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Sales
and Wasting Time
Be careful of time killers
The way that sales people
utilize their time is critical to their success.
Many sales people are simply ineffective time
managers. Every minute of every day is essential
to a sales person. Sales managers need to stress
the importance of time and help their sales
people understand how wasted time translates
into lost sales.
Let's look at an example to clarify our point.
Suppose the average face-to-face call lasts 15
minutes. And the average travel time between
accounts is 30 minutes. We'll use an 8 hour day
even though we believe an 8 hour day falls far
short of acceptable in the sales game. Let's
assume that on this day the full 8 hours is
devoted to either travel or actual sales calls.
We'll further assume that the rep is at the
first prospect's doorstep at the beginning of
the 8 hour period. In this 8 hour day, the rep
would be able to make roughly 16 sales calls.
We know that sales is an imperfect art form and
making 16 calls in this example is undoubtedly a
stretch. We know that the rep will need to
return phone calls and follow up on and resolve
problems that might occur. These will consume
some of the day which will further reduce the
actual number of calls that get made. So let's
say that on a good day the rep can make 10
calls.
Now let's complicate this scenario by
introducing events or activities that tend to
waste a sales person's time. Here's a list of
our top ten time killers:
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Poor routing through a territory increasing
the average travel time between accounts.
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Making a face-to-face contact to answer a
question or resolve a minor customer issue when
a phone call would have sufficed.
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Doing administrative (non-selling) tasks such
as paperwork during prime selling time.
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Calling on non-decision makers.
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Calling on prospects who will never buy
anything or simply can't afford to buy from you.
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Making too many calls to the same account or
prospect.
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Finding every reason possible not to make
sales calls by doing make-work activities that
yield no real return.
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Leaving at the start of normal business hours
from home or the office to drive to the first
call and/or driving home or back to the office
before putting in a full day in the field.
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Preparing proposals during prime selling
time.
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Spending too much time with any given
customer or prospect.
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If a sales person engages in any or all of these
activities, the number of calls that can be made
is further reduced. In extreme cases, the sales
person is doing more of these activities than
actual selling activities. In many cases, a
sales person is often not even aware they are
doing one or more of these things and are
chewing up significant chunks of time in
non-selling activities.
The sales manager must act as a role model and
mentor to help the sales person more effectively
manage his/her time. Sales people need to
understand clearly that time really is money and
that selling is, in most cases, a matter of
relationship development and maximizing the
number of quality contacts made. Without enough
time devoted to actual sales activities, it is
difficult to achieve either.
Good
luck and good selling!
Russ Lombardo
PEAK
Sales Consulting, LLC
russ@peaksalesconsulting.com
(702)
655-5652
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