Saturday, October 9, 2010

What Makes Another Reasonable Goal?

I have 240 contacts on my list.

Of these, because I’ve been slacking off, 188 are due for a call.

(I maintain several date fields, one of which “Followup” tells me the date on which I should “touch” the client again).

Strictly speaking, at the end of each working day, there should be zero clients needing to be touched. I should be completely up to date.

So a goal might be “Clear out all follow-ups by the end of the day” or in quantified terms “Show that the follow-up list has zero entries before 5pm each day”.

Of course, I can’t spend every day phoning, so the goal at the end of any “phoning” day is “Show that the follow-up list has zero entries before 5pm today”.

How quickly can I trim the 188 entries down to zero?

If I can make 20 calls in 4 hours of dialing I can do one or more of the following

1: Spend more than 4 hours dialing on a phoning day.

2: Make more than 20 calls on a dialing day.

3: Recognize that some of the 180 follow-ups are established contacts, and an email or a postal card will suffice, providing it contains information of value to the contact.

4: Other?

Bearing in mind that I can add four new contacts from The Prospector every business day, my total of follow-ups will increase by 4 every business day, regardless of whether I phone or not.

So I need to make an average of 4 LIVE phone calls per day (not dial-outs!), and then I need to make more to whittle down that backlog.

Howe many dial-outs do I need to make?

As many as I can! (Within reason).

I shall aim for 50 dial outs per day, with the follow-up count being reduced by 10 per day (which means 14 per day when I factor in the new prospects), and I shall record my efforts for two weeks to see if, in deed, that is attainable.

A reward system always works for me.

As I cross each threshold of 50 (150 outstanding items, 100, 50, 0) I shall trot across the street to Bruno’s and purchase either a slab of Brie or a 2-liter tub of vanilla ice-cream, and eat it all in one night.

Or two.

Talk to Me !

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