Posting and Planning

[MUSIC] If you are looking to continue developing your coaching skills or have a new coach that you'd like to train or onboard, check out our upcoming activity coaching clinics. We are hosting both our basics and advanced clinics every Monday for our basics clinic and Tuesday for our advanced clinic from 130 to 3 Central Standard Time. It runs October 2 through November 6 and you can learn more and register at HeatherPriceConsulting.com. [MUSIC] Hey everyone, welcome to activity coaching conversations with Heather and Sabina, where we discuss coaching strategies for the overachievers, the slow starters and everyone in between. We're going to share everything we know about instilling early success habits, the science behind activity and how to build a values-based FR-centered coaching philosophy. Activity coaching conversations is all about balancing accountability with the art and science of coaching. [MUSIC] Welcome, thanks for joining us today for our conversation on posting and planning why bother? Let's face it, we know most people, most reps are not raving fans of tracking their sales activity. This we know. And the planning part of posting and planning, well, forget about it. And that's what most people do anyway. They completely leave out the planning part of posting and planning. But let's remember, posting allows you to measure your performance to your goals and planning allows you to manage your business effectively and efficiently. In any successful business, I don't care if you're an auto shop, a bakery, an attorney, or even Walmart, you have to track your performance. Today, we are going to make the case for why posting and planning are important and how to get your FRs to post and plan daily. It seems strange to think of posting and planning as the most important activity of the day, which Granem says it is. And I have always believed that because let's face it, it can be dull and tedious. Right? People didn't come into the business to be bookkeepers. So this is what I think. We just have to acknowledge that. Acknowledge it, name it, embrace it. Remind people, I know you didn't come into the business to be a bookkeeper, but it's a critical part of the success of your business. We always called it back when I was an activity coach, we called it the dirty 30. That is 30% of every job is boring and tedious, but it supports the 70% that you love to do. So you got to do it. Yeah, got to do it. So true. Okay. A few thoughts on posting. Let's start there. First, you can't argue it is easier than ever with the technology available today to post, right? There really should not be any excuses around this. If you're going to complain about CRM and posting plus app, imagine using a shoebox and index cards back in the day, right? Right. So technology has really made it easier than ever, and you have your choice, right? You can do it right in your computer or you can post in the app on your phone along the day. So I think it's important to let the rep decide what works best for them in terms of if they want to post as they go throughout the day or if they want to wait till the end of the day, it gives them control and decision making over it, right? And then they're more likely to follow through rather than saying you should post at the end of the day. It's much easier. It's more efficient or post as you go throughout your day. It's easier post when you have a cancellation. Really, it doesn't matter when you do it. The key is that you do it and that you get it done that day. So let them have ownership of that again. Let's you remind them that that's what they chose when they aren't following through. So once they are efficient in posting, which really should only take a month or so at the most, it shouldn't take more than 10 to 15 minutes max, right? There is no excuse. We can all find how many minutes a day do we waste right doing silly stuff. So everybody has 10 to 15 minutes of max. It's not an all day or all night consuming process. Next and more importantly, CRM and posting plus really are the books of your business literally. I mean, if you worked at Target at the end of the day, what would you do? You'd count the cash in your drawer. You'd find any discrepancies. You'd fix them and then you'd close out that day to start tomorrow with a clean fresh drawer of cash, right? I like to call it putting the day to bed. Posting is the same. Imagine if you didn't count the cash in the drawer at the end of your day and then you start the next day with an inaccurate drawer and then you do the same thing the next night and then the next night by the end of the week your drawer so messed up and inaccurate that you have no idea what or where any of the mix ups happen, right? It just gets more difficult to fix and to make it accurate. So you have no idea of knowing what days were efficient, what sales really were, etc. etc. Again, I'm a big believer in garbage and garbage out and that applies here. G.I. Geo. So if your reps want to have data that provides insight into their practice, what they're doing well, what they need to improve, what's making the money, what's not, then they have to post often and they have to post accurately. So it's a regular occurrence when I'm coaching that a rep sits down with me on Tuesday, right? And we haven't met since last week Thursday and we go to review their numbers from Friday and Monday and they can't remember what the heck they had for breakfast this morning let alone how many referrals they had from the fact finder that they took four days ago and I don't blame them, right? I mean, sometimes I can't remember what I had for breakfast. So this is why it's so important to capture the information while it's fresh in your mind so that you can just let it go and not have to go back and recreate the details of the day. So Sabina, what else happens when a rep doesn't post and plan? So a number of things happen and to just kind of piggyback on to something you said this only becomes a longer process when you're trying to play catch up, right? So your Sunday night, you haven't posted all week and you know you've got to report your numbers Monday morning and you're trying to go back and recreate it. That's when it takes two hours to post in plan because you didn't take your 10 minutes. Some of the other things that don't happen is we're fond of saying quoting Granham, you have to know the truth of your situation in order to take appropriate action. You never really know the truth of your situation and where you are relative to your goals if you're not keeping your books. You literally as a rep you earn less income because things are falling through the cracks if you're operating out of chaos and disorganization it doesn't matter how smart you are you cannot carry all that stuff around in your head or on little scraps of paper and post it notes. It's got to be let the system be your organization reps. I think feel less than professional which diminishes their confidence when they're constantly operating out of chaos because they don't know what's happening made to Heather's point the store is not going to be profitable and could potentially close when they're always flying around unprepared and they're not as client center. I think this is one of the most important things are as a rep you're not as client center. You should be because you're always worried about remembering what you did last week or yesterday because you didn't write it down and it takes away time and energy that you could be spending on your clients. I think about missed opportunities when I think of poor posting or not posting stuff and we're not just talking posting numbers right but just using the OCS in general right in keeping track of all those details there's a rep that I'm coaching his activity is crazy high he has a very large amount of activity. I also have another rep who has probably half the activity that he has but their production is the same and I know it's because the rep was doing less activity keeps better records she's amazing a keeping track of every single detail nothing falls through the cracks and I know it's because she has amazing posting skills I'm not saying do less activity I'm saying what if that rep that had a crazy activity did a better job of posting his productivity would be twice as much. Okay let's switch gears and focus a little bit on the planning part of posting and planning so planning is all about preparing for the next day and there is a Benjamin Franklin quote that I use all the time with my new reps and it's by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail and I think that's really the whole idea behind the planning part of posting and planning I think planning gets forgotten because reps don't really know what falls into this category. So before you clock out for the day here are some of the things that you should be coaching your frs to do or that your fr should do in order to put their date of bed and plan for tomorrow so after you've posted your meetings your phoning results your referrals and so on make sure you add opportunities to your hot list right make sure your hot list is up to date send all of your follow up emails every fact finder you took for the day should have a discovery letter sent out so those are some of the things that take place in planning in addition complete your case notes from today's meeting. Get those all done and out of the way because again you're not going to remember them in two days send tasks to the planning team right to your sales execution team make sure you get those fact finders in and any other tasks that need to be started send calendar invites for follow-up meetings right so you had three fact finders today and they were all case opens. That would be a great day of fact finders by the way but they're all case opens make sure you get those closes scheduled on the books invites out. And then of course case prep check your next day appointments to make sure that all of your plans your illustrations your recommendations are prepared and look at tomorrow's meetings for points potential right to determine ways that you can maximize the upcoming day for the benefit of your business what else you know let's see if as if all of those weren't enough reasons to post in plan I also want you to know that there is a correlation between points and commissions and you won't know how many. And you won't know how many points you have unless you're posting them so in the original Granum material he showed that points earned over and above the first 100 were significantly more valuable in terms of first year. commission. So what do I mean by that? If you have 103 points a month, like that's a pretty good month, right? That rep is earning 21,600 of FYC's first year commissions, but with just 11 extra points at 114 points, they earn 33,000. So that's a 53% increase from those extra 11 points. Now you might be thinking, sure, but that was decades ago, I got you covered on that one. I have collected client builder data for years, but in the last probably four or five years, I have a lot of data from several different groups. And this is what I found going from 100 to 105 points a month. So 5% increase generated a 33% increase in first year commissions and going from 105 to 116 points. So again, that extra 11 points generated a 47% increase in FYC. So that correlation still holds true. That once you get past 100 points, the next batch of points is exponentially more valuable. And you won't know whether you're there or not and how to take advantage of that if you're not posting and making sure that you know exactly where you are relative to that. I'm glad you shared that last point because I was in my mind. My question for you was, how do you know that that increase in production isn't from the points themselves, right, from the activity? But you're right. If you don't know where you are and that you're short 10 points to get to that next level, that could be motivation for you to drive for and get those additional points. So as an activity coach, it's so important. We've been talking about the importance of posting. But as a coach, your job obviously is to review the activity that they've posted. And we just can't emphasize enough the fine tooth comb you need to use when you're reviewing, especially in those first few weeks until accuracy is consistent, right? That every fact finder is accounted for, that the case open matches the fact finder. Oftentimes you'll see them counting the case open, not until the closing meeting or they're confusing a close in a case open. And so just really making sure you're going over every detail with a fine tooth comb is so important. All right. Now it is time for our say that again. All right. Our favorite segment. So in this episode of say that again, we are going to role play a rep that has continuously what Sabina maybe like their third or fourth time that they haven't posted. Yeah. All right. Here we go. All right. Sabina, good to see you. Let's jump in and take a look at your numbers here. I don't see any activity from yesterday. Did you work yesterday? Sabina. I did. Actually, I had a great day yesterday. I just haven't had a chance to get that put into CRM. I'm going to do that by the end of today. I had to study and then my kid had a basketball game. And so it was just a crazy day. I had an evening appointment. Just a lot of stuff going on. Good stuff. All good stuff. So what is our expectation around posting? Let's start there. Well, that we do it. I'm going to. I just sometimes I get a couple days behind and then I have to catch up. Yeah. And why is posting everyday importance? Sabina. Well, I think because then I know where I am. I mean, obviously sometimes when two or three or four days go by and I haven't posted, I'm trying to catch up. I'm like, oh, man, it's Friday. I need 10 more points. I don't know where I'm going to get them because I only have one more appointment. So I feel like I know why I'm supposed to do it every day. It's because I missed some goals sometimes. I think because I didn't know exactly where I was. So I get it. I know. And I know you said, right? You plan on doing it at the end of today because yesterday was crazy. But guess what? I have a feeling today is going to be just as crazy too. Well, that's actually it's turning out that way. Yeah. Exactly. How does posting your numbers or not posting your numbers impact your business? Well, I'm not sure yet. I mean, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job. Like I'm seeing the right number of people. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job on getting referrals. I think if I was posting regularly, I would know that for sure. I probably wouldn't be saying, I feel I would be saying, I know. So actually, as I say that out loud, that's making me realize, and I've not really taken advantage of the app where you can post throughout the day. I tend to save it till the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. So it kind of gets away from me sometimes. Yeah. We call it knowing the truth of your situation, right? So, Nina, and this is like the third or fourth time this has happened. Yeah. So I know you're capable of doing it. But it sounds like you know the importance of doing it in the impact that it can have. So I want to move forward under the premise that moving forward, right? When we meet that, if it's not in CRM, it didn't happen. How does that sound? I don't like that. I think that's not fair. I mean, it's not like I'm not doing the work. I feel like that's I don't know. I haven't a hard time getting on board with that because I feel like that's like saying I didn't do the work when I did. So here's the things, Savina, you are doing well. You're doing very well. But it's my job to coach you to your potential. Not to what you're doing now. Right. Not to where you're at right now, but to coach you to your potential. And I see this as one area that is holding you back from being your best. Okay. That's fair. I think that's fair. Yeah. So in addition to your commitment today, once we get to that part, let's make sure that posting is a part of your commitment for today. Sound good? Yes, it does. Yes. I just need to start. I can do that. I can start today. Yeah. We'll start fresh day and we're going to get you back into the habit of making sure that it becomes part of your daily disciplines. Sound good? Okay. All right. Yes, it does. All right. How did that feel, Savina? That felt kind of bad. Like I felt like I got a little feisty about the doing the work and I could feel myself can't work up about that. I'm like, but I did do the work. But you did a great job of making me realize that yeah, you're doing a great job. You could be doing even better. And I think if you're a rep who's doing a good job and someone tells you that just by posting, you could do better. You stop and think about that and say, yeah, okay. Yeah. That seems like a small thing. I can do that. Good. Yeah. All right. Well, we hope that you are able to take some commentary or quotes or whatever it is that spoke to you today and implement that into your upcoming meetings. Have a great day. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for joining us today for activity coaching conversations with Heather and Savina. If you found value in this conversation, please like, share and leave a review in your favorite podcast app. And to learn more about our activity coaching clinics and how to hone your skills, visit HeatherPriceConsulting.com. Link is in the show notes. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning and growing.