When You Keep Score, The Score Gets Better

Ever caught yourself at the end of a busy workday wondering if all that activity actually moved your business forward? You're not alone. Most entrepreneurs confuse being busy with being productive, but there's a profound difference between the two.

In this eye-opening episode, we challenge the conventional wisdom about what makes for a successful business day. The truth is, no one can actually "make" a sale—it's not entirely within our control. What we can control are the specific activities that make a sale more likely. When you start measuring what truly matters—like how many new business conversations you initiate—rather than just how busy you feel, everything changes.

Traditional sales management often relied on Monday morning "history lessons" that reviewed the previous week's performance. This carrot-and-stick approach ultimately fails because it encourages people to fabricate data rather than learn from it. What works instead is keeping accurate score for yourself, using those metrics to make systematic improvements in your approach. As we reveal in this episode, "When you keep score, the score gets better"—but only if you're tracking the right things.

We outline five practical steps to implement effective business scoring: choosing metrics you control, setting clear objectives, analyzing your data regularly, incorporating insights into weekly planning, and taking broader monthly and annual perspectives. This systematic approach transforms how you view your business progress, shifting from discouragement to empowerment. Whether you're struggling to grow beyond a plateau or feeling overwhelmed by constant work with minimal results, this episode provides the framework you need to refocus your efforts where they'll actually count. Ready to transform how you measure success? Listen now and discover your Commission Code for business growth.

Chapters

• 0:00 What Makes a Good Business Day?
• 1:26 Introduction to Commission Code Podcast
• 2:25 Why You Can't Make a Sale
• 4:13 Why Carrot and Stick Doesn't Work
• 5:01 Five Ways to Keep Score Effectively
• 9:42 Closing and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

How do you know if you had a good day in your business? When I ask that question, I hear things like well, you know, I was busy all day and I still didn't get everything done. I still have more to do and I'm tired. Or, man, today was a very productive day. I planned this and I sent all these emails, and I was on social media posting stuff for hours. Oh man, do those things make it a good day? When we answer that question, shouldn't it be about the work that was done, specifically about moving forward with specific prospects? At some point in the sales process, are you keeping score and measuring the right things? That's what we're going to talk about today.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time. You know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business, or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet, and yet it seems like you're always working, or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 1: 1:31

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor but I got to tell you and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor, but I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your Success.

Speaker 1: 2:24

No one can make a sale. It's not in our control. What we can do is make sure that we do all the things that we can control to move us toward our desire to see the prospect buy. We don't control the purchase, but we do control what we do to make a sale more likely. If I start a business conversation with one person a month. My data is going to show how many times someone actually buys my product or service every month. If I see a hundred people a month and I start a business conversation with those folks, then the chances are obviously much higher that I'm going to make a sale, if you will, that I'm going to have a prospect by that particular month.

Speaker 1: 3:12

Gathering and analyzing data to adjust business systems is what's the foundation. It's vitally important when it comes to running a business. I mean, think about it. Could General Motors or General Electric or any of the big companies out there Coca-Cola or any of them could they run their business without having the data that shows what's happening out there in the real world? We need to do the same.

Speaker 1: 3:39

One of the classic ways that were used in the past to quote-unquote manage salespeople was to have a history lesson. Every Monday We'd sit down with the salesperson's activity and sales results for the prior week. We'd talk about the data and the ratios, like the number of times you asked for an appointment related to the number of appointments they actually set on their calendar. If your numbers show that you met the standards for activity the number of calls you made, let's say and if you made some sales, then boy, how you were applauded. You were absolutely outstanding. If you didn't, then the response was less than positive. In my experience, nobody was ever actually beaten up or verbally belittled, but there was no doubt that the manager was disappointed. Can you say carrot and stick? Well, here's the bottom line. It doesn't work. The numbers were kept by the salespeople, and after a while it was obvious that the numbers were being made up to avoid the stick. Thus, the whole prospect just became useless. It's almost a joke, but here's what does work If you keep score, the score gets better, but you have to keep the accurate score, of course. Why does that work? Because the data the score, if you will gives you ideas about how you can adjust your systems to improve the score.

Speaker 1: 5:12

You know, when I get out and I play golf, I used to not keep score in any way. Well, when you aren't scoring, well, you wonder why you should even think about keeping score anyhow, and that's kind of where it was. After a while, though, I started scoring myself by how many times I actually made par and how many times I was with one stroke away from making par. Either one, I decided, was going to be a win for me. Every hole was its own game, so I didn't get down on myself because of the history lesson of my last attempts. I'd try to adjust, to get better, as I did, but remembering how many times I won a hole, that was good, that was wonderful. Every time it was a new challenge and a new game. Now you know I'm still not very good, but I'm getting better and I have a challenge that I can achieve every time I play. Keeping score has allowed me to get better at what I do because I have data to analyze and I use that to adjust my performance. Sorry about the golf story, but it was the best I got. Right now.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Data is good for analyzing your systems and making adjustments. Data alone is useless unless you have some data to compare it to, like comparing this month to last month or this week to last week, for example. I cannot imagine anybody running any business without collecting data and analyzing it. It's taken a while, but I'm finally at a point where I can analyze the data and not beat myself up because the results are not what I wanted them to be. So what am I recommending? Well, here are five things that you can do to keep score and not beat yourself up with a history lesson. Instead, you'll have data that you can use to adjust your systems as you get better. Okay, here we go.

Speaker 1: 7:15

First of all, you got to decide which activity metrics you want to measure. Now, these have to be the activities that you and you alone control, and they require no one but you to reach your goal. These activities are the things that you can do that move you closer to what you want for your business. These are things that have to do with the sales process not in other stuff, but in the sales process. Secondly, set objectives for those metrics. Maybe something like I don't know I will meet 10 new people each week and begin a conversation about business. Now, that's a metric that you and you alone control, so it's a good one to watch. Then, number three set aside some time every week to analyze your data. Maybe it's Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon, or maybe you take Friday. Did you meet your objectives for the metrics? What were the challenges? What adjustments can you make to improve your results for activity during the next week and then next week? It's a new game. It's a new game. It's a new hole in which you're going to get, to use your adjusted systems to make a difference.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Number four this is all well and good, on a weekly or short-term basis. I call this weekly analysis a big part of the weekly business planning system. Number five the bigger picture. Well, that has to do with the same kind of review, but you're doing it on like a monthly or an annual basis. We call that monthly planning and annual plans. Okay, yeah, I call it that, because that's what I was taught to call it.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Here's page two. You ready, I use weekly and monthly planning systems for my own business and it's what I teach my clients to use in their business. I used it in my corporate work to run my department and I learned it as a very young manager. And here's what I've learned over the years Planning is a system that works extremely well when you properly implement the system, decide on the metrics you control, measure them, analyze them, adjust them to get better, and if you do that consistently, keeping score you will see better results, because when you keep score, the score gets better. Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the Commission Code to success in your business. Remember, go to morrissimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes. I'm Morris Sims.