Years ago when my son was part of the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) tour, I tried not to miss one of those tournaments when it was anywhere near the Dallas / Fort Worth area. I even saw a few when it was out of state, like California, Illinois and Oklahoma. Ever since I started my son in competitive golf when he was 8 years old, I was vigilant in teaching him the importance of keeping score. Not just the per hole score, but recording the shot results that made up that score fast cash, i.e. location of missed and made fairway drives, greens hit / missed and location, sand play and of course the number of putts.
Golfers have a remarkable memory of everything that took place during a round, but typically don’t write it down or create a record that can be used for a lesson from the coach. Remember the old adage: ‘the numbers don’t lie?’It is the same for your business, whether you are a solopreneur, manage a team or are responsible for the whole organization. Tracking wins and loses is not good enough in sales or any performance area of the business for that matter. A methodical, yet meaningful tracking of results can reveal important areas of needed improvement as well as successes that need to be replicated.
Allow me to offer these scoring components that track to winning:
A. Determine the 3 most imperative performance factors to be recorded, including frequency or other relevant stats.
B. Determine targeted results for each factor.
C. Immediately at the conclusion of a meaningful period, i.e. daily, weekly, etc. do a comparative analysis e.g. target vs. actual.
Like the word discipline, we reel at the thought of routine, but that is exactly what is required. Do you think that a champion like Phil Mickelson just goes about his practice [let alone his play in a tournament], just willy-nilly, hitting bucket after bucket of balls, hoping to improve? Not only does he record his performance against established objectives, points A and B, but practice is made up of a written out routine, the results of point C, above.
Let’s look at a real world example related to sales; customer relationship and communication.
a. The performance factors may be…
1. existing customer phone calls (non-sales / relationship building)
2. provide content value to established prospects (non-sales / relationship building)
3. search and contact non-established prospects
b. The targeted results may be…
1. daily – 10 contacts
2. weekly – issue 5 connections
3. weekly – 15 contacts
c. Target vs. Actual comparative, determining what daily / weekly activity must be altered to attain targeted objective shortfall, and / or determine successful activity that must replicated and so on.
This all may look rudimentary, but it is usually the fundamentals for winning that are set aside. How many of us have said, “Oh yeah, I used to do that.” So, if you do not have a meaningful tacking method, this is a place to start. Begin here and then add, subtract and refine the detail of the factors that track to winning.