Time Management for Sales People

Companies invest in sales training to improve sales skills, but often overlook one of the most needed skills, that of good time management.

There are many reasons for bad time management in sales. Read through the following and see if any of these four apply to you or your team and if the recommendations suit your role. The first step is to identify the specific problem, acknowledge it and then take active steps to overcome it.

Bad planning

Commit to making a plan for each day, either the night before, or at the start of each day. Commit to this now! In doing this, remember a day full of completed tasks may not always take you closer to key productive sales outcomes! Plan the key outcomes you need to achieve before you think about the tasks you need to complete. Write your top three outcomes at the top of your plan. If it helps, partition your day and allocate certain tasks to certain times. Also work out what you need to stop doing for the day. You may find for example, that checking e-mail too frequently is reducing your focus and attention. In this case create a policy to only check e-mail once every two hours and shut down your e-mail application between these times. Once you have created your plan, ensure you tick or cross off completed outcomes and tasks as you go. Taking this last action will give you a sense of progression and motivate you towards the next outcome you need to achieve. A good plan for each day will help you stay focused and allow you to lasso those previously lost minutes and make them productive.

Fear or dread

Fear or dread may cause a salesperson to procrastinate on certain tasks. Often salespeople know what the next best action is, but fear or dread causes good outcome activity to be replaced by less challenging and less productive activity. One cause of fear or dread can be from predicting a negative or bad outcome from the particular action. Often however these negative predictions turn out to be incorrect. A good rule of thumb I use, is that about 70% of pessimistic predictions never occur! Of the 30% that do, most don't matter in the long run anyway! In many cases taking action would be better than taking no action at all. Start to reprogram your mind and predict positive outcomes and results. An example of positive reprogramming would be saying to yourself - "The prospects I call today may desperately need my product or service and I will do my best to tell as many about this product and service as I can".

Making tasks too big

Sometimes our mind makes the task bigger than it really is! We balk at the enormity of the job ahead. Remember though, big outcomes are usually achieved by lots of little outcomes. Breaking the job or task into small pieces and just starting to complete those little tasks may quickly build your momentum towards completing the larger one.

Have not considered their purpose

Finding a higher purpose in your job can be the best motivator to help your time management. For example, it may be remembering that you are helping others with your product or service. There may be somebody out there that desperately needs your specific product or service. However, poor time management may mean you never give that person or company the opportunity to compare your product. As a result they may have to settle for second best. Better Time Management may mean you end helping more people and at the same time this will help you feel more fulfilled and satisfied. Start thinking about the client first and you may find the job more enjoyable. Your energy may just increase to match.

Time management is personal and one system does not suit all. It is important that you analyse your activity and see if there is room for improvement. Spend a few minutes to identify what is holding your time management back and work out strategies that will work for you.

Ross MacMahon is the author of the book "40 Days to Sales Excellence" and Director of MacMahon Pty Ltd, a company dedicated to Sales Training