The First Four Questions That Need Answers

1. What is your average sale? If the size of your sales is all over the place, you need to put some thought into this. Be careful of 'happy ears' and wishful thinking. Any lie to any of these questions dooms the process to failure. If you lie to yourself all the time, contact me. I'll help you find the truth.
2. How much time do you have to put into a customer after they buy from you? Be sure to include everything, delivery, project management, account management, problem solving, etc.
3. How much time do you have to put into getting a new customer to buy from you? This is difficult to determine. Sometimes the phone rings and they give you a credit card at the end of the call. Sometimes it take 12 phone calls, 3 meetings, a proposal, a revision, 6 weeks of hiding, etc. You also need to account for time writing emails, internal conversations with partners and staff, time put into marketing, including advertising, social media, networking, attending trade shows, etc. You also need to be sure to include all of the time that you put into prospects that don't buy and, again, you need to be real. What you may find is that occasionally, your phone rings and 10 minutes later you're writing a sale for a new customer, but on further inspection, you may find that that phone call was the result of a prospect reading a blog post that was retweeted by someone that you met at a networking event or a trade show.
4. Next, how will you define success? How much do you need to sell to reach your goal? What is your goal? Respectfully, I wouldn't accept your first answer until you also answer, Why is that your goal? Who else cares about this goal other than you? How will your/their life be different when you attain your goal? How will it be different if you don't?

Once you've answered those four questions, you're ready to use these formulae.

Total Hours Required = New Customers Required x (Pre Sale Hours/sale + Post Sale Hours/sale)

Now you know how many clients you need to be successful and how many hours you'll need to work. Next, you'll need to do a personal and professional SWOT analysis and a strategic analysis to determine whether you can with what you've got or you need something else to execute your strategy, but that is another post....

by Rick Roberge
http://therainmakermaker.com/