The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes
Chet Holmes, a rock star in the sales space is well known for his success on working for a Charlie Munger company, begins his book with an audacious statement saying, 'he is positive he can help each of them transform their company into an Ultimate Sales Machine.' He even goes as far as saying that clients can expect it to happen within 12 months. Most strategies taught in this book are sound and straightforward, ideas you may have even thought of throughout your day to day. The difference? Most are not applying these principles.
Chet Holmes continues: “I call this the reverse psychology portion of my course where I will goad you into applying a powerful force to create your success from what you’ll learn today. And this force, my friends, is pigheaded discipline and determination”.
Holmes lays out the blueprint for building out a company: first, laying the foundations. A key principle he believes in is time management. After working till exhaustion Holmes and regularly receiving those dreaded, "you have a minute" emails he decided to get out of reactive mode by creating a system to manage his time more efficiently. Urgent "things" were taken care of during two “got-a-minute” meetings lasting just 10 minutes each day. For the first time in his career he did not even know what to do with all his free time. From working 70 to 80 hours a week, to proactively managing it by categorizing his responsibilities in 9 major impact areas he only had to work 9 hours.
Other important lessons from the novel are to create lists of the six most important things you need to accomplish that day. Then do them. Go about your day with unbridled determination to finish those six goals which will mark a successful day.
Next, plan your day. After you have created your six most important tasks for the day, making enough time for them is the next requisite step.
How it relates to sales: One takeaway that I apply to my sales roles is the idea Holmes mentions of touching an email means doing it at that moment, not later in the day. Imagine this, you come in at 8:30, grab a coffee and sit down at your desk. You look at an email you must respond to but you don’t have time to complete the task at the moment so you decided you'll handle it later. Your phone rings, the call goes 10 minutes with 15 minutes of follow up work to be done after and all of a sudden its noon.
Apply this simple rule: if you touch it, you finish it. In plain English if open a letter or email you handle it.
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