Yeah, we all remember the commercial where the little boy asks the turtle, “How many licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll Tootsie Pop?”  The turtle says “I don’t know; I never made it without biting.  Ask Mr. Owl.”  The little boy finds Mr. Owl to ask the same question.  Mr. Owl grabs the Tootsie Pop and says one….two…three”, and then does a huge “CHOMP!”  “Three.”  Then the narrator finishes the commercial with, “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?  The world may never know.”

When you are building your business, in the back of your mind you may be wondering the following questions:
1.    How many cold calls will I have to do?
2.    How many presentations will I have to do?
3.    How long will I have to drudge through my business and continually fight to pick up new customers?   (“The world may never know.”)

You can never really predict where your sales will come from. But, if you do enough work, the sales will be there.
The only thing you can control is your activity.  Start by setting up a daily tracking system based on your goals to see what you need to accomplish for the day.  With growing my company, Easy Giving, I spend almost all of my time HELPing out new customers.  I have a personal goal of getting 20 points a day.  These are how my activities are weighted.

• Prospecting / Cold Calling = 1 point
• Following up with a customer = 1 point
• Networking Event = 1 point per real business contact
• Making an appointment = 2points
• One on One with a Referral Partner = 2points with a referral
• Sales Presentations = 3points
• Getting an Order from a new customer = 4 points

This point system will help keep you focused on the most important aspects of your business.  If an activity does not fall into these above categories, then do not put much time into it.  If you spend too much time doing something else, then you will be distracted from hitting your sales objective.  Try to hit every category daily with 10 points a day in prospecting.  Remember, cold calling forces you to continue to
build your customer pipeline and do activities which will keep your business growing to be successful at the end of the year.

This point system works because it inherently tells you what activity you need to be doing at any given moment.  If you do not have any appointments for presentations or new customer sales then you need to make phone calls to make appointments.  If you can’t make any phone calls for appointments when you need to get referrals or start cold calling to fill up your prospect pipeline.  It is very simple.   The point system lets you know where you need to spend your time most effectively.

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About the author:

Christopher Morrissette has been a top sales producer, with a Fortune 500 Sales Company, for 6 years of his 7 year career; regionally and nationally. Christopher has been crushing sales targets repeatedly before launching his first company, Easy Giving, and now his new company For Free and For Fun. Now, Chris teaches sales people of all industries how to ask for the appointment and get it!  You gotta’ love this stuff!
To order the book Chris wrote called ‘For Free and For Fun – How to Ask for the Appointment and Get It,’ get yourself over to http://tinyurl.com/d6d3ky (AMAZON)
For a FREE Expansion CD set of the book For Free and For Fun – How to Ask for the Appointment and Get It please visit www.forfreeandforfun.com.
Please feel free to copy this article and use this anywhere where you see fit provided you include this About the Author section.
Christopher Morrissette
For Free and For Fun
More Fun… More Success!
www.forfreeandforfun.com
866-280-4973