When I was growing up, there was a series of video tapes to help students improve their grades called Where There’s a Will, There’s an A. I don’t remember much about the series, but I remember it was pretty helpful. One habit that I started because of these tapes and that I still utilize is the concept of retaining information when it’s fresh. In other words, study and do your homework right after class. The content is fresh in your mind, your notes make sense, and you save a ton of time because you don’t have to recall all the info – its right there.
I don’t remember the stats, but it goes something like this:
After an hour of a meeting you lose 10% of the information.
After 24 hours, you lose 30% of the information.
After a week, you lose 75% of the information.
Again, my numbers are probably wrong, but hopefully you get the concept.
What does this have to do with selling electronic security systems? Well, that brings us to our idea for this Tuesday…
Idea for this Tuesday: Schedule a 15 minute debriefing meeting immediately following every sales call. Seriously, add it to your calendar. Most of the time, that meeting will simply be with yourself, organizing your notes and taking action on the immediate items. Other times, this meeting might be with someone else like your boss or a sales engineer. In this case, challenge yourself to make sure you heard the same things they did.
This might be an added 15 minutes to your sales calls, but imagine how much time you could save later? How many times have you followed up on a sales call a few days later? If you find your notes, can you understand your writing? Regardless of how great your notes and photos are, can you configure the best quote with the information you have now, long after the meeting?
Try this technique for three weeks and see how much better you are and how much time you save.
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