Problem: Less At-Bat Opportunities

Market Leaders will always have an advantage in the number of opportunities they get.

We all know the baseball-like numbers game when it comes to sales:

More ‘at-bats’ = more leads turned opportunities = more opportunities turned deals.

To truly ‘hit for the cycle’ on this tired baseball reference, Market Leaders typically get the equivalent of meaty fastballs down the middle every time.

You can swing & miss; but more often than not, even the bottom of the order can get on base.

Underdogs tend to deal with killer “do you have this integration?” curveballs & get one less strike.

While leaders have the leisure of taking calls as they come & not optimizing how they work.

I blame them for the oversimplification of ‘build pipe & close pipe’.

We all know it’s that easy…

Storytime: How’s Life Over There?

Chatted with a friend who started selling for Qualtrics in 2022.

Qualtrics is a well-known, market-dominating, customer experience empire.

I mean their co-founder, Ryan Smith, decided to buy the freaking Utah Jazz for fun.

Anyway, with a strong inbound funnel & a world-class SDR function, it was common for my friend to have 10-12 new at-bats a month.

I ping’d him while writing this to see where things are today.

Nearly 1.5 years into the gig & that opportunity funnel has ballooned into 14-16 at-bats a month.

So how can you hit more balls in play with fewer at-bats?

Solution: Create a Daily Structure

You have to know what you're doing at any point in your day.

Instead of trying to figure out what is most important & task shifting. Put your entire day/week/month routine on auto-pilot as best you can.

With fewer at-bats, staying organized will keep you sane & lead to more wins better than anything else.

Allowing you to be more prepared and make the most of the opportunities as they arise.

This is my calendar. I break everything into windows of time:

• Daily Prep - Where I do research for every meeting I will have that day

• Demos & Prospecting - Running a demo or executing tasks in outreach

• Lunch & Walk - If you can get outside in the middle of your day, just do it

• Deal Work - So much needs to happen to progress deals, dedicate time for it

  

Insights & Additional Thoughts

Thought #1 - Daily Prep

When I do all my research for meetings, it’s really easy to follow the same workflow. It takes no additional thought, I can do more on autopilot. It creates very little task shift and allows me to not stress when demos are coming up. I’ve already done the prep.

Thought #2 - Demo & Prospect

Both of these activities are very customer-facing focused. I can get a lot done in this window. It’s really easy to jump into Outreach & work through all the tasks that I queued up. My 2nd demo slot is just to give prospect additional times. But when I book any meetings, it’s during these windows.

Thought #3 - Lunch & Walk

It’s really important to take a break in the day. Not the Instagram scrolling break that happens between meetings or slacks, but a longer, get outside, eat lunch somewhere besides your desk type of break. Again, just do it.

Thought #4 - Deal Work

Every day I look at every single opportunity & tackle them one by one. It’s a lot of slacking, internal research, email chains, & more. Don’t let any deal go more than 5-days w/out communication. Follow up, follow up, follow up.

Thought #5 - Color Coding

This clearly isn’t as important, but it does help you know exactly where you are doing things & the type of activity that is coming up.