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In sales businesses, especially in direct sales, it cannot be overstated that the volume axiom is crucial. You need a lot of volume in everything in order to improve your sales performance.

This means that we need to manage expectations regarding what needs to happen in order to make a sale. These specific steps must occur in order to achieve a sale. If these steps are not taken, it indicates that not enough effort has been made to reach a sale..

If you did not have any no-shows or cancelled appointments in a week, you probably did not book enough appointments. This is all part of the funnel and the process of winning.

No one can close 100% of their deals. In fact, most people likely only close about 50%. Everyone experiences no-shows, rescheduled appointments, and cancelled appointments. Additionally, everyone conducts online research. This is not a new phenomenon.

<aside> <img src="/icons/thought-dialogue_blue.svg" alt="/icons/thought-dialogue_blue.svg" width="40px" /> So why am I sharing this? It's important to understand the process of what it takes to make a sale. This way, you can have realistic expectations and avoid frustration and disappointment.

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It's easy to get frustrated with no-shows, cancellations, and rescheduled appointments. However, understanding that this is all normal and part of the process at a certain average pace can help you adjust your attitude.

This diagram shows the number of answered phone calls as the large outside circle. The smaller inside circle represents bookings, while the even smaller circle depicts presentations. Finally, the very small circle represents the number of sales.

You need to go through all other elements of the process before reaching the sales.

If you reduce size of any of the outer circles you immediately reduce the sales circle.

<aside> <img src="/icons/kind_purple.svg" alt="/icons/kind_purple.svg" width="40px" /> Expanding any of the outer circles will also expand the blue sales circle at the bottom. It's a simple scaling process, its correlated and predictable.

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This example is similar to the previous one, but with different call and booking volumes. As you can see, the funnel at the top is very wide, but it narrows down towards the bottom. Although the number of sales is lower, you still need to go through all the earlier stages in order to reach that point. Therefore, the funnel is widest at the top and narrowest at the bottom.

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Do you like freshly squeezed orange juice? If you want a full glass, you'll need a large orange. A small orange can only produce so much juice.

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Many sales representatives are trying to get as much out of a small orange as possible. They are crushing it in every way they can, but the orange can only produce so much juice. Continuously crushing the orange when the juice is gone becomes exhausting.

A simple solution? Get a larger orange. It's just science.

Producing more leads can result in more units, but keep in mind that 60 leads per month can only generate a limited number of units. To increase production, maintain a consistent effort and increase your appointment activity.

<aside> <img src="/icons/kind_purple.svg" alt="/icons/kind_purple.svg" width="40px" /> During the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, I analyzed the top ten representatives and determined their average number of units written per lead purchased. The resulting average was 1.143 new units for every lead purchased.

So it follows, if effort is a constant and you increase the number of bookings based on leads purchased, you will have more units, and the new revenue covers the added cost easily.

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<aside> <img src="/icons/briefcase_blue.svg" alt="/icons/briefcase_blue.svg" width="40px" /> The fewer the leads you have the higher your stress, the less pleasant your calling, and overall enjoyment declines.

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<aside> <img src="/icons/activity_blue.svg" alt="/icons/activity_blue.svg" width="40px" /> The more leads you buy + increased appointments(activity), your stress is lower, and your enjoyment higher, plus you make more $$$.

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<aside> <img src="/icons/palm-tree_blue.svg" alt="/icons/palm-tree_blue.svg" width="40px" /> If you buy more leads, but do not increase your bookings, you have increased your costs but have an easier path to your fixed goal, which means you're enjoying your calling more, however it comes at a small price.

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A fixed schedule and consistent execution are vital to career success. Why? Because you never know which week or which day will be a good one. You cannot pin your hopes to a particular sale, appointment, or signing. Instead, you need to focus on volume, and the only way to ensure success is to be consistent in executing critical activities.

If you skip a day on the phones that you were supposed to do, all you do is build some pressure into your system. If you skip a second day on the phone you build even more pressure into the system.

How can you know if the day you skipped would have been a good day on the phone? The truth is, you will never know, because you skipped it. As the week goes by, your options become fewer and fewer, causing your stress to grow.

Do the right thing, set your schedule, and execute without fail. Increase the number of leads you buy and book more appointments. These actions will strengthen your business and increase your enjoyment.

The Book 9, See 5 Formula

The "book 9 everything should be fine" formula is simple: book 9 appointments, expect 2 cancellations and maybe 2 no-shows, and hope to see 5 people. If you close 50%, you will hit the target perfectly.

Even if you get to see four and close 50% you're still hitting the target very well.

But here is the powerful math behind this.

Table 1

Table 1

Appointments Booked

% of Decline in Probability of A Good week

on average everything should be fine

11% less chance of a good week

22% less chance of a good week

33% less chance of a good week

44% less chance of a good week

55% less chance of a good week

66% less chance of a good week

77% less chance of a good week

88% less chance of a good week

There are no rows in this table

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If you book 4-5 appointments, you have around a 50% chance of a good week, the odds are not high.

The 7-10 bookings are essential to have a good week. Mess with it to your own risk. We have decades of experience with this.

In fact, in the zoom mirror, you might even suggest that 15 appointments a week would be a better marker, which means you need a higher volume of lead in order to have minimal stress and maximum output.

Every time you skip a day of tele-marketing, you build pressure into your week. The same goes for when you stop booking appointments at five, for example. People often fail to understand this, and as a result, they experience negative outcomes and feel anxious. This can lead to resentment towards the business, but in reality, it's not the business that they don't like, it's themselves, and they simply blame it on the business because it's easier.

Before the pandemic, our cancellation rate due to no-shows was around 20%. In the current video era, the rate has increased to about 30% to 40%. This means that if you schedule nine appointments, you can expect to lose four due to no-shows. If you are able to see four to five people per week, and you have good sales skills, you can still be successful in this business.

The anchor is hitting nine or 10 appointments every single week, that is the crucial factor. In order to do that you have to have more leads, otherwise your are constantly building pressure into your schedule and you are expecting something that will be difficult to come forward because you're bypassing the process.

<aside> <img src="/icons/kind_purple.svg" alt="/icons/kind_purple.svg" width="40px" /> Predictability and scalability are two of the most important elements in the contest based sales model. The low context lead means low trust, and the only way to overcome that is not precision selling is predominantly through volume and improving your skill and talent but it's heavily based in volume. However, the cycle is extremely chaotic. It's important that you be predictable meaning, extremely predictable. Meaning that you have very office hours and you treat us like a job and you have morning routines and office hours and you keep those hours no matter what.

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Two Foundations to Direct Selling.mp3⁠

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Fewer Leads - Reduce Costs - Increase Enjoyment

The only way to reduce the volume of leads (and your costs) is to actually generate more referrals. Referrals have a much better context, which means trust becomes less of a question in the sales equation, and as a result, this speeds up the sales process. The conversation rate explodes.

Referrals can help reduce the number of leads you need, lower your costs, and increase your overall enjoyment in the business. Once you have mastered sales competencies such as effective closing techniques, referrals become even more valuable.

Acquiring referrals is not necessarily easy, but it is definitely worthwhile. By combining our baby name model with referrals and database optimization, you can achieve the perfect triangle of success in our business.