Whatever your line of work is, there is a math equation that is definable to your success in that job. If you are salesman/saleswomen, there is a formula for how many sales you make and close and how many calls it took to get the sale completed.
Let me tell you about our business and its formulas. Over the years, I have worked with some of the brightest, smartest, and most educated brokers that could not sell their way out of a wet paper bag. I have hired attorneys, appraisers, and people that have a deep understanding of hospitality that could not and did not make it in this business.
See, it’s fine to impress and talk a big game, but it’s entirely another thing to actually do it. There is a hunting term (I apologize in advance) that depicts most every line of work especially sales. The term is “when the tailgate drops, the bull__ stops.” That’s pretty simple, right? And everyone knows what it means. It means that it’s fine on the way to the field to talk a big game about how smart you are, how good a shot you are, etc. It’s another thing entirely to stop talking and start doing.
I tell our brokers to figure out how much money you want to make and do the following. Let’s just say that a hotel broker will meet his financial goal by selling and closing 4 hotel deals a year. This means you will need to have 8 hotels listed on the market to be able to close 4, and you will have to make 24 presentations to get hired the 8 times. To get the 24 presentations and get hired 8 times and close 4 hotels, you will need to go see 50 clients face-to-face. In order to get to the point where you meet with 50 clients to do 24 presentations and get 8 listings and close 4 deals, you will need to make 4x the number of meetings you want in phone calls. So, if you want to meet with 50 clients, you will need to make 200 phone calls. Are you getting all this? Ok, so if I want to make 200 calls a year so I can close 4 deals a year, I have to make 3.8 cold calls a week which equals 200 calls a year. If you want to double your success, you have to make 8 calls a week. Pretty simple, right?
See, this is where we separate the talkers from the doers because the talker will not make 4 calls a week because behind all the posturing and fluff, they are afraid, insecure, and fearful of failure. They are so afraid of failure that they don’t make the calls; this actually confirms their failure by their inaction.
I believe in business and in life you have to know the “why.” If you don’t know why you are doing something, you need to stop and go find something else that motivates you.
When I started selling hotels, I clearly knew the “why.” It was looking at me each night through the eyes of my two little girls and wife that believed in me to take care of them. There was no logical or education-backed reason I should have been able to sell hotels, but my “why” was stronger than my competition and bigger than my fear. I knew I didn’t have anything to fall back on. It was either succeed at selling hotels or go broke. My daughters will never know what those little hugs and kisses and “I love you daddy” did for me. It is the ultimate game on. KT