I’ve reached the age that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has decided that I need to receive an annual Social Security Statement. This statement estimates what my benefit will be when I retire at various ages. (Boy am I glad I invested for retirement!) It also shows my annual earnings for every year all the way back to my ‘part time job in high school’ years. Here’s the thing. The SSA bases your retirement benefit on your most recent annual incomes, not the incomes of 40+ years ago. Good thing. I don’t know about you, but last year’s income was 100 times better than way back when.
That got me thinking. Maybe the SSA has a sales lesson for us.
(This is my favorite part. It’s where I get to screw with your head!)
What is the value of an hour of your time, TODAY?
I was taught that you take what you earn and divide it by the number of hours that you work and that is the value of your time. So, if you earn $100K/year divided by 2,000 hours, that’s $50/hour. Half that if you earn $50K/year. Double it if you earn $200K/year. Pretty simple right?
So, now let me give you some ‘pretend decisions’ to make.
Play Angry Birds or Solitaire for an 12 minutes/day or engage with prospects?
Invest in Hubspot to grow your business, or not?
Get your professional sales assessment done, or not?
Take an unscheduled, undeserved day off, or not?
So, let me help with the math. (I love this part, too!)
At $50/hour ($100K/year) Angry Birds will cost you $50/week, or $2,500/year. You can’t get it back. The day off will cost you $400. Can’t get it back. How many times a year do you do it? Hubspot and assessments are tools of growth. How much growth are you missing out on? 10% = $10K/year? Every day that you delay a decision that could put $10K/year in your pocket costs you $50. Delay your decision two weeks and that’s $500, gone forever! Oh well! $500 isn’t that much! But what if you realized that growth takes x amount of time. Whether you start now or two weeks from now, it will take x amount of time. And after you do that you’ll continue wanting to grow and continue doing things to grow. So, that eventually, like me and like the SSA expects, your time will be worth 100 times what it is today. What then?
Playing Angry Birds today costs your family $250,000 in future dollars.
Taking that undeserved day off costs your family $40,000 in future dollars. (One day!)
And delaying a step that could grow sales by 10% could cost your family $5,000 a day for every day that you delay. Delay for more days or increase the amount of growth expected…Well, you get it.
You want to argue or fix it, get on my calendar.
RainMakers & Sales Rock Stars 
What is the cost of the shot you never take? What is the missed opportunity cost? What could you have made, done, learned? Some never think ‘what if’. Others, can’t help it.