Have you calculated how much you need to earn per hour to achieve your yearly financial goals? Have you ever asked yourself what your highest income producing activity is? For yourself or for your company?
If you’re like most you may go about your day-to-day business never really thinking about the myriad activities that devour your day. Here’s an exercise from The Answer, by John Assaraf, that that helps me stay focused on earning my highest possible revenue per hour. Let’s assume that we each start with 365 days in a year. If we take away the following:
- Weekends 104 days
- Two weeks of vacation 14 days
- Personal holidays 3 is the average
That leaves each one of us with approximately 238 days in order to earn the income we desire. You can add or delete days based on our own specifics. If you multiply these 238 days times an average of 10 working hours per day, you are dealing with 2,380 hours of possible work time per year. Let’s do the math. If your yearly income goals are as follows:
- $25k = you must be earning an average of $10.50 every hour of work
- $50K = $21 per hour
- $100k = $42 per hour
- $250k = $105 per hour
- $1M=$420 per hour
- $5 M = $2,100 per hour
- $10 M = $4,200 per hour
In order to earn the income per year you are capable of, it is imperative you are doing activities every hour that line up. If you catch yourself doing anything that isn’t your absolute highest producing income activity all the time, you are in effect making it much harder to achieve your desired goals.
Ask yourself these questions and jot down the answers as you go along:
- What activity or activities generate your highest producing income?
- What are you spending your time doing?
- Are you focused on the real money-makers or the real time-wasters?
- Are you making it easy for yourself to be a high-income earner or are you doing the things that can be done by someone whose income goal or ability is less than yours? Delegate or outsource projects and tasks that aren’t the highest income producing use of your time!
When you start to look at each hour this way, you’ll stop doing the small stuff and you’ll start doing the stuff that yields the big results. Just look at this week and count the number of hours you already spent really making the big bucks vs. all the stuff that crept up. What you discover may both amaze you and startle you, into action, I hope!
To move your income into the next level, answer these questions:
- What skills must I now learn in order to command that income per hour? Make a real list and please be brutally honest with your self.
- How long will that take?
- Am I committed to doing that?
- What beliefs about myself must I have in order to achieve a higher income? (Make a list of three, right now.)
- Am I committed to changing some of my current internal beliefs?
- Am I prepared to take action now? (Right now!)
- Who can guide me the fastest to reach my desired income goal? (Professionals, mentors, friends or associates, already earning at that hourly level etc.)
Set your goal, figure out how much per hour of work you need to make, how much per week, and how much per month. Know the numbers, write them down, keep them in front of you, and put them in front of your sales reps. Then pay attention to how much time you actually spend at your real revenue potential!
Answer the questions, set the goals, and commit to your next level!
The Conditional Close
Technique
When the other person offers an objection, make it a condition of resolving their objection that they make the purchase.
You can also use this approach to make any trade – for example if you want them to watch a promotional video, offer a cup of coffee.
Always, by the way, phrase it in the form ‘If I…will you…’ rather than ‘Will you…if I…’. This is because our brains work very quickly and starting with ‘will you’ causes them to begin thinking immediately about objections and they may miss the exchange. On the other hand, starting with ‘If I…’ will cause psychological closure on what you are offering thus drawing them in to the close.
Examples
You say you want a red one. I’ll check and if I can get you one, will you take it today?
If we can figure out the financing for you, will you choose this one?
If I get you a cup of coffee, would you like to sit down and look through the catalog?
How it works
The Conditional Close uses the exchange principle to build a social agreement that if I solve your problem, you will buy the product in return.
For an extensive list of closing techniques by David Straker »