Checklists: Part 2
As a sales professional who’s looking to be successful, make a lot of money and have longevity in your field, it’s imperative that you familiarize yourself with the different types of checklists and find all the ways you can to integrate them into your work life. I see so many sales professionals burn out quickly due to their inability to stay organized. These are smart people with advanced degrees who have trouble focusing and prioritizing. Don’t let this become you! Sales can be an extremely rewarding and lucrative career if instead of getting flustered, you take the time to get it together.
But if you’re here, you probably know how important checklists are, especially if you’ve read Part One of this series. (If not, go ahead and do that now, I’ll wait ;) )
Welcome back! This week is my take on checklists and how I’ve used them to have success at work.
I’ve been a salesman for twelve years now and have held several different sales positions during that time. Currently, I’m an account manager at Cisco and was the number one member of my team last year. This year, I’m set to be top 10% of salespeople for Cisco worldwide. I don’t say this to brag (although I am proud of the work I do) but to help you understand where I’m coming from.
Each Monday our team begins the week with a “Commit Call”. Every account manager says aloud their projected sales for the week. We forecast our low and high end and commit to have that revenue processed for the company by end of day Friday. I’ll typically commit a low end of $200k with two deals set to close by the end of the week and a high end of $400k with a couple more clients I’m not 100% sure if they’ll sign on the dotted line before Friday.
I tell you these numbers again, not to brag, but to give perspective. These numbers themselves sound big but the deals aren’t complicated. The reason I can now predict my weekly numbers with such accuracy is, you guessed it, because of my checklists!
Don’t Settle for What You’re Given
When I started at Cisco, my numbers were a far cry from where they are now. I spent several weeks messing it up in that weekly meeting, projecting numbers I couldn’t fulfill, or not understanding why clients didn’t follow through when I predicted they would. This frustrated me, and I knew I needed to get organized.
I had been flim-flamming around with a general checklist Cisco provides for its sales professionals, but it wasn’t working at the level I wanted to achieve. Sure, it probably worked for a lot of people before me, but I realized that I needed something different to succeed. Instead of resigning myself to what I call “learned helplessness”, I decided to make that checklist work for me by tailoring it to my needs.
This was my take away and I hope it can be yours too -- don’t settle for mediocre. We live in a world now with so many tools at our fingertips that there is literally no limit to what you can achieve. As a sales professional, or in any other career. If your workplace doesn’t have a checklist in place for you to follow, create one! If the tools you’re given are too general and not right for you, adjust them and make them work for you!
There isn’t a perfect checklist -- we all have different ways we learn and receive information. Like I said, the basic checklist I was handed didn’t work for me so I made my own. I’m a classic “splitter” and like to include as much detail as possible.
But it’s sometimes difficult to find a place to start, I get it, especially if you don’t have a good mentor yet, or a standard checklist to work from. So I’m gonna help you out. (You’re welcome ;))
Below you’ll find the checklist I use for every deal I make. It’s been tweaked and refined throughout the years and I’m sure I’ll fiddle with it a bit more in the future when it no longer works for me. I give it to you as a starting point, as a gift and an encouragement to you to focus up, work hard, and exceed the projected numbers of your wildest dreams. You got this!
Good luck - and definitely let me know how it goes!
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As a sales professional who’s looking to be successful, make a lot of money and have longevity in your field, it’s imperative that you familiarize yourself with the different types of checklists and find all the ways you can to integrate them into your work life. I see so many sales professionals burn out quickly due to their inability to stay organized.