Words of wisdom for this week.
“The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.”
~ Hazlitt
For the past several years, I have been surveying my sales audiences to determine how much time salespeople actually spend selling. Let me define what I mean by selling: the amount of time you spend in front of a prospect or customer or on the telephone selling them. This does not include:
- Travel time
- Meetings
- After-sales service
- Waiting time
- Problem solving
- Administrative responsibilities
I realize that all of the above are important and often required by either your boss or your client/prospect, and that they indirectly can contribute to satisfy a customer relationship, repeat business and customer loyalty. Having said that, how much time do you think the typical salesperson spends selling (and that’s what you get paid to do)? What do you think? 80%? 50%? 30%?
You may be surprised to find out (and please keep in mind that my research is not very unscientific, but fairly consistent) that the actual amount of time salespeople spend selling averages between 10-15 percent of their total work time!
Now consider if you will – you are currently earning what you are earning spending less (on the average) than 20% of your time selling. Imagine what could happen to your income if you could increase that by 50%? In other words, you would still be spending less than 40% of your time selling. How about only 10%? Could you increase your income by at least that? I’ll bet you could, easily.
The thing to remember is that you can’t get more time. So if you are going to increase your selling time, you have to take it from somewhere in the previous – very partial – list. Why not spend some time carefully and honestly evaluating how you are spending all of this non-selling time to see where you can find just a few hours a week. I’ll bet you could find at least 5 or 6 hours. That’s an extra day a week or 52 days extra a year TO SELL. If you had almost two extra months a year to sell, how would that impact your income?
Getting organized means many things in the sales profession. It means organizing your materials, time, learning, territory, attitudes and sales approaches. The foundation for a highly organized salesperson is an effective planning philosophy and strategy followed by action. Here are a few things to consider to get you started. See how long a list you can create of ways to be better organized.
1. Get up an hour earlier every work day than you are accustomed to and do something productive with the time.
2. Make a fifteen minute appointment with yourself every morning and evening to plan/review your goals, activities, time and objectives. Repeat this process every day.
3. Spend an hour each weekend planning for the following week and evaluating the previous week’s challenges, shortfalls and accomplishments. Repeat this process every week.
4. Schedule routine time every day for improving: product knowledge, sales skills and relationship strategies.
5. Develop positive work habits, then make a list of where you want to improve.
6. Keep track of your time wasters.
7. Spend time each month (in person or on the phone) with other seasoned sales veterans, a mentor or personal coach and have specific questions you want them to help you with.
8. Start a success journal. Keep track of your successes no matter how small you think they are.
9. Set deadlines for yourself to master new skills or information.
10. Read, read, read. Keep your TV off for three months.
11. Evaluate your time-use rituals i.e. reading the newspaper, watching TV etc.
12. Focus and concentrate. Do one thing at a time.