Fearsome Focus

Time and time again distractions tend to interrupt our groove, take away from productivity and prevent us from reaching full potential.

Had enough?

Two simple answers:

First, put in place segments of your day into focus blocks. I call it "Paytime". This is the time in the day where you prioritize your activities that yield the highest results. Whether it be cold calling or balancing the budget, schedule 45/15 time blocks. Translation...45 minutes of absolute uninterrupted time on the activity followed by 15 minutes of catch-up activity (emails, follow up etc.)
- Alert your peers that you are implementing a new plan to increase sales

- When people interrupt you during these blocks (and they will) gently but firmly tell them you'll connect with them 45 minutes past the hour (or whenever your 45 minutes end). Honor your commitment and follow up with people who need it.

- Be consistent about the application of the process; try to schedule similar activities for the same time every day.

-Condition your colleagues to expect to hear back from you on urgent emails at the bottom 15 minutes of the hour.

-Schedule time to talk to your colleagues rather than dropping in.


Second, get help! You don't have to do everything yourself.
I can do it faster and better myself are the fatal last words of the overwhelmed who never acheive their potential.

Take advantage of available resources. Hire a virtual personal assistant to handle low value activities. Low value activities are the biggest time wasters for sales people. Job out your excessive internet research, data entry, confirming or changing appointments and customer service issues. Be creative...customize your needs/requirements.

For $40 per month you can hire an assistant who will handle basic tasks for you; for around $250 month you can hire an assistant for 20 hours. These assistants are highly skilled at taking care of the administrative and life tasks that you waste time on. You can even try them for free for a week. Go to www.asksunday.com.

Take back your day and make the most of every minute.

The Big Picture -Little Wins Are Big Wins!

Every sales pro is driven by the big deal "wins", the "yes".... and the "multi digit commission checks!" That's pretty natural since we need to prove to ourselves every day that we are superhuman and wired to kick ass on every sales number EACH AND EVERY DAY! Anything less is simply failure! Right? WRONG!

There is no question that the most successful sales professionals are results driven and a special breed! Highly disciplined approaches to planning and execution are on our minds 24/7 in order to crush the numbers! But what happens when, for some reason, we hit some speed bumps and for a day or two.....or even a week or two those highs we're used to from the daily yes and signed deals comes to a stall? What barometer are we going to use to gauge success for these slower days?

The most accomplished reps are very pragmatic. Little wins lead to big wins. Step outside the box for a moment and take a look at your daily activities....those activities that DRIVE your day. A little win can be anything from setting two appointments a day, delivering an on-line presentation, converting a prospect into an opportunity or having 3 high quality 2 minute long (or longer) phone conversations/day. Whatever your criteria may be, set your expectations...get them up on your whiteboard and cross them off throughout the day! These are wins!

Finally, your last activity to cross off is your action list for the upcoming day. Don't blow it off until the next morning....you're wasting your time if you approach your day so unprepared. Hammer out, for fifteen minutes, your schedule..... tasks and goals for the day. Be ready to go for the AM!

Selling is very much a mental process. With all of the objection we face daily we must have daily trigger points and feeling of accomplishment ever day to stay focused long term.

So, how was your day? AWESOME!

Getting The Most From Your Team!

Looking to implement a new strategy that will immediately impact your sales team performance?

If so, step outside "the box", be creative and implement a concept that enables your sales team to draw off of each other's individual skills. Let's be clear.. I'm not referring to the typical generic role playing sessions or tag alongs. I'm talking about "micro-mentoring".

Pair each rep with another rep that has strengths the other may struggle with. Do not pigeon hole yourself by simply placing new hires with tenured or rookies with seasoned reps. Regardless of tenure or experience there are always valuable skills to be learned from each other.

The key is to be deliberate in your evaluation of each reps strengths and weaknesses and assign proper mentor placement.

As a general rule of thumb refer to your sales team Policy and Procedure Play Book. Execute a thorough evaluation of of each reps acumen and current knowledge base. Determine which steps in the sales process the other excels in and pair strengths to weaknesses accordingly.

Example: Some reps are stronger cold calling, utilizing technology, corporate mapping, administration and networking while others are stronger in the transitional phases of the sale, conceptualizing, questioning/closing tactics, CRM navigation, etc.

Take the time and drill down on each detail!

Assign quotas for each team and allow them to leverage each others skills to be more productive and close more deals.

Allow each mentoring team access to private conference rooms to nurture skills, brainstorm, build business plans and prepare for client presentations.

Create sales team contests to build relationships and a more competitive environment.

Evaluate each micro-mentor team as one unit.

Finally, keep the approach fresh and periodically switch the teams up ( recommend annually) . The goal is to allow your team to continue to educate and elevate each others performance!

Call Metrics- Old School Vs. New School

Sales teams are often measured by complex metric systems designed to shed light on both team productivity and overall results. This criteria often includes daily call quantity, duration of calls, appointments set, and other micro-measurements.
The logic associated with this ideology is consistent high call activity leads to more meaningful conversations,increased appointment setting rates and more closed deals. In the past, this model was functional when executing a B2B prospecting campaign....Not so much the case in today's 2.0 environment.

Gone are the days of ripping through a random list of prospects with little to no knowledge of whom the prospects is, what they do, how decisions are made and what push button issues are important to the decision committee.

High level performance in today's "new school" world is far more a result of careful deliberation and efficiency!

Deliberation requires deep mining each call via social media networks,blogs, connections on linked'In, Jigsaw, and the like,for information that builds a case to support a solution. Dialing for dollars and hourly call metric reports are less relevant than in the past! The rep who diligently plots and plans their calls will be the rep exceeding quota. (90-100 high quality dials will net greater results than 150 unqualified low quality dials).

Efficiency requires following the old adage " working smarter not harder". According to the The Insidesales/M.I.T. study,
rather than dialing during low production calling hours (11AM-4PM), reps should be allocating valuable "pay time" call hours to time blocks that yield the best contact results (8Am-10Am & 4-6PM). The remaining hours spent on prospect nurturing, phone/face to face appointments, presentations and administration tasks.

A stalled economy, greater access to more information for decision makers and multi-tiered buying committees have all contributed to the lengthening of sales cycles. The result? Sales organizations must quickly adapt,access and implement multi-media prospecting methods to fully engage decision makers and close more business.