Time Management Tips for a Tough Economy

At every presentation or workshop, we ask, “What is the single biggest obstacle you face in generating more printing sales?” The answer may surprise you. It is not competition from the Web, not difficult decision makers or the economy. It is simply the lack of time to get things done.

Time management is a challenge for most business professionals. Though managing time can make you successful, it does not mean that successful people manage their time well. For salespeople, mastering time management skills is critical, because wasting time means losing sales.

Even if you are a born procrastinator, by practicing a few simple techniques you will get back valuable time to focus on productive selling. There is not a more relevant phrase for sales people than “time is money”. Top producers consciously look for ways to gain the most effective selling time out of each day.

For many, the stress of the current recession has made their time management problem worse. In this economy, many salespeople have extra time in their day as customers are spending less, and in some cases refusing to take meetings.

As a result, we are finding many sales people are in the state of selling paralysis where nothing is getting done. This may be caused by the fear of not meeting their sales goal, depression and/or uncertainty.

Time management guru, Timothy Pychyl of the University of Ottawa suggests, “Uncertainty and not knowing the next step to take is a key factor in procrastination. Learning how to take manageable steps is crucial to getting started.” If you don’t know the next step to take on a project, ask a mentor or a manager, don’t get held up by uncertainty.

Set Goals

A simple first step is to ask exactly what your goals and priorities are, and what you need to do to accomplish to them. How much income do you want to earn this year? Write it down. Determine how many new customers you need to generate. What new applications do you need to close? How large must each transaction be? It is astounding how many print salespeople do not take the time to ask themselves these simple but important questions. Without specific goals, priorities and objectives there is no basis to structure your day. Knowing what you want and what you need to accomplish is an important first step to better time management.

Create a Plan

Once you have set your goals, determine what activities you need to execute daily, weekly and monthly. How many customers must you see face-to-face? How many proposals or quotes do you need to generate? How many prospecting e-mails or phone calls must be made? Decide exactly what must be done to meet your goals. Getting the plan down to the vital few will help you to leverage the 20/80 factor, where 20 percent of your activities will generate 80 percent of your business.

Early in my career, I recorded my daily activities. It became clear to me quickly, that I wasted enormous amounts of time, and spent too little time on productive activities. For example, I was spending the majority of my time on administrative tasks and not enough time generating prospects and asking for the business. Set a plan and stick to it. This revelation could be a good first step for many salespeople who are having trouble getting started.

Stay on Schedule

Do not finish your day unless essential activities are accomplished. If you plan on 10 prospecting calls per day, do not finish the day unless this is accomplished. Keep track. If you miss one day, you need to make it up the next day. You may find that, with reasonable goals for each day, you finish earlier than you anticipate. If so, use this time to read up on industry news, prepare your to-do list for the following day and clean up your desk. Over time this effort will pay off. If you are not making your numbers within a defined time frame, usually 90 days, you may want to rethink what you are doing each day and create a new plan.

Stay on the Offense

Many salespeople think they are working hard and executing sales activities because they talk to their customers regularly. Putting out fires, following up on problems, passing the time, building relationships and working on a print job are important. But, unless you are closing or moving a sale forward, these activities should be characterized as defensive. I recommend salespeople keep track of each contact where they are actually selling something. Defensive contacts are part of maintaining and keeping the business. Offensive contacts grow the business.

Create ‘To Do’ Lists

Most successful salespeople start each day with “to do” lists. Mike Long, director of sales for Jet Mail Services of Hudson, Mass., recently told us he starts his day by creating a list of objectives and lining up his callbacks before he starts the morning. List specifically what customers will you see in person, call or e-mail. Aside from customer emergencies and critical activities, your prospecting plan is your first priority.

Many salespeople spend their time on low payback activities. This is a natural tendency. Most people like to accomplish easy tasks first. A good technique is establishing a priority for each daily task. Higher-ranked activities should be completed first.

Avoid the ‘Time Suck’ Tasks

Identify what tasks are “sucking” up too much time. It is common to go home and feel that you have not accomplished anything. By keeping records and setting daily objectives, you can often avoid common time sucking tasks. They can come in many forms, including meetings, personnel and customers who talk too much, family members who call too often, Facebook or simply spending too much time searching the Web. The best approach is to identify and eliminate or minimize them.

Limit Your Desktops

With the expansion of technology, we often find salespeople with multiple “desktops,” or places that hold information.

Most salespeople have at least five desktops. They include desktop computers, laptops, company MIS systems, sales automation software, office and home desktops, hard copy notebooks, sheets of paper and Blackberrys. Each can contain redundant bits of sales and customer information. It may be impossible to get down to one desktop, but it is worth consolidating and better organizing your information. Most professionals spend large amounts of their day looking for documents.

“Many salespeople have actually lost selling time in recent years” said Long. “Instead of providing productivity, some Web, e-mail and voice-based tools have kept customers and salespeople further apart. Customers and salespeople get bogged down with low priority and unproductive activities versus focusing on actions that will drive the business.”

Just Say No

An important challenge for many salespeople is their inability to just say no. There are countless individuals in our lives who attempt to get us to do things for them they could easily and realistically do themselves. Among the biggest abusers are bosses and coworkers.

Working effectively with CSRs and production teams can drastically increase sales time by delegating and letting other personnel manage projects and support their customers. Too many salespeople are chained to their desks, getting bogged down with details of jobs that should be managed by others.

For time-challenged salespeople, getting everything done can be exhausting. Leonard Bernstein once said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”

Though most salespeople have practiced some or all of the techniques described, rethinking how you spend your time is well worth the effort—especially when customers are facing financial constraints. By spending more time on sales producing activities, you will not only gain more sales and compensation, but you’ll feel a lot better doing it.

Joe Rickard is a sales training leader and consultant in the graphic communications industry. He is the founder of Intellective Solutions LLC, a provider of consulting services as well as customized sales and sales management training. Contact Rickard at (845) 753-6156, jrickard@intellectives.com, or visit www.intellectivesolutions.com.