Progress - Slow, But Sure

One more shop has said yes to my proposition. It kind of reminded me of a bit of wisdom about slow and steady. I would like to have 10 shops signed up by now. Instead I have only Pat's 605, Palms Cyclery, PV Bicycle Center, and G's Cyclery. So thus far I am only signing up one every 1.6 weeks. I need 22 absolute minimum to pay the bills. So, math wizzes, at the current rate, I won't get to my minimum unitl week 35. That would put me somewhere in November. Not a pretty picture.

OK, starting June 1, I will be full time, thus hopefully doubling the output. I would have 8 accounts on June 1, then get to 22 by the end of August. Still not good.

The next question becomes, will my closing rate start to increase because a lot of the first few weeks has been spent in data base building, materials creation, planning, and driving my wheels off. Now, hopefully the time will be more efficiently spent in following up letters, e-mails, and previous contacts to set appointments. My closing ratio on appointments has been over 75%. The key is getting the appointment.

This might seem irrelevant to you, but I'm guessing there are many things in your life that have the same issues. This kind of analysis can help with school, career planning, parenting, etc.

In doing this evaluation, it occurs to me that I can actually get through June as long as I get paid by 22 accounts in June, so I have that whole month to get it done.
So the goal will be 1 new account per week in the last two weeks of April. Two new accounts per week in May. That will get me to 14 or 15 by June 1. Then maintaining 2 per week in June would get me to 23 or 24 by the end of June.

Some would set the goals higher. You can't hit the moon unless your aiming for it, or some such. I have commonly used that kind of strategy. I'm going with this conservative idea for this round. I'll report back later.