Measuring Makes Improvement

One of the techniques my sales coach, Joe Marr, advises is to maintain a daily "A/B" journal. In it I track my "attitudes" (my feelings about myself) and my "behaviors" (the actions I take).

The idea is threefold.

First, my relative success as a salesperson shouldn't affect my image of myself. If I mark that self-image on a scale from one to ten, it stands to reason that my behavior will be limited by wherever I place myself on that scale. If I see myself as a four out of ten person (pretty low), then how can my behavior in my business role exceed who I think I am?

Second, the act of recording my behavior -- in this case, the actions I take toward making sales -- allow me to observe my technique. This way I can reinforce those practices which lead to success and correct those which lead to, well, "other destinations". I hesitate to call them "failures". So long as I learn from the situation, I achieve some level of success.

Finally, the journal acts as a means of self-accountability. Each day I review the previous day's activities. Did I attend the events I said I was going to attend? Did I call the people I said I was going to call? It's all right there in black and white (as is my critique of how well I performed).

I've been using Google Docs as my tool of choice for the task. I whipped up a quick template for a daily page and just make a copy of it each day for my record keeping.

I've only been doing it now for about ten days, but so far it seems to be working pretty darn well. Have I closed a whole slew of deals, yet? No, not really.

But I'm making more and better connections than before when I wasn't keeping track.

So, what behaviors are you measuring in order to improve?