Sales and Your Refrigerator's Ice Dispenser

Think of your refrigerator door ice dispenser. It has two main components—the  ice maker and the ice dispenser.

Here comes the analogy. Every ice cube is like a purchase order.

You put a glass up to the dispenser and push the button and ice comes out. Does an ice cube come out every second? No. Does it dump all the ice out at once? No.

What usually happens is this:  You push your glass under the dispenser and a couple of seconds go by and nothing comes out. Then suddenly 3 or 4 cubes drop. Then another delay. Then maybe one drops, or maybe two. Then another delay. You know the routine. 

Meanwhile, up the chain, the ice maker is doing very steady work. Whenever the ice trays are empty, the icemaker steadily pours water into the trays. The coldness of the freezer steadily chills and turns the water to ice. After a time period, the newly frozen ice dumps into the reservoir and the process starts all over again.

This is the way sales works. Your purchase orders are like the ice cubes coming out of the dispenser. They are seldom steady and predictable. You seem to have droughts, dry spells of orders not coming in. Then one day you might get four or five orders you weren't expecting.

However, up the chain your sales effort needs to work like the icemaker works. Steady. Constant. Predictable. The sales person needs to focus on filling that Reservoir with ice, and the way that's done is with constant, steady work.

Sure, this is an oversimplified analogy. It also happens to be true. Business owners and salespeople both benefit by understanding this analogy.