Focus on the PROCESS of Sales

Pretty much everything in life can be broken down into one of two parts: It’s either part of the process or part of the results.

Take any situation and life and business and you can divide it into one category or the other. You raise your kids right (process) and they turn out to be productive young adults (outcome). You go to work each day to grow your business (process) and your business generates profits and financial prosperity for your family and your employees (result). You eat healthy and exercise three times a week (process) and you have a healthy, attractive body (result). You run sales appointments expertly while building relationships, adding value and solving problems for clients (process) and you write tons of business and earn a six figure income (result).

But here’s the deal: sometimes you can execute your process flawlessly and get a bad result. You raise your kids right (process) and they go to jail and get hooked on drugs (outcome). You go to work each day to grow your business (process) and your business fails in a horrible economy (result). You eat healthy and exercise three times a week (process) and you have a heart attack on a 5K run (result). You run sales appointments expertly while building relationships, adding value and solving problems for clients (process) and your client goes with a cheap competitor (result).

These anomalies happen because despite your best efforts on the process you have little or no control over the outcome. Don’t get me wrong. By dominating on the process you can influence the outcome and increase the odds of a favorable outcome, but you don’t control the outcome.

I believe this is an important lesson in life and business and demonstrates where we should spend our time. You can spend your time focusing on the process or the outcome and it is my contention that we should focus our time where we have control - on the process.