Time management tips for Sales Professionals

“I just didn't have the time,” is the world's number one excuse for not getting things done. We've all used it.

Despite the digital aids we have in our lives today, we all still experience that sinking feeling that there aren't enough minutes in an hour, hours in a day, and days in a week. 

Gadgets and systems that were supposed to have aided in saving time are now time consuming. Usually we are in such a rush to juggle so many things at one time that we don’t complete even a single task properly. But the good news is that you can change all of that. You can harness your time in a way to make you a more productive person.

Sales people especially need to focus on efficiently using their time, as they cannot afford to be less than their most productive, efficient selves. As most of their work depends on coordinating with other people, they need to be very systematic in order to get more out of their days. It is this effective management of time that differentiates between a salesperson and highly efficient sales person.

How time management challenges the sales person in you

If you are wondering how that co-worker of yours always seems to accomplish her tasks on time and yet make it to happy hour, you need to look at how she goes about managing her time.

Time management seems easy, and yet the challenge is to practice it in your daily life and make yourself as flexible as the situation demands. It helps you get over the rigidity and makes you flexible to juggle the tasks at hand. You can meet your targets and work on achieving more.

I’m listing a few basic tips on how to get started   

1. The ugly frog first: As a kid preparing for my exams, I’d delay studying my math lessons until the day of the exam because it my least favorite subject. As a result, on the day of the exam I wasn't prepared enough. Many times, we tend to push back the things we find unpleasant to do. If you find yourself doing the same, here’s how you can tackle it. Consider accomplishing mandatory tasks as eating frogs. You have no way out and so to feel better, you’d better the eat the ugly one first. This way you will have completed the unpleasant tasks first which leaves you with lesser unpleasant tasks at hand.

2. Stop wasting time searching stuff: The average sales person spends 7 hours looking relevant information to prepare for sales calls. This information could be your lead insight or pertinent collateral. If you have an organized system to store collateral you could save a lot of time sorting it out when you need it. Also, as a sales person, it always helps to keep your lead information on hand so you are prepared and can be one step ahead of your prospects.

3. Set tasks in small, achievable goals: I personally feel that this is the best way to complete what you set out to do. Just like you wouldn't gobble that pizza entirely (no matter how you love it) and eat it one piece at a time, break down your tasks into smaller, achievable slices. Instead of setting goals for the whole week or month, try breaking them down on an hourly basis. You could even set your quarterly goals in sections like this. This helps in making your goals looking smaller and easier to achieve.  

4. Put travel time to good use: Most of us have to travel a certain distance to get to our office or to a client’s office. What do you do during this time? One of the best ways to utilize this time would be catch up on important updates. If you are using a sales enablement software that is accessible as a mobile app, nothing like it. You can check on the latest updates, see how your campaigns are doing or even set a campaign in motion while you are traveling (as long as you aren't doing the driving). Time management, indeed.

5. Sales playbooks: Sales playbooks are a great way to organize materials that are going to be useful for a prospect. Save power point presentations, video assets and white papers in one easy to access place. No more wasted time looking for the right materials.

• Save all campaign related collateral in same place: playbooks are the knowledge bucket of the sales teams. If you are running a certain campaign, you can store all relevant assets in an aptly titled playbook. This saves your time that you’d otherwise waste in searching the whole directory.
• Saving an FAQ list can help you to prepare: there are often questions that we want answered and no one’s there to help us out at that time. A sales rep can often be found in such situations. Instead, it’s a good practice to keep a list of the most frequently asked questions by customers or by salespeople for that campaign.  This way you can view all possible details for that campaign and be better equipped to face your clients at any given time.
• Training videos to make you self-sufficient: As we already spoke about using up travel time, you can also use this time browsing through training videos. Because of time crunch, we tend to keep a backlog of training material unchecked. Access these videos on your phone or browse the internet for some and this makes you a sales rep who achieves more than assigned in the stipulated time.

“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.” – Charles Buxton

To learn more about Sales Enablement, visit Mindmatrix.