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Biggest Time Wasters for Salespeople
Copyright (c) 2006-2010 Dave Kahle
(See This Article in its Original Format.)
Good time management for salespeople has
been an obsession of mine for more than 30 years. In the last
decade, I've been involved in helping tens of thousands of sales
people improve their results through more effective use of their
time. Over the years, I've seen some regularly occurring patterns
develop - tendencies on the part of sales people to do things
that detract from their effective use of time.
Here are
the four most common time-wasters I've observed. See if any apply
to you or your salespeople.
- Allure of the
urgent/trivial.
Salespeople love to be busy and
active. We have visions of ourselves as people who can get things
done. No idol dreamers, we're out there making things happen!
A big portion of our sense of worth and our personal
identity is dependent on being busy. At some level in our self
image of our selves, being busy means that we really are
important. One of the worst things that can happen to us is to
have nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nothing going on. So, we
latch onto every task that comes our way, regardless of the
importance.
For example, one of our customers calls with
a back order problem. "Oh good!" we think, "Something to do! We
are needed! We can fix it!" So, we drop everything and spend two
hours expediting the backorder.
In retrospect, couldn't
some one in purchasing or customer service have done that? And
couldn't they have done it better than you? And didn't you just
allow something that was a little urgent but trivial prevent you
from making some sales calls? And wouldn't those potential sales
calls be a whole lot better use of your time?
Or, one of
our customers hands us a very involved "Request for Quote."
"Better schedule a half-day at the office," we think. "Need to
look up specifications, calculate prices, compile literature,
etc." We become immediately involved with this task, working on
this project for our customer. In retrospect, couldn't we have
given the project to an inside salesperson or customer service
rep to do the leg work? Couldn't we have just communicated the
guidelines to some one and then reviewed the finished proposal?
Once again, we succumbed to the lure of the present task.
That prevented us from making sales calls and siphoned our energy
away from the important to the seemingly urgent.
I could
go on for pages with examples, but you have the idea. We are so
enamored with being busy and feeling needed that we often grab at
any task that comes our way, regardless of how unimportant. And
each time we do that, we compromise our ability to invest our
sales times more effectively.
- The comfort of the
status quo.
A lot of salespeople have evolved to the
point where they have a comfortable routine. They make enough
money and they have established routines and habits that are
comfortable. They really don't want to expend the energy it takes
to do things in a better way, or to become more successful or
effective.
This can be good. Some of the habits and
routines that we follow work well for us.
However, our
rapidly changing world constantly demands new methods,
techniques, habits and routines. Just because something has been
effective for a few years doesn't mean that it continues to be
so. This problem develops when salespeople are so content with
the way things are, they have not changed anything in years.
If you haven't changed or challenged some habit or
routine in the last few years, chances are you are not as
effective as you could be.
For example, you could still
be writing phone messages down on little slips of paper when
entering them into your contact manager would be more effective.
This is a simple example of a principle that can extend towards
the most important things that we do. Are we using the same
routines for organizing our work week, for determining who to
call on, for understanding our customers, for collecting
information, etc.? There is no practical end to the list.
Contentment with the status quo almost always means
salespeople who are not as effective as they could be.
My
book, 10
Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople, discusses the
use of the "more" mindset as an alternative to the status quo.
- Lack of trust in other people in the
organization.
Salespeople have a natural tendency to
work alone. After all, we spend most of the day by ourselves. We
decide where to go by ourselves, we decide what to do by
ourselves, and we are pretty much on our own all day long. It's
no wonder then, we just naturally want to do everything by
ourselves.
That's generally a positive personality trait
for a salesperson. Unfortunately, when it extends to those tasks
that could be done better by other people in our organization it
turns into a real negative.
Instead of soliciting aid
from others in the organization, and thereby making much better
use of our time, many salespeople insist on doing it themselves,
no matter how redundant and time-consuming the task is. The world
is full of salespeople who don't trust their own colleagues to
write an order, to source a product, to enter an order in the
system, to follow up on a back order, to deliver some sample or
literature, to research a quote, to deliver a proposal, etc.
Again, the list could go on and on.
The point is that
many of these tasks can be done better or cheaper by someone else
in the organization. The salespeople don't release the tasks to
them because they, the salespeople, don't trust them to do it.
Too bad. It's a tremendous waste of good selling time and talent.
Chapter 10 of my book "
href="http://www.davekahle.com/10secrets.htm">10 Secrets"
describes a system to nurture helpful relationships.
- Lack of tough-minded thoughtfulness.
Ultimately, time management begins with thoughtfulness.
That means a sufficient quantity of good quality thought-energy
invested in the process. I like to say that good time management
is a result of "thinking about it before you do it."
Good
time managers invest sufficiently in this process. They set aside
time each year to create annual goals, they invest planning time
every quarter and every month to create plans for those times,
they plan every week and every sales call. Poor sales time
managers don't dedicate sufficient time to the "thinking about
it" phase of their job.
Not only do good sales time
managers invest a sufficient quantity of time, but they also are
disciplined and tough-minded about how they think. They ask
themselves good questions, and answer them with as much
objectivity as they can muster.
- "What do I
really want to accomplish in this account?" - "Why aren't they
buying from me?" - "Who is the key decision maker in this
account?" - "Am I spending too much time in this account, or
not enough in that one?" - "How can I change what I am doing in
order to become more effective?"
These are just
a few of the tough questions that good sales time managers
consider on a regular basis. They don't let allow their emotions
or personal comfort zones to dictate the plans. They go where it
is smart to go, do what it is smart to do. They do these things
because they have spent the quantity and quality of thought-time
necessary. Of course, there are hundreds of other time-
wasting habits. These four, however, are the most common. Correct
them, and you'll be well on your way to dramatically improved
results.
 Dave Kahle specializes in customized sales training and sales management training programs designed to increase sales by delivering practical, immediate solutions and creating measurable results. Dave's sales training seminars and sales consulting work has helped his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He speaks from real world experience, having been the number one salesperson in the country for two companies in two distinct industries. Dave has trained thousands of salespeople to be more successful in the Information Age economy. He's the author of over 500 sales management articles, a weekly sales training ezine, and six books, including the 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople. He has a gift for creating powerful sales training events that get audiences thinking differently about sales.
You can learn more about Dave's sales training programs, online at http://www.davekahle.com/, or sign-up to get his free content-filled sales training ezine, at www.davekahle.com /mailinglist.htm. You can reach at 616-451-9377, by email at info@davekahle.com, or by mail at: The DaCo Corporation 3736 West River Drive, Comstock Park, MI 49321.
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