I have one tear. Right, my boy! Al, what do you got for the I's?
I'll make it simple. It's got to be smart. It's got to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound, end of story, drop the mic.
Oh damn, go ahead Nannette, follow that up.
Good for me. You never know you're winning if you don't identify how you loss so I think it's really important to
She followed it.
Oh god there's so much pressure now.
As he says in a high voice.
Watcha got, donut boy?
Time to make the donuts. For C's, it's like sale, okay so when you come out as a C right are you are you find out that you're a C, you're realizing
Like you're gay? Wow. Nothing against being gay.
When you step through the curtain and you find out you're a C.
We're sorry John.
When you when you realize you're a C and you realize that because of everybody else and that you sell differently than they do, for me, it, pairing that with KPIs made my life a ton easier, right? I didn't have to be the guy who needed to inject himself into every conversation. I didn't need to be the guy who tried to get to yes with every person, right? So it allowed me to go for the no and allowed me this opportunity to fail, which is hard for C's, right? If I'm bluffing, and a poker hand, even though like I'm thinking like, 80% of the time, he's gonna fold any calls with the with the other 20 calls, I have this moment of like, Oh, God, I shouldn't have done that. Right, the numbers were still the same, you have to trust in the process. And so what it did, was pairing that with a process that it's repeatable, that is, is also approachable, right? This is not the easiest thing for C's to do. Right? I mean, when you're when you're a partner and an accounting firm, right, and you met an accountant your whole life and now you're a partner, you have to go generate business that is terrifying. So KPIs give you clarity around the things that you're trying to do. And it also allows you to like turn it off, so you don't have to do it all the time. That's I would say. Awesome.
Fantastic. Good job.
All right, first show 2020. Yeah, or first recorded show anyway.
So, clarity, this year is clarity.
Absolutely. So if you know someone who is struggling or isn't, you know, following a process or doesn't know who they like are or what team they're on, share this with them. It doesn't need to be any harder than it already is. If you're watching us on YouTube, thank you very much. And we will be back next week with. Oh, man, here we go. I got a little nugget,
I got a little nugget. A little nugget? Yeah. Because, you know, one of the one of the biggest challenges with changing the way we all sell the way we do this stuff. We're trying to break the traditional sales cycle, right? One of the ways that I do that, personally, is I, I literally tell the people I'm selling to why I'm doing what I'm doing and my format. Right, so I'm changing the script. I look, here's how I do business. You're either on my page or you're not right. So I will tell you that you can tell your customers that but some this might be an easy nugget. Tell them to go listen to this show, and maybe they'll pick up on some nuances that we're talking about. So that makes your job easier as a salesperson, right? Yeah. So they understand what we're talking about when you bring those questions to light, use us as a third party tool. Sure, right. Maybe maybe that might work for you. Okay, hurt can't hurt you for sure.
Right. So, if you're listening, please share. If you are listening on iTunes, please leave a review and a rating we read every one of them good, bad otherwise, and that's how we improve. So you know, we got some KPIs around some reviews. So go leave them. Like it. All right. Thanks, everybody.