What do all salespeople, from the highest achievers to the underperformers, have in common? They all have the same amount of time each day. Thanks to our sales management course, we know it’s not the number of hours they have, but how they manage those hours that sets them apart. Many salespeople claim that time management is their biggest obstacle, often saying that they would be more successful if they had better control over their time.
But here’s a vital truth: you can’t manage time. Time is a fixed resource, already structured for you – 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year. What you can manage, however, is how you choose to spend that time.
The saying ‘time is money’ has never been more accurate. In our sales management course, time is your most valuable currency – the question is, are you spending it or investing it? Investing your time means dedicating it to the activities that move the needle in your sales efforts. Actual selling time, prospecting for both potential and existing clients, and advancing qualified opportunities through your sales pipeline are prime examples of how to invest your time wisely. If you’re spending too much time on administrative tasks or distractions, your productivity will suffer, and your results will reflect that.
In the SalesGuru sales management courses, we ask our delegates to do the following – and the feedback post training is that it dramatically improves their productivity:
- Identify the top three areas where you wish you had more time, areas that would help you achieve your goals. For example, it could be more time to focus on sales strategy, to engage with clients to better understand their challenges or to prospect more.
- Then consider if this is a time management problem or a priority problem. Why? Because how you spend your time will be dictated by what you consider your priorities.
- Are you aligning your time with what truly matters most?
Being busy in sales often means juggling many tasks. However, being productive in sales means focusing on the most important activities that drive you forward and help you achieve your goals. Show me how you spend your time, and I’ll show you what you truly consider your priorities. Spend a day tracking where your time goes, and I’ll show you what your results will be. Time spent on low-priority tasks won’t contribute to reaching your objectives. Instead, time needs to be allocated to the activities that generate the most value.
Here’s an exercise to complete over the course of one week that will provide clear evidence of how much time you’re spending versus how much you’re investing in achieving your goal.
- From the start to the end of each working day, record every activity in your calendar along with the amount of time spent on it. At the end of each day, highlight your activities and note the total time spent.
- By the end of the week, list all the activities and the total time dedicated to them. You’ll then be able to see the percentage of your time spent on actual selling activities. According to a recent study, salespeople spend only 34% of their time actively selling, with the rest consumed by administrative tasks and other distractions.
To improve your results, you’ll need to increase that percentage. One way to do this is by taking a sales management course that teaches you how to better prioritise your time and improve your sales processes. A well-rounded sales management course will give you the tools and techniques to refine your focus, enabling you to work smarter, not harder. The more you invest in developing your time management skills, the more effective you’ll become in turning your efforts into tangible results.
Whether it’s learning how to streamline your workflow, delegate tasks, or focus on higher-value activities, taking a sales management course can drastically improve your productivity and help you achieve your sales goals. By investing your time more strategically, you’ll start to see improvements in your overall performance. For more information and insight, get in touch.
