Tale of two lumberjacks

I see people turning their wheels all the time without getting anywhere. They see the next shiny and shiny object and leave, one more time. The worst thing is when you see someone who cannot focus on their goals. Usually it means they don’t have one. It’s pretty easy to realize that if you don’t have a path to follow and a compass handy, you may end up wandering around. Have you defined your goals? Have you developed a mission statement? Does your company have its own mission statement? What is it about anyway?

If you are a salesperson who works for a company, take the time to define exactly how much you will need to make in sales each month to achieve your personal goals and take care of your family. That will be your minimum. Then work on it. How much commission do you get from each sale? If you add all that up, how many sales on average would you have to make every month, every week, every day to get there? Once you’ve defined the numbers, how many actual customer contacts do you need to make each day to make that many sales? Then finally, how many calls do you need to make each day to keep your workflow complete and make real contacts. In my experience as a sales manager over the years, I have seen some of my best salespeople make 80-100 actual phone calls each day with at least 20 actual customer contacts. A contact is where you actually talk to a customer and do some little thing to move the sale forward. Where are you in this? Are you willing each day to make the commitment that it will take to achieve your goals? I have prepared this little story to illustrate what smart work is all about. It is an old but good.

Tale of two lumberjacks

Two loggers were given axes and told to go to the forest to cut down trees. The first woodcutter found a tree and began to cut down. It was biting all day without stopping. The second woodcutter also cut, but stopped from time to time during the day. He would leave and return a few minutes later. The first woodcutter kept working.

By the end of the day, the second lumberjack had cut more wood than the first. The former was much more tired than the latter. What happened?

The second woodcutter who took breaks went to sharpen his ax. The point is that they both had the same tool, but only one took the time to learn how to use it correctly. Work smart and not hard.

We all have the same tools. We have the same rules. Some of us learn to use our tools better than others. The playbook is not as important as the execution. Are you improving the execution of the tools you have? Your ability to carry out the “execution” of the plan may make you better than your competition. It can give you the success you need.