Black Sales Journal

Are you objective enough to give yourself an accurate evaluation about your last sales call? In the end, your customer will give you the most important evaluation, but your ability to be true soon after the moment is a big part of continuous improvement. Don’t take it lightly!

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I once finished an important sales call at an important client with my manager.  I thought the sales call went well, but after the call, on the way back to the office, my manager said to me, “How do you think it went?”.  I quickly responded, “I thought it went well.  How do you think it went?”

My manager looked at me and said, “I thought you did a good job.  We will know what the customer thinks soon.”

He was right, we would know soon, but by then, the sales call might only be a memory.  We needed to do our sales post mortem (BSJ 9/22,The ‘Successful’ Post Mortem) then as an individual, you need to evaluate your performance as you look for ways to continuously improve (BSJ 4/19 Continuous Improvement – Get Better or Lose You Job).

I thought about it for a while, and envisioned a report card to use after major sales calls.  I just thought about it, and did nothing other than that.  I told a coworker about it, and he actually used the elements that I thought about and constructed something that I eventually re-developed and will show you.

The most important thing is to keep it as simple as possible.

To the Point

This is as simple as it gets.  A word document that scores some major categories and gives a letter grade of A, B, C, or D.  This simple scoring allows a numerical grade to be levied in this fashion:

A = 4

B = 3

C = 2

D = 1

What are you measuring?  Well we will define the categories shortly, but the important thing is that you self-grade based on your opinion of your performance in the following areas:

• Preparation & Organization
• Presentation
• Relationship Development
• Close
• Follow-up

Preparation and Organization– Did you do your homework, gather your information, and research the client, as you need to do?  Were you organized by having all of the information at your fingertips?

Presentation – Did you do a good job presenting to the prospect including the presentation documents, including sales collateral that you left behind.  Did you support your claims and offer proof statements, references, and testimonials as was necessary?

Relationship Development – Every touch to the prospect should enhance the relationship!  Did you enhance the relationship today?  Did you find out any more about your customer’s business than you knew before? Did you make yourself even more memorable?

Close – The close is obviously an important portion of the sales process.  Your technique, timing, and effectiveness are all important.  How did you technically do on the close?

Follow-Up – Did you close this out with a letter, card, or perhaps an email?  Did you complete any takeaways from the meeting quickly and responsively?  The job is not over until the takeaways are done.

Being Objective

So now that you have a system, you need to be objective.  You have 5 categories, but you can add more.  Remember, you need to keep it simple.  Grading 4 – 1 for each category and totaling your points cumulatively, and you will show a total score fore each self-evaluation.

Here is an example:

Preparation & Organization    4 points

Presentation                               3 points

Relationship Development      2 points

Close                                            3 points

Follow-up                                    2 points

Total                                            14 points/out of 20 Points

Clearly, your self-evaluation shows that you have some work to do, and you know it.  If you are willing to lie to yourself, you will never improve.  If you will remember the BSJ post on continuous improvement (Black Sales Journal 4/19 – Continuous Improvement – Get Better or Lose Your Job!), here are the weak points that you can focus on.

You may think this is overly simplistic, and will not work; yet I will disagree.  Any time you can focus on getting better, you are changing something!

Black sales professionals have significant challenges, and have much to do.  So why should you add to that?  Yes, it is the continuous effort to be the best.  Being the best comes from continuous improvement.   How do you know if you are improving?  You measure it.

If you are able to get consistent self-scoring of 18-20, you are maximizing your situations. Knowing that you are improving in the ways that will increase your future sales is important.  Yes, the ultimate measure is whether you make your sales goals.  This is meant to help you evaluate your weaknesses so you can consistently reach that goal.

I know several people who are using this or a similar grading system, and they like it.

Evaluate yourself and ‘keep score’.

Your comments are welcome. You can reach me at michael.parker@blacksalesjournal.com.