Should I be able to see all my leads for the day?

Should I Be Able to See All My Leads for the Day?

It sounds helpful—but it might be hurting your performance.

In today’s Question of the Day, I challenge the idea that you need visibility into every lead on your schedule and explain why the real focus should be on the one you’re on right now.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why “loving the one you’re with” leads to better execution and results 
•  How seeing the full day can create distractions and rushed calls 
•  What data from thousands of calls shows about focus and performance 
•  Common pushback—and how to think about it differently 

If you want higher close rates and better customer experiences, this episode will help you narrow your focus and execute at a higher level—one call at a time.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is Our company set up that I cannot see any leads other than what I'm on. I might have three leads for the day, but I don't know it until I call in for the next lead. Wouldn't it make more sense if I knew what leads I was running for the day so that I could prepare? That's a great question. And I get the question, and it makes sense. I like being prepared. But I'm gonna go over some reasons that I actually like the way that your company is doing this and why that actually leads to better results for you and the entire company. Even if you can't plan for the three leads. So let's dive right in. Number number one. I want you to be completely focused on the customer that you're with. I want you to love the one you're with. I don't want any distractions creeping into that sales process. So those distractions being other leads, thinking about other leads. Because if I'm if I'm looking ahead at all my leads for the day, I'm already starting to think about, oh, that one's gonna be difficult or this one's gonna be tough or that one's all the way out and blah, blah, blah. Right. So I I don't want any of that stuff creeping in. I don't want you distracted thinking about other leads. I want you to focus on the lead that you're on. I want you to love the one you're with. I also don't want you, I don't want you rushing. If I have other work to get to, I tend to rush through the the work in front of me here. And so I don't I don't want you rushing to get somewhere else. I worrying. I don't want you worrying about getting there on time. Let let me worry about that, let the dispatcher worry about that. So I don't want you having to worry about that. So you're not rushing, you're not worrying. Uh we'll we'll we'll get you to where you need to get to, but I want you to just love the one you're with right now because I want you to I want you to execute the process. Because the process works. I just want you to execute it. So some customers, some customers are gonna take longer. It's just that's how people are wired. Some people don't move very fast, some people make decisions very quickly, and that's great, right? But even with them, we're still gonna execute the process. But some customers they do take longer, and I want you to take that time with them. I want you to move at their speed. In in the objection boot camp, we talk about different ways to ask for the sale, and one of those is the next step close. And really, it's four customers that struggle to make a decision, struggle to make a commitment. And with those customers, you have to clearly explain the steps involved, what step you're on, and what the next step is. Like you literally have to lead them through step by step. So something like, all right, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, we've already accomplished X, Y, and Z. What we're going to do next is X, Y, and Z. So you're walking them through. This is where we've been, this is where we are, this is where we're going. That's what makes them comfortable that you can keep moving forward towards that next step. There's data to back this up as well. So in the last couple of years, like we've got AI, AI tools that listen to your process, compare and score your process. But my favorite thing about these AI tools is it gives us data, lots of data, a lot of things that we believed to be true, but we couldn't prove, we couldn't put data behind it because we couldn't put the man hours into it. Now, now we have data on this stuff because AI is able to take thousands, hundreds of thousands of sales calls and compare them into what they're doing or not doing and what's getting the best results. Here's some data that's come from AI. So one piece of data is the time spent with the customer. So I want you to imagine a graph, right? So there's a graph, and along the bottom of the graph is time with the customer, right? From like 30 minutes to 40 minutes, 50, 60, an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, et cetera, right? So there's time across the bottom of the graph. And then on the left side of the graph is closing percentage, right? So the percentage of sales that are closed. And this graph continues to go up and up and up and up and up, and it peaks right at about the hour and a half mark. And then it plateaus for a little bit, and then it actually starts to come back down. So what this graph tells us is that hour and a half, that's that sweet spot. When you're spending an hour and a half with your customers, you're getting a higher closing percentage. Now, that doesn't mean the hour and a half is a magical time you have to spend. What it means is that process takes about an hour and a half. When you execute that process, that's when you get the close rate. And that's the second piece of data I'm going to share with you process adherence, right? And so you can look at over hundreds of thousands of calls, what percentage of the process is being followed. And you can compare that to average ticket results. So average ticket being a combination of closing and average sale. Think of it, if this was football, it'd be like yards per attempt, right? And so if you look at that, and I would look at the 40% adherence mark compared to the 90% adherence mark, right? So so salespeople that are doing about 40% of the process versus salespeople that are doing about 90% of the process, and their average ticket more than quadruples between the two. So going from executing 40% of the process to executing 90% of the process, quadruples, more than quadruples your results. Third piece of evidence that I'll enter in here is missing steps. So there was some data I was digging into a little while ago where you could look at individual steps, uh, steps that were missed, and how that affected the overall closing rate. One that stood out to me was setting a visual agenda. When you set that visual agenda with your customer, you have a 30% better chance of closing. You will close 30% more of the time. When you missed it, your closing went down about 30%. Just that one piece, that one step of the process. Now imagine how many other steps and the impact that has. And so, all this to say, I want you to love the one you're with. I want you to focus on the customer in front of you. I want you to execute that process because it equals results. All right, number two. Let's get into uh my second reason I think this makes sense. So uh think of baseball, right? Specifically playoff baseball. I love playoff baseball because playoff baseball is when you get into the showdowns, right? Like there is no tomorrow. There is no other games. This is it, especially when you get into like game sevens and those final innings or extra innings, right? Like, this is it. You got that hitter up at the plate, you got that pitcher, one of them is gonna win, one of them is gonna lose, and there's no tomorrow, right? So, so uh playoff baseball. This is where you see them really digging in to get a hit. They are trying as hard as they can to get a hit off that pitcher. The pressure is high. The other 162 regular season games, ho hum, whatever. Didn't get a hit, we'll be back tomorrow. There's always another game, right? But but right here, you're digging in to get a hit. And that mindset, that mindset, that's the mindset I want you to have with the customer you're with, right? I don't want you to be thinking, oh, if I don't get this one, I've got another lead coming after this. Because there might not be. This might be the only lead you run today, and I want you to treat it that way because you're gonna dig in like playoff baseball and you're gonna get that hit. You're gonna dig in and you're gonna solve this one. I led a session one time and I had some salespeople in the room, and these were some high-performing salespeople, and uh I laid out this scenario to them. I said, what if, what if you were capped at just 20 leads for the month? That's it. That's a little less than one per day. What if you were capped at 20 leads? No more, no less. You just got those 20 leads. And and the caveat was you couldn't quit. You can't quit and go work somewhere else. But what would you do? Like, what would you do with these 20 leads? And I remember it was kind of quiet in the room, and there was there was the number one selling salesperson out of the whole group there, and he was sitting there, and he just kind of quietly muttered, just loud enough that everybody could hear, but quietly muttered, and he never even looked up. He just looked down at the floor and he just said, Well, I guess I'd figure out a way to close those leads. That's it, that's exactly it. I'd figure out a way to close those leads. That's the mindset. That's why he's the best, because he has that mindset. I'm gonna figure out how to close these leads. That's the mindset I want you to have. I don't want you to think, oh, if I don't get this one, there's a safety net, that there's another one behind this one. I want you to be thinking, this might be the only lead I run today. This might be the only lead I run this week. I better figure out a way to close this lead. That's the mindset you gotta have. Third reason, here's a third reason I like the way that you guys are are limiting this visibility. I mean, honestly, the company may decide to dispatch different. We may change our mind, things might change, and I don't want to commit to something and then have to backtrack, right? I believe in the right person on the right call. And this this is the easiest thing you can do to maximize results in your business. Um, I did a whole nother podcast episode on right person, right call. So I'm not gonna go super deep into it, but that this is the easiest change you can make to maximize results in your business. I I was out at a company company in Seattle a year ago, and uh I was digging into how they were dispatching their leads because they were doing like a fair share. Everybody got the same amount of leads. And we looked back at the last year. Had we been dispatching to get the right person on the right calls, so to get our high performers into those calls, it would have made a $2 million difference. Two million dollar difference just in the way we dispatched the leads to the sales team. And that's that wasn't even going completely cutthroat, like, hey, that guy got no leads the entire year. It was still uh enough leads for everybody. But just by getting the right people on the right calls in those scenarios, it was a two million dollar difference. The dispatcher, she literally goes, holy something else. $2 million difference just in the way we're dispatching. So to stick with my baseball analogy here, imagine if in baseball, if I could put my best hitter up repeatedly, right? Like right now, you got you got to wait through the whole cycle of batters before they can get back up. But what if? What if I could put them right back up again and again and again? You would do that because that's your best hitter, and they're gonna give you a better chance to win the game, right? We can do that. We can do that in the trades. We can put our best hitter up repeatedly. And so there may be a scenario where our top salesperson, our highest closer with the highest average sale, he comes available, and then I'm able to put that person on the next call. So if I would have already promised that call to somebody else, well, now I made that commitment, they're expecting that. Now I either got to claw it back or I got to give it to somebody that closes at a lower rate. As a manager, as a sales leader, your job is to put the best person on the call. As a salesperson, your job is to be the best person for the call. And so I don't want to put myself into a situation where I've committed this to somebody else, and then now I got to claw it back, and then they're gonna be mad at me. And I'm telling you, the fighting that takes place because of this will kill Team Morrell. This will single-handedly kill Team Morel. And so I would rather dispatch them one at a time, visibility to the one you have, love the one you're with, have that mindset. I better close this one because I don't have another one. That this maximizes results at the company and at an individual level. You will make more money in commissions, the company will make more money, and your customers will be happier. This is a win-win-win scenario. So here's some of the pushback I get. This is common pushback when I'm talking to a sales team. So one of the pushbacks is I want to plan my day, right? Like I need to I need to plan my day around this. And and speaking in regards to like having like a work-life balance and and you know, I got kids and family and stuff like that. Great. Get into a process where you mark your times available, right? Like, when are you available to be running calls? Get into that process. So, my first sales job, I was in automotive. And um, on Saturdays, so I sold Usugrews, and on Saturdays, um, all the dealerships were open until six o'clock. That's what time they were open. Now, Saturdays, that was like the Super Bowl every week because that's when everybody got out to test drive cars and when they were buying cars. But do you know when everybody actually bought their car? It was six o'clock on a Saturday. That was when everybody bought their car, six o'clock on a Saturday. Because if they were car shopping, they would get out, they would test drive some cars, and they would always land right before closing at the last place wherever they were going to buy. And so we closed at six. And as a salesperson, you had two choices. You could, well, I'm about to pack it in and go home, or you could stay late to write up that deal. Now I realized this very early on that this is the prime time to sell. And so my wife, she was always like, You're you're off at six. Why aren't you home yet? And so I set that expectation at home of like, look, this is when the cars sell. This is when I need to be available. And we never planned anything until nine o'clock on a Saturday night. Because I didn't want that expectation of I had to be home. I didn't want to let my family down. So I set that expectation. And honestly, I think that contributed to a lot of the success I had in my sales career simply because I was willing to be available when the leads were available. Now, I I don't want this to come off that that I'm advocating to not have a life, right? Like I fully believe in work life balance. I got young kids, I want to be at their events, I coach a lot of their events. Um, I want to be a spouse that's there. Like I completely believe in that. But I also believe sales requires some sacrifice, some balance, and and some accountability on my part. Sales is a very high-paying career. And the trade-off to that is I have to be free when the customers are. And so I have to manage my time. Now, for me, that was the Saturdays. I was willing to give up my Saturdays and not commit to anything until nine o'clock at night, right? But the trade-off was I maybe had my mornings free, or I maybe had other times throughout the week free. So there was a balance, it just was upon me to better balance that. And so that that would be my advice is is mark your times available and manage that. You can still have work-life balance, but be available when the customers are available. Another piece of pushback that I get is just being prepared. And I guess for that I would ask, what do you really need? Like what how much information do you actually need to make a sale? I mean, too much information causes analysis paralysis. Like we we think of every reason they're not going to buy before we get there. And and also I don't need that that negative mindset. There's a couple pieces of basic information I need. And then I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna execute my process. I'm gonna ask great open-ended questions. I'm gonna find that information out myself. And and so, I really, how much information do you need? You don't need much. And so, as you're dispatched, run the call, five minutes to look up that information and just run the call. You don't need that much. So, in summary, I guess I agree with how your company is doing it. I would distribute leads one at a time, and and I wouldn't have my team have visibility into what their next lead is until they complete a lead and then call in for that dispatch because I want them to love the one they're with, I want them to execute that process, I want them to have that mindset that this might be my only lead. And as a company, I want to dispatch to maximize results. Everybody's gonna win because of this. So that's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, give a reading. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me via email. It'll be listed below in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're a next star member, schedule a call with me and let's get this addressed one-on-one. Let's get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.