The Cumulative Impact of Small Actions Every Day | 5 Minute Selling – Part 4

On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast,  Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Alex Goldfayn (5 Minute Selling) discuss the massive impact of small actions, done a little bit, every day. Listen to the other episodes in the series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three Jeb – Does Faith Matter in Sales? Alex, I've got a question for you about faith. This is not a religious question. It's a faith question.   You are very convincing human being. You say that sales can be done in 5 minutes a day. Talk to people, call old customers, run the system. It works.  So, I do it one day. Nothing happens. Then do it the next day and nothing happens. I do it the next day and still nothing happens. Then by the 4th day I'm like, “Alex told me to do this stuff, and I made these phone calls, but I didn't sell anything. So, I’m going back to sending emails because that’s easier.”  How important is faith in the system, over a long period of time, to actualizing the five-minute selling process?  Alex – On Faith in Yourself Great question. Faith is a great word in sales.  Faith in the system is really about faith in yourself.   This is important because, in sales we deal with failure and overcoming failure is the key to success.  Faith is continuing to do the right things even when they're not working as well as you would like, because they are still the right things.    In the book I have a two-week challenge: Give me 5-minutes a day for two weeks - that's 50 minutes over 10 days. That is just five proactive outbound prospecting calls a day.   If you do that for two weeks, you will find more open opportunities and more close opportunities. It’s just two weeks of faith and here is no way that you won't improve your sales position.   Jeb– On The Cumulative Impact of Small Actions It's all about cumulative impact. The cumulative impact of small actions every day. Over time, these small actions add up to real numbers.   But this requires faith because you can't prospect for a day, you can't do follow up for a day, you can’t do anything for a day and expect everything to suddenly change. It just doesn't work that way. You've got to do a little bit every day and keep doing it over time.   Now let me give you the flip side of this question. What happens when it starts working?  Salespeople have a bad habit of quitting the things that are working. Let's just say that I give you the two weeks and then it starts working. Then suddenly my pipeline is a little bit bigger, the deals in my pipeline start to move. Suddenly people are actually spending time with me and we’re having conversations.   What happens then? I get busy and then I quit. How do I make sure that I don't stop doing what's working?  Alex – Staying On Track With Small Daily Actions You're totally right. Salespeople are busy. They're not sitting around. Therefore, the answer is you must schedule proactive, outbound sales calls into your day.   Mark Twain said, “if you're gonna eat a frog, you might as well eat it first thing in the morning 'cause it's not gonna taste any better later in the day.”   Firstly, do it first thing in the morning - at 8:00 or 8:30 or at 9:00. By 10:00 o'clock you want to be long done with this.   Second, what do you do if you miss a day? The next day you come back to it and you get right back on track.   It's like if you have a bad eating day. I've been trying to lose some weight. Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. My wife and I went out to eat and celebrate 19-years. We had a gigantic meal, and a huge dessert. I ate like a jerk, but it was awesome - a fabulous meal.   So, my weight loss effort over? Am I done? Am I just going to give up and go back to the to the chips and the and the Donuts? nNo, I woke this morning and got back in the saddle.  The easy way to do this is to use a timer. Set it for five minutes. When the Clock is running, you're doing your proactive work. You're making your calls.