In the words of Benjamin Franklin, ‘time is money.’ This is especially true for sales professionals. In most jobs, time management skills are essential, but the stakes are higher for sales professionals.
Choosing to devote more attention to one prospect over another might mean the difference between closing a million-dollar sale and being turned down. Spending a fixed amount of time on a set of activities can lead to a record week while focusing on something else can lead to a slump. This means that salespeople are often juggling multiple vital jobs since they are not compensated based on the number of hours, they work but the produced outcomes, specifically sales results as measured by sales data.
As a result, it's critical for salespeople to manage their time effectively and make the most of it. After all, we cannot control time; all we can do is control ourselves in relation to time.
Here are 7 helpful time management tips for salespeople:
The first step toward successful time management is to get organised. It is imperative to have a flexible to-do list. Rather than wasting your busy mornings planning your day, do it immediately before you go to bed. That way, when you return to work the next day, you can get right to work. Save these tasks for the evenings when you're exhausted and make the most of the time you have. Visualise your entire day's action plan. Make a flexible to-do list and organise it according to your top sales priorities. Minutes add up to an hour, so organise your activities down to the minute.
Furthermore, make a log of the time you spend on daily activities. Maintain the logbook on a daily basis and record your actions before going to bed. Make a weekly assessment of this to see where you're wasting/spending your time, and then allocate that time to something productive. To save time, delegate work to others - your assistants, subordinates or family. If you adequately compensate and congratulate them, they will feel good about being entrusted with the responsibility of accomplishing a task while also earning money.
The concept of multitasking is a fallacy. People cannot accomplish two things at the same time, according to studies; they can only switch between them fast. Because people's brains have to adjust to each job, this switching dilutes focus and slows them down. Different tasks employ different mental muscles in the context of selling. Demos, for example, necessitate a completely different mentality and emphasis than pre-call preparation or pipeline management. By combining related duties, sales staff can increase their efficiency.
For example, prospecting. Let's imagine your company promotes the use of voicemail and email as key components of prospecting, and you've set aside two hours to make calls. One strategy is to call the prospect, get their voicemail, leave a message, compose a follow-up email, send the email, document the action in the CRM, create a new activity to try to reach the prospect again, and then go on to the next prospect on your call list and continue the cycle for two hours. Because of all the activity switching, this method might eat up a lot of time. There are numerous options for streamlining it. Grouping activities is one option:
It is important that you start with the most difficult task or your least favourite. Every salesperson has at least one task that they absolutely despise. Prospecting, keeping track of activity, sending follow-up emails, and so forth. The odd thing is that we can all come up with a variety of strategies to appear productive while avoiding the activities we loathe the most. However, if you overinvest in one area to avoid completing work in another, time will fly by. And such behaviour always comes back to haunt you in the end. The bottom line is to do the thing you're afraid of first. You would still have to do it anyway.
Introductory conversations are another place where salespeople can waste time. Many prospects tend to ask, "So what do you do?" at some point during the sales conversation. This is an example of a question you can create a brief value proposition to. You'll have more time to address the topics that actually matter to your prospects and learn how you can help them if you have clear, concise responses to the frequent questions you get asked every day.
Additionally, you are less likely to stumble through the explanation if you have a clear, well-articulated value proposition on hand. And the more articulate you are with the buyer, the more quickly the sale will move forward.
Depending on your buyer's personality, job and schedule, consider planning your day around the schedule of your target buyer to prevent wasting time on ignored calls. For example, at 10:00 a.m. trying to sell to contractors isn't going to work because they're already on the job site. Calling a restaurant that offers brisk lunch services in the afternoon is unlikely to result in a positive interaction.
Although you may not be a fan of sales scripts, the truth remains that if your business caters to a specific type of buyer, many of your prospects will be similar. Instead of coming up with a new list of questions every time you speak with a prospect, create a core set that you can work with and customise. Another good approach is to create a framework for prospect research. Examine prior deals you've won and seek elements that have shown to be useful time and time again. While you know which data sources are the most useful, you may go straight to them when looking for fresh chances. You can also create an email template, writing a new email every time you communicate with a prospect is inefficient. While you should personalise each message to the individual and their situation, starting with a template rather than a blank slate will save you a lot of time.
It is difficult to stay focused when your favourite pastime activity is only a mouse click away. Remove all distractions to guarantee you stay focused. If a website isn't necessary for your profession, block it with the Chrome addon block site. You should also keep your cell phone and other gadgets hidden. If you see or hear notifications, it makes it more difficult to fight the temptation to check social media or your texts.
