Time Management for Sales Professionals

This one is for the VP of sales, director of sales, salespeople, SDRs, BDRs, you name it. Time management for sales professionals is a BIG money bet these days. If you’re in sales, you should either teach these tips to your team, or adopt them if you’re the one making sales calls. Follow these and I guarantee you’ll increase the number of conversations you have, meetings booked, deals closed, and revenue in the bank. 

 

Bold prediction, right? 

 

Well here’s the thing — with the right time management, you can gain an additional four hours back in your day. Imagine having FOUR extra hours in your day. What would that do for your sales career? I bet your productivity and sales would skyrocket as you leave everyone else in your dust. 

 

Because the truth is, according to Forbes, the vast majority of sales people spend nearly 75% of their time on non-revenue generating activities. Can you believe that? It’s an atrocity, especially when you consider how many deals die simply because they didn’t get dialed. Don’t worry, we’re going to put an end to that today.

 

All right, that’s enough wasted time. Now let’s get right into it. These are the 7 Time Management Tips for Sales Professionals you can start today. 

 

7 Tips for Time Management for Sales Professionals

 

80/20 rule

We’ve already established that sales professionals spend the majority of their time (63% to be exact) on tasks that don’t make money. Think administrative tasks or mindless busy-work that makes you feel like you’re being productive, but you’re really just spinning your wheels. Now let’s flip the script on this. Start spending 80% of your time dialing prospects instead of only 20%. Seriously. Do that and you’ll never have to read another sales blog or sales book in your life. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. That’s why I have 7 more tips for you. 

 

Get an auto-dialer

Auto dialers or sales dialers are software that do the dialing for you. They eliminate the down time between calls and keep reeling in the prospects. They integrate with your CRM for seamless cold calling. If you don’t have an auto-dialer, get one. And if you manage a team, you can get multi-channel auto dialers for the whole squad. If you were making 20 calls every hour before, you’ll be making 100 calls every hour with a sales dialer. Talk about time management. 

 

No more multi-tasking

Stop trying to multitask, because multitasking isn’t even real. You were sold a bill of goods. When you multitask, you’re really just dividing your attention and doing a lot of things poorly. When it’s time to dial, it’s time to dial. When it’s time for meetings, it’s time for meetings. You get the idea — focus on the task at hand and you’ll gain at least an hour back in your day. You’ll also feel much more balanced (less schizophrenic) throughout the day. And who doesn’t want that?

 

Pomodoro and time chunking

This is related to my previous tip. The pomodoro technique is where you “chunk out” your tasks into 90 minute sprints, with a defined break that follows. So, for instance, you would set a timer for 90 minutes and focus on making calls. That’s the only thing you do in that 90 minute window. When the timer goes off, you take a 15 minute break, get up and walk around, get the blood flowing, relax your mind. This technique will help you get into a “deep work” state and allows you to earn back hours in your day. Trust me, time management for sales professionals is not complete without employing some sort of focus method like pomodoro. 

 

Kill Distractions with app blockers

Does this sound familiar? You sit down at your desk with your call list in front of you. It’s almost staring at you. Taunting you. So you do the natural thing and, without thinking, you find yourself scrolling through social media posts or watching endless Grant Cardone videos. Well, it goes without saying that these distractions can kill your sales numbers. So I highly recommend getting an app blocker like Freedom, Cold Turkey, or RescueTime. These tools really help salespeople everyday to focus on revenue-generating activities. 

 

Eat the frog

Brian Tracy is the brainchild of this next time management tip. If you ever have to eat a frog, it’s something that you’ll want to do FAST and just get it over with, right? In the same way, you should take care of the biggest, hardest task at the beginning of your workday. This gives you a psychological edge over the remainder of your day. Maybe you have a prospect that will take some mental fortitude to really engage. Call her first thing in the morning. Maybe it’s a quarterly sales report you have to present to the President of your company. Try to schedule that meeting first thing in the morning. In the early hours of the day, you’re fresh, you’re sharp, you’re ready. 

 

Create your to-do list or call list the night before

At the end of each day, write out the tasks you’re responsible for tomorrow. That way, when you hit your desk in the morning, there’s no down time or guesswork as to what you’re supposed to be doing. You can get right into the flow of your day. And if you’re a salesperson  whether they call you an SDR, BDR, account exec, closer, etc. — you should get right into revenue-generating activities. Remember, that’s picking up the phone and making calls! Nothing will put money in the bank like having meaningful conversations with qualified decision makers. Nothing. 

 

Final Words on Time Management for Sales

You’re most likely reading this because you know something has to give. You might be distracted throughout the day, not leveraging the time and talent you have. Or perhaps you just want to optimize your current habits and really dial-in your time management skills. Either way, there are extra hours in the day there for the taking. The question is: will you take them?

 

Commit to doing just one of these tactics this week. Whether you’re reading this on Monday morning or Friday afternoon, it doesn’t matter. Just pick one and stick with it. Then, next week choose another one, and master that. The following week choose another one. And so on until each of these becomes part of your daily routine. By slowly building up these time management habits, you’re building the neural pathways and muscle memory to make them stick. 

 

And I leave you with that. Now be empowered to go out and crush your sales numbers. 

 

Until next time,

 

Johnny-Lee Reinoso