Few sales people are aware of the sales pulse and how it is the ultimate tool to measure whether you're headed for failure or success. Just like physical health, pulse indicates if you are leading a balanced effort in sales. Sales success doesn't come by chance. Consistent sales success largely depends on how you measure your sales pulse and whether or not you apply your findings to develop Passion, Connection and Intuition.

To explain the consept of "sales pulse" I usually share an eye opening experience of when I acquired a rather sophisticated pulse watch to keep track of my regular exercise. This watch helps me monitor my heart rate. If applied the right way, it also encourages me to balance the workout, specifically with the heart rate in mind. To make effective use of the watch it requires some basic information input, such as age, weight, resting heart rate (RHR) and maximum heart rate (MHR). This is to adapt all feedback to my actual physical state and condition.

A pulse watch guides you in making a balanced effort.

Before I start the timer it encourages me to select a so-called "heart rate training zone". My choice, of course, depends on the objectives of the workout. The first time I chose the Aerobic Zone I made an interesting discovery. As the watch beeps whenever BPM (Beats Per Minute) is too high or too low, with me it would not stop beeping. At first I thought something had to be wrong. Surely I had put in the appropriate and correct data!? I was running like I always did. There was nothing wrong with the data nor the watch. I just had to slow down. Up until then I had always maintained an intensity much too high for this type of exercise. What I thought was normal and right was not only ineffective - it kept me from reaching my long term objectives and goals.

Slow down to increase performance

A balanced effort is not about going slower. It's quite the opposite. A balanced effort is going as fast as possible, but keeping the long term perspective in mind. We want high performance, always, not just haphazardly off and on. Just like me, replacing "too intense training" with slower running for an extended period of time, balance provided me the necessary oxygen I needed to gain a greater appreciation for aerobic exercise. In addition, slowing down improved my balance helping me perform better also in the Anaerobic Zone. In sum, it made me run a lot faster, but also, and this is the point, over longer distances I spent less strength to finish the race faster.

A healthy heart affects all else.

In much the same way as no--body-- is able to run at maximum speed all the time physically, so it is with mental and social performance and capacity. To deliver both short term and long term results we need to vary our speed as circumstance requires - at different time intervals. Even though occasional sprinting is needed, most of the time a steady pace is what gets you the results you're aiming for. The long term objective of physical exercise is a more healthy heart, body and mind - increased stamina, strength and flexibility to deliver remarkable results, and oftentimes specifically to outperform competition.

The sales equivalent of the physical heart, body and mind lies in Passion, Connection and Intuition.

The sales pulse

Just like it takes extra effort to keep track of your physical pulse (you have to measure it), so it is with the sales pulse. There are ways to measure your sales pulse to determine your current condition and what's needed to increase your capacity. Let me illustrate with an experience I had when I was brand new in sales:

I was a telesales rep in Oracle. Our team did extremely well and we sold licenses for millions of dollars. However, in spite of all the success we had, one of my colleagues clearly stood out. This made no sense to me. I would look at the call stats and find that his time on the phone was way below that of the others, especially mine. I was always leading the way when it came to putting in hard hours of work. It didn't seem fair to me that he should sell twice as much as me with "half the time and effort".

Having gone through this painful realization for several months, I finally decided to humbly ask him why this was the case: "Why are you selling so much more than me, putting in so few hours?" His advice, which I won't elaborate on at this time, caused me serious reflection. I realized that his pace was slow, that whatever he did was well thought through and that his focus was on quality, rather than quantity. This WHY question triggered an amazing chain of events which led me to asking WHAT questions, WHO questions and HOW. The results were staggering.

Why? I resolved to make deep and profound changes because someone helped me measure my sales pulse and pointed me in a better direction. Believe it or not, this type of fine tuning is constantly needed, regardless of how successful you are. Any good athlete keeps track of the condition of his or her heart.

How to measure the sales pulse

Slowing down represents the ability to pause and ask effective questions to increase self reflection about basic belief systems.

			Checking pulse to assess progress.							The sales pulse is mainly measured by asking WHY and WHAT questions. Action oriented corrections are usually made by asking WHO and HOW questions. (And in case you're wondering, WHEN is part of HOW.) Just as physical pulse variations are natural, so are also sales pulse variations always present. The physical heart rate varies depending on factors such as heat and humidity, dehydration and altitude. Also, biological variation hits in, causing heart rate variations on a daily basis between 2-4 beats per minute. Sales pulse variations are similar. We'll look into those next time, as well as how we measure the sales pulse specifically.

If you want to know more about the subject, you may want to read The key to motivation as well as other related articles.

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