80% of all businesses fail in the first 5 years.  In the next 5 years, 80% of those remaining businesses fail.  Let’s say out of 100 businesses, 80 fail in the first 5 years.  That leaves 20.  Out of those 20, another 16 fail in the next 5 years.  That leaves 4 out of 100 businesses that are still around in 10 years.

You have a 4 in 100 chance of making it!

How can you increase your odds?

Dunn and Bradstreet did a very extensive, very expensive research study to try to find the answer to this question.  Want to know what they found?  They found that companies that had high, healthy sales were successful.  Companies that had low, poor sales were unsuccessful.

Can you believe it?  Who would have thought???

It all comes down to that 5 letter word…. S-A-L-E-S…  Sales is to your business what exercise is to your body.  If you fail to work out, your body will…. guess what…. fail.  Business is the same way.  If you fail to consistently prospect, your business will…. fail.  A business that is consistent in sales has a much better chance of survival.

Do we work out 24/7?  No, we don’t.  We’d be exhausted and burned out.  Prospecting is the same.  They say that we need to work out 3-5 days per week.  For the sake of this argument, let’s say 5 days per week.  They say you should work out 30 – 60 minutes, right?  Say you “work out” in your business for 60 minutes per day, 5 days per week.  That’s a total of 5 hours per week.  That’s all.  It’s not even the amount of time that’s important… it’s the consistency.  The daily commitment.

Think about it.  If you were going to run a marathon, would you just go out one day and run the race?  No.  You would train, you would practice… over and over, so that when it came to the day of the marathon, you would be in shape and ready for the challenge.  You need to train and practice selling as well, so that when you get that big chance, you are in shape and ready for the challenge.  If you can commit to doing this every day, a few things are going to happen:

First of all, the Law of Averages is bound to work out.  Even if you’re not very good at it at first, you’re bound to get a yes once in awhile.  Every No that we get brings us that much closer to a Yes.

Secondly, the more we sell, the more comfortable we become.  The more times we articulate what it is that we are trying to sell, the better we understand our own product and the better we get at handling objections.  So, when it really matters, we’ll be able to overcome those objections.

What is the overall reason to work out?  Health.  You need to exercise your business to ensure it stays healthy and alive for many years to come.