In one of my favorite books, Atomic Habits, James Clear writes “You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Go ahead and read that again, out loud, and let it sink in. It might just change your life.
Systems and processes have the power to supercharge your sales activities and skyrocket your potential. You just have to put them in place.
Don’t worry, today I’m going to share how to build systems around your daily sales tasks. From cold calling to follow-up to cleaning up your CRM, and more.
If you pay attention and put this into practice, I can almost guarantee you’ll boost your productivity by 25-50%. And if you really dial-in your systems — and follow them — then your productivity percentage will shoot through the roof.
But keep in mind this is one of those “simple but not easy” strategies. It’s simple to get it going, but it’s not easy to stick to it over time. The thing is, if you don’t adopt winning sales systems, you’ll be getting more of the same mediocre results. And isn’t it time to see what you’re made of?
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A Systems Mindset
Now, I really need you to adopt a systems mindset. That’s the one thing I want you to walk away with today. It’s one thing to put a few systems in place, but it’s another thing to always be thinking about how to systematize your work and life.
Let’s say you take over a new territory. Don’t just jump into the CRM and start making calls at random. Instead, put a system in place that will drive maximum results. It starts with a strategy session — what are your biggest points of leverage (think 80/20 rule) that will generate the greatest results? Write these down.
Picking up the phones is always at the top of the list, sure. But what about lead nurturing? What about follow-ups? What about lead list or CRM organization? You can’t let these fall through the cracks.
Adopt a systems mindset — a mindset that defaults to creating effective and efficient systems — and then stick to the systems — and you’ll easily take over your sales team, and potentially your organization as a whole and maybe even your industry. It’s practically one of those unchanging laws of nature.
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Order of Operations in Sales
The key to systems is a little something called “order of operations.” You can find order of operations in everything from High School Algebra (remember PEMDAS?) to personal financial planning, to keeping an airplane in flight.
For instance, if you want to invest money, you first save a little emergency-fund, then you contribute up to your employer match in your 401k, then you pay off high-interest debt, then you max out your Roth IRA and HSA, then you max out your retirement, then you pay off high-interest debt, then you start hyper accumulation. (Source)
Of course, I’m not a certified financial expert, and this is not investing advice, but my point is that there’s a SYSTEM to follow when it comes to building wealth. Just like there’s a system to follow to maximize your returns on your daily sales activities. Remember, you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems!
You can systematize your day, which might look something like:
- Arrive at the office at 7:30am and get the blood flowing
- At 7:45am begin making calls to C-Level Executives (the golden hour for the C-Suite).
- At 10am begin working on your winning follow-up strategy
- From 11am-12pm build and organize lists
- From 1-4pm more cold calling
- From 4-5pm send proposals
And you can systemize individual sales activities, which can look like this for cold calling:
- Flip the switch to a winning mindset
- Open your lead list and/or CRM
- Stand up for a 20-second power pose, move to get blood flowing (as Tony Robbins says, “motion creates emotion”)
- Start your power-dialer, aiming for 50 calls in the session
- Every 10 calls stand up and do a power pose (who cares if it looks silly)
- Enter notes into a spreadsheet as you go, so as not to get distracted by optimizing your CRM
- Stop exactly at 50 calls, even if you feel like doing more (I know this is counterintuitive, but remember it’s a SYSTEM!)
Why Systems Will Make or Break Your Sales Success
I’ll take a mediocre salesperson with systems in place over a talented salesperson with no systems in place… any day of the week. Here’s the true impact of proven and repeatable sales systems:
- Systems scale — if you’re a sales leader, you can use systems to onboard and train your salespeople, and you can use systems to scale to the moon. With systems, you can go from making 500 calls in a week to 5,000.
- Systems reduce stress — I mentioned pilots fly airplanes with systems. They literally read down a systems checklist at takeoff and landing. Imagine having to remember all of the moving parts without a system. Stressful!
- Systems increase confidence — You are a more confident driver because there are stop lights and street lights. Without a traffic system, you’d be pretty sketched out driving around town. Same goes with sales — systems increase confidence.
- Systems improve quality — You’re less likely to have would-be buyers fall through the cracks with the right sales systems in place. And systems for cold call scripts and role-playing are sure to improve your meetings booked rate or close/conversion rate.
- Systems maximize efficiency — You will get far more done in a day when you systematize your activities. You’ll squeeze more value out of every minute and every hour in the day.
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Final Words
Can you imagine a world without systems? Just think about the Child Welfare System, the Criminal Justice System, and other systems. If you’ve ever visited a third-world country, you know just how important systems are. A single day in a third-world country — with the traffic, the garbage, the crime, the noise — and you get why our great country employs systems at every turn.
Systems keep things working. Systems keep things organized. And systems keep things growing. So if you’re looking for growth this year, then systems are vital to your success. They will boost quality, efficiency, and ultimately revenue.
If any of this sounds overwhelming, just remember to start small. Build your first system — write it down and save the file in a new folder titled ‘Systems’. Then slowly build your systems out over time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
So get out there, and stop working the phones and start working the SYSTEM. You’ve got this.
Until next time…
Johnny-Lee Reinoso