Whilst Sales Productivity Isn't Quite Everything...
"Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long-run it is almost everything."
Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman
Given my recent, latest productivity related wail, I was astonished, ashamed even yet hardly surprised, to learn (via London's Telegraph Matthew Lynn) that UK public sector workers' output continues to crash. The past year bearing witness to further decline, at an annualised rate of 2.3pc.
Official figures suggest civil servant productivity between 1997 and 2019 was around 0.2pc a year. (To compare, for the private sector it was 1.1pc.) Yet since then to now, it's collapsed. By 6.8pc. Leading many to sound an alarm that sadly no-one with the power to reverse seems to be hearing. Namely, given all the technological advances alone, how on earth can government and their related staff be producing less today than a quarter-century ago?
No matter any data dispute, the stark, shocking truth is that they receive way more yet produce much less.
The sheer unsustainability of this currently appears lost on voters, mandarins and politicians alike.
I've blogged before on the UK's so-called Productivity Puzzle.
It bears retelling, quelle horreur, that the long-lunching, cinq-et-sept loving, Unions beset French take only four days to produce what we the other side of détroit de Douvres manage in a full five.
Imagine, for a moment your sales effort. When stacked up against that of your chief competition, globally hailed sector 'leader', or ravenous freshly emerged darling mover and shaker, which side of that Channel are you on?
If the beaches are sunnier on the other coast, the there's a three-point turn you can make to change course.
Why are you getting up in the morning? What is the problem you genuinely resolve? How much do people truly embrace this? Are you to your core purpose-driven? Can you succinctly explain so and duly inspire?
There is nothing as fundamental to Sales success as knowing your sales process. That pattern of events that when in train, practically guarantee you earn their sign-up. Living and breathing it. Which you are always testing, refining and qualifying out against. A formula that is repeatable and sustainable.
Then we have skill elevation and tool maximisation. How are you learning, and critically, applying what you learn? What tools have you got, and are they the right ones for each job at hand? In my current striving to enhance video call performance so it becomes re-energised, advancing and distinctive, I often see potential held back through mismatch here. Don't run into such wall.