In sales and marketing, as in life, there are certain rules that are true in most situations.

There is the 80/20 rule. It says that 80% of the results generally comes from 20% of the activity that you do. Or 80% of the sales come from 20% of the customers.

There is the assumption rule. It tells you making assumptions will trip you up, that if you “assume” something then it will end up making an ASS of U and of ME.

There is another guideline you should be aware of. It’s the 90 day rule!

The 90 day rule says that the success, or the failure, that you are experiencing today is not a result of the things that you are doing today.

It’s the result of the activity you were doing 90 days ago. Think about sales. You want to sell a product. You identify potential clients or customers and talk to some. After talking with a batch of your prospects you build a little set of words to explain your product and you get to work. Initially people show an interest and ask for more information. You get that initial information to them and begin to build a list of people who are interested.

At the same time you keep talking to new people, new prospects. By the end of the first month you have a list of people with interest who are talking with you. It’s frustrating. At this stage there is all this activity, things happening, people talking, but the results just seem to stay out of reach.

A few people are buying. A few people are showing real interest. There is a batch of people who are interested. Things are starting to move. It’s sort of happening but the results are just not matching the effort you have been putting in.

You are working harder than the results justify.

By the second month you have a batch of customers. That gives you some success stories of people using your product. That means you have your original story, the words yo put together to tell your story. You also have some results to validate what you are saying. Words are good but results from your initial customers change your story, change your attitude, change your results.

Your business starts building momentum. Your results are more in line with the work you are doing.

In the third month you really start to see results of your work. You have new customers, referrals coming in, everything is going well. The key to your current success is the work that was put in at the start to identify prospects and to talk to lots of people. That is where the current success is coming from.

You are building on the effort and the success from month one and month two.

Your results are coming from everything you have done for the 90 days and in most cases, at the end of those 90 days, you are starting to really cook.

Things are happening. Your results are matching the effort and things are getting exciting.

The danger then is that you will stop doing the things that you did to get where you are.

It is easy think that your current success will just go on then. You have worked hard, things are happening, you can afford to ease off a little.

The most common error, the thing that will really damage your business, is stopping the basic activity that you did in the start. The ‘grunt’ work that got you going is still needed for things to keep going well. You need to keep finding new prospects and keep talking with new people.

If you think that you the job done, If you think you can kick back a little and take it easy, Then remember the 90 day rule. Keep doing the basics. Keep doing the same work you did in the beginning,

Take a day to rest and reflect and then…. Set yourself a new 90 day plan.Do it again. Build on your success!