“Try to deliver those things as soon as possible.” – Mike Simmons in today’s Tip 589
How about you? Do you have a 30, 60, 90 plan?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Mike Simmons. Mike is the Founder of Catalyst Sale and host of the Catalyst Sale podcast. Here he is:
Mike Simmons: Let’s talk about things in the context of 30, 60, 90. You guys have heard me talk about this kind of nauseum. It’s like, “Oh, here you go Simmons talking about 30, 60, 90 again.” What does this mean? This is ultimately project management for dummies. Why? Cause I’m a dummy and I’m not PMP certified. I know what the PMP is. I know who the PMI is. I know what pinball is. Project Management book of knowledge or body of knowledge, Project Management Institute, Project Management Professional.
Anyhow, that’s not what this is 30, 60, 90. What are we going to accomplish in the next 30 days? What are we going to accomplish in the next 60 days? What are we going to accomplish in the next 90 days? Notice I say next 30, next 60, next 90. The reason why next 30, next 60 next 90 are important to me because I’m not going to just wait for the next period before I deliver that. I’m going to try to deliver those things as soon as possible. But these are the things I want to accomplish in the next 30 days, next 60 days, next 90 days. You’ve heard me talk about this before in the design backward execute going forward.
So if I know that I need to get a contract in order to implement something, I’ve got to have to get a contract done. So my implementation date is on, let’s do a simple math here. What did I say, December 1st, my implementation date in order to implement on December 1st, I’m probably going to have to do some kind of proof of concept or some kind of a soft launch. Let’s just call it a soft launch. I’m going to do a soft launch inside the organization to make sure things work technically.
So back half, maybe 30 days to do that soft launch. Okay. So in order to do that soft launch in 30 days, actually got to have a contract in place. That means I didn’t have the contract in place by November 1st. Well, in order to get the contract in place by November 1st, I’ve got to have due diligence done, or I’ve got to have whatever contracting process done. That might take, let’s say that takes 14 days. Let’s say it’s really, really fast. We’re talking about a single page of paper, really easy to move things in and out. Let’s say I can do that in 14 days.
So now by November 15th, I’ve got to have contract in hand of the person on the other end. Now, what I didn’t factor in is what’s in between November 15th and December 1st. Oh, you’re in the States Thanksgiving, right? So we’ve got Thanksgiving, which is going to be a holiday period that I’ve got to work on. So I’m going to back this up another seven days. So now we’re November 7th. I want to have contract paperwork in hand. That’s just if we’re going to hit everything on time.
Now, beyond that, I’ve got to agree to the terms that are going to be in the contract. Well, that might take a couple of weeks, depending on who all is going be involved. We have to get people from purchasing. Do we have to get people from other groups? Do we have to get the technical people involved? Who else needs to be part of it? So what we want to have in here is an implementation plan that gets us all the way to December 1st and kind of walks out. What does that entire period look like? So then we know that we, at least, if we’re not at a point where we’re talking about something on, let’s say October 1st, the likelihood of getting that deal done is actually really, really low.
So if you want to get a deal done and you want to get something implemented by the 1st of December, probably need to be talking with those folks, those folks in getting organized around things by the 1st of October, if we don’t have that in place, then the likelihood of us getting that deal done are pretty low. Now, if we’ve got longer practice sale cycles, then now we’ve got to extend those in here. So the 30, 60, 90 becomes even more challenging.
So my first 30 days, my next 60 days, my next 90 days. 90 days out might be, we go ahead and we launch to the audience. So watch by the end of 60 days within that first 60 days, we have our soft launch plan. We know who the stakeholders are, how things are going to be communicated. Okay? Maybe we’ve got our success criteria established. 30 days before that. We’ve got our audience scoped out and we’ve got general buy-in or decision to on putting these things that now we can plug in a lot of these things. And to be honest with you, we can, I hate when people say that. So here I go saying that. And I’ve said that I think on three different occasions today, including on another video recorded, but what I want to do is I want to look at this in the context of this could be three hours, six hours, nine hours. So in the next three hours, next six hours, nine hours, I want to get things done. Next three days, six days, nine days. Next three weeks, six weeks, nine weeks. 30, 60, 90. Three months, six months, nine months. Three years, six years, nine years. I just break it up into smaller pieces of three so they can always start attacking those. And then if at any point in time, I’m in this area and I’m not hitting on those marks. I know where my risk is. And I see what I might have to adjust before I get too close right out here, kind of forecast something that’s supposed to happen in 10 days. And the reality is we haven’t even been in front of procurement.
So that’s why 30, 60, 90 day plans are so important to me. These do not need to be really complex, just a couple of bullet points, these milestones, or mile markers that we want to get through. They can move as guideposts in your journey from along the Jubilee line or making that drive from Austin, Texas to Orange County, California. Thanks.
Most who know Mike know that he’s the master of the whiteboard. This tip is no different and you’ll find a video version of this tip with Mike and his whiteboard at DailySales.Tips/589. There you’ll also find more links to connect with Mike and to his Catalyst Sale website and podcast.
Once you’ve checked that out. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!