The Secret Art of Effective Time Management for Sales Professionals

By: Phl Smithers

What is time?
With the assumption that we will live to age 80, we all have 4000 weeks across the span of years, more or less. That is an interesting thought - can you tell me how many weeks you have left?
How you use time will have a direct effect on how successful you are because it is the most valuable resource that a salesperson has. It is interesting that companies spend a great deal of effort in measuring and reviewing salespeoples' tangible targets and associated activities, but very few do any analysis whatsoever on their time management and use of time. Some sales managers I meet have little advice to offer on territory management except not to drive too far between meetings.
Time management and the desire to accomplish more has been identified as one of the key problems amongst salespeople.
A common goal amongst salespeople is to become wealthy and most are incentivised to chase the commissions. The simple financial definition of wealth is not sufficient, and I would expand it to include the non-tangible parts of life. So being truly wealthy is having enough money and time to have a balanced life to include cash and investments, family and friends, personal well being, and quality time for yourself.
This chart provides a good picture of the situation. The end goal is to balance your life - work, family, friends, and you time. Many executives and other professional people find that work swallows their lives. They end up giving drops of time to themselves and their friends and relations. Then, the next thing they know, they are giving up their own few precious drops of time to satisfy their friends and relations. So they end up not having time to pursue their own interests. There is no longer any time to work out or read or just go for a stroll. They can definitely forget about such time consuming activities as horseback riding or even taking personal development courses.
Lots of sales people feel as if they are not gaining all that they deserve because their lives are not fulfilling. I see this all the time.
On the other hand, there are people who are so consumed by their jobs that they never see their loved ones or friends or have any time alone. Top executives in the City are prime culprits of this type of behaviour. When your life is just focused on making money, it can be very shallow.
A good example for you to consider is Richard Gere's character in the motion picture Pretty Woman. I have met some very miserable, burnt out City traders who are extremely wealthy but with no life. Avoid this at all costs! And I will now share with you how you can make steps to get your time organised right now.
We can split our time up into 4 distinct categories.
1 - Not Important and Not Urgent
2 - Not Important but Urgent
3 - Important and Urgent
4 - Important but Not Urgent
Firstly Not Important and Not Urgent as Distraction A myriad of activities that do not contribute to the tasks we are supposed to be performing end up distracting us at work. Typical distractions are things like personal email that's constantly arriving on your computer along with the irresistable urge to drop everything else and take a fast peek! There are a few things you could do. For example, you could check on your eBay auctions, or you could look into a social networking website.
Secondly, Not Important but Urgent, as Delusion. Have you ever felt that you have been working too hard and yet achieved nothing. This can be called busyness and is caused by being purely reactive to others. Here are a few examples of what I mean: people showing up without notice, co-workers showing favoritism, time-wasting meetings, others just dropping their cares on you without thinking, etc., etc., etc. Yes it happens to all of us at one time or another.
Thirdly Important and Urgent as Demand This is you doing your job: going to meetings with clients, presentations, new sales calls and so on. These types of tasks should be taking up most of your business day. The best would be to have a plan laid out which tells you your daily dose of activity needed to meet your objectives. So who really has one and stays with it?
And lastly, Important but Not Urgent. The ZONE
This is the one subject most often neglected or edged out by other time-consuming tasks. This is an important item and we know we should all be doing these activities, but we come up with easy excuses like not having enough time. When you start operating your own company, remember to focus on tasks that fall into the category of working on your enterprise instead of in it.
For the salesperson, activities like account planning, personal activity plan, training courses for personal development and meeting with potential strategic partners. When I am working with salespeople and sales managers on a one on one basis, this is the first area we focus on.
Just as a simple exercise, what would be the smallest coin you would stop in the street to pick up? What is your time worth?
What can we do to be sure we make every minute count?
I am going to share a story with you about a French philosopher. A large crowd gathered around the man who stood up front to talk about the priorities in people's lives.
He placed a big glass atop the desk in front of him, then, taking a container full of stones, he painstakingly dumped them into the glass receptacle. When the rocks had reached the top he asked the gathered crowd if the jar was full and to a man they all answered yes. He pondered the thought for a moment before pouring a bucket containing small pebbles into the jar with rocks and shaking it until the pebbles had reached the top.
He asked the crowd for a second time if they thought the jar was full. Some muttered yes without being 100% sure. He was able to fill the voids between the rocks and pebbles in his container by combining it with sand, after shaking his head in disbelief.
Again he asked the crowd if the jar was full and again there was a little uncertainty. Finally, he pulled out a big water pitcher and poured water into the jar until it filled to the brim. He then turned to the crowd and said now it is full.
The lesson to be learned is that to maximize the chance of succeeding in a given task, everything must be done in the correct order. So to link this back to time management, one has to identify what your rocks are (important and not urgent) and enter them at the top of your list, because if you don't, the small stones, sand and water will use up every available inch of space, leaving now space for the rocks.
For this exercise, you must commit to writing down your rocks and actually making time to do them. You must not be distracted by less important tasks.
Ultimately you can build up what I refer to as a default diary, which we will discuss at a later date.

Reprinted from: Communication Skills Articles.

Phil Smithers is thought of as one of the UK's leading sales coaches sharing the most efficient and persuasive sales information, training and guiding you need to improve your leads and start surpassing your goals, today! For a limited time, you can access a 1 hour interview (worth £50) stuffed with awesome killer tips, tricks and systems to help smash your sales targets and make your contemporaries green with envy. Download your copy here: www.doublebubblesales.com

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