The Smarter You Work, The Luckier You Get!

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The Smarter You Work,

The Luckier You Get

We are just about to celebrate Labor Day — the weekend when we take some time to relax and recognize the labor that goes into making a living. It seemed like an appropriate time to address the entire concept of working smarter.

I find that many people believe they have to work harder, work longer, and simply do more in order to be successful. While hard work certainly has its place, I don’t believe working harder and longer is always the answer. In fact, I believe the smarter you work, the more successful you are likely to become.

I learned many years ago that you don’t necessarily have to wait on more people, make more calls, or see more customers in order to increase your sales. What you need to do is sell to more of the people you are already talking to.

When I was selling by appointment and telephone, the people I worked for constantly told me, “It’s a numbers game.” The more calls you made, the more appointments you set. The more appointments you set, the more sales you would make. And for every “no” you received, you were supposedly that much closer to a “yes.”

I always had trouble with that concept.

Maybe I was a little bit lazy, but I didn’t want to make ten appointments to get one sale. I wanted to make five quality appointments and sell to all five. I didn’t want to accept the theory that it took nine “no” answers to get to one “yes” simply because that was the company average.

There is an important difference between working harder and working smarter.

Instead of simply trying to increase the number of people I contacted, I decided to learn how to become better at what I was doing. I wanted to understand what caused people to buy, what caused them to hesitate, how to make a better presentation, how to ask better questions, and how to create a better buying experience.

In other words, I decided to improve my closing ratio rather than simply increase my activity.

Think about this in a retail environment. If ten customers walk into a jewelry store and you sell to three of them, you have a 30% closing ratio. If you can improve your skills and sell to four of those same ten customers, you’ve increased your sales by 33%—without needing another customer to walk through the door.

The same principle applies in a pawnshop, furniture store, sporting goods store, or virtually any other retail business. You can spend your time and money trying to generate more traffic, or you can learn how to do a better job with the traffic you already have.

Obviously, I am not suggesting that you stop prospecting, marketing, making calls, or looking for new customers. Those activities are important. But there is a point at which simply doing more becomes much less productive than learning to do what you are already doing better.

Good, sound business sense tells us that if you can sell to a greater percentage of the customers you talk to, your sales will increase. You don’t necessarily need more opportunities. You need to make better use of the opportunities you already have.

That is what working smarter is all about.

So, the next time someone tells you that success is simply a numbers game, don’t automatically accept the premise. Ask yourself a better question:

“What could I do differently that would allow me to sell more of the people I am already talking to?”

You may discover that you don’t need more customers, more hours, or more work. You may simply need better skills, better strategies, and a better approach.

Work smarter—not necessarily harder—and remember:

Every customer is important enough to deserve your very best effort.

And maybe, just maybe, the smarter you work, the luckier you get.

Be sure to go to https://principlesforbusinessandlife.com/ – click on Our Viewpoint Newsletter and read a terrific article Titled:

The Value of Showing Up – By Bryan Dodge of Dodge Development

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