Wishful thinking and hard numbers

It is good to dream. Often indeed how we perceive and visualize our future predicts it. The stuff of "positive self talk", affirmation and visualization sometimes seems like hocus-pocus, but it works if you believe.

The challenge is being sure your dreams are not converted to short-term wishful thinking. A classic example is hoping to win the lottery or a big casino jackpot this month. The odds and probability are simply stacked against you.

In your business, an example of wishful thinking is when you think you can achieve immediate results, even though your objective early (factual) indicators suggest this is less than likely. For example, you have a monthly sales target, but your inputs of marketing leads and work in progress, based on historical ratios and experience, is not sufficient. Sure, everything might land up perfectly and you might pull the rabbit out of the hat, but how likely is this miracle to happen?

In marketing, as in all our business endeavours, we need to keep our dreams alive but remember the hard numbers count the most in the immediate and near future. Is your ratio between marketing cost and sales realistic and on target? Is your "leads pipeline" indicating sufficient volume to tell you that, down the road (using your normal conversion rates), that you will have enough sales going forward? Are your lead conversion numbers and ratios accurate? Things change. You should periodically review your norms.

Finally, if you have staff and they are giving you updates and reports, are you satisfied you are receiving real information about what they are likely to achieve, or are they transmitting to you their wishful thinking? You need to develop and maintain fast-acting measuring systems to ensure the information you receive is timely and can accurately predict your short-term business results. And when you see something isn't right, you need to take quick action to bring things back in line with reality.

Keep track of your hard numbers, avoiding wishful thinking, and then you can go back to dreaming big dreams, and visualizing your grand visions. If you are firmly grounded in the real world, your big picture dreams can indeed come true. Otherwise, you have a better hope of meaningful accomplishment at the lottery terminal.

Which numbers really matter?

"Drew's Marketing Minute." Here's my 'give' for today -- a link to Drew McClellan's blog, Drew's Marketing Minute. This is his book, 99.3 Random Acts of Marketing. I haven't read it (yet) but you don't need to pay anything to read his blog.

Our sales deadline for June has just passed, and the tentative final numbers are in. We've broken even, just. On one level this is good -- the business isn't sinking -- but on another, it is disturbing, because the final results are significantly below projections set and reported by our team in the weeks before deadline.

"So what do we need to change here?" I ask. Logically, and commonly, businesses set sales quotas and sales reps make projections on request -- and they give numbers either through wishful thinking, hope ("If I say it will be, it will.") or, if the sales representative wants to prove exceptional talent, lower than reality. ("Now, I've gone ahead of projections, again.") So while the final numbers have some meaning -- we need as a business to know if we have sold enough to make a profit -- the numbers we are hearing on the way to the goal don't do us much good.

One 'solution' is to discount or enhance the numbers based on subjective credibility perspectives. "OK, salesperson A always under-projects so we can add something to the calculations; and salesperson B over projects, so lets discount." But again, does this really help the business -- or trust -- between the manager and the sales team.

Maybe the solution is to break the final number into components, based on our understanding of the business and previous experience. If X number of calls leads to Y number of appointments and Z number of sales, we could ask the sales people for call reports. But again does this measure anything useful. I fear the possibility of wasted calls to people who don't really matter -- or pestering and irritating calls to those who do -- so the sales rep can meet the number or quota.

"We could do nothing, just trust the sales team to do their work?" might be an answer -- and it could be -- but here, the problem is blind faith often results in blind results.

Then something dawned on me as I woke up this morning. Why not try measuring something unconventional, somewhat fun, and maybe habit forming. Maybe it won't work, but maybe it will provide something useful. It is this. "What good (business) deed did you do today?

The argument goes that sales come from sharing, from respecting, from giving, rather than hoping people will purchase something -- so the steps we take to provide a little extra value, some worthy assistance and support, and some contribution to others within our market community really matter far more than how many people we call, how many appointments we set, and how many orders we write (though the latter is the final number we need to achieve).

Will this strategy work? I don't know. It is a morning thought and needs to be tested in the crucible of real work and real relationships. And maybe I am trying to force quantification of something that cannot be so easily structured. But at least it is measurable, tangible, and real. And it can be reported daily, in a brief huddle meeting or email (I tend to like the huddle idea). Could this be our Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?