Best Practice #11: Regularly Implements A System To Prevent Being Inundated With Useless Information

By Author: Dave Kahle
Total Articles: 4717
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At first glance, this look like a bit unrelated to the daily challenges of an successful sales person. What has this to do with your interactions with your patrons?
Think about the issue of "sales time". Sales time is the time that you actually spend interacting with your customers either on the phone or in person. It is the focus of your career and the ultimate reason your company employs you. Investing your sales time effectively is the way that you achieve better results and earn your income.
Due to the strain of administration, reporting, recordkeeping, travel, etc., the typical field sales person barely spends about 25 percent of his/her work week in "sales time". In our challenging economy, the demands on our time by the press of "other stuff" can be overwhelming.
We must be constantly battling the attraction of "other stuff" so that we are investing suitably in selling time. All things being equal, the more time you actually spend with your customers, the more profitable you will be.
So, thatbrings us to this question: What constitutes the biggest share of other stuff? What has the potential ...
... to engulf us, to deprive us of our sales time by tempting us to invest our energies in something not nearly as effective?
The answer? Information. We are swamped with information. think about the amount of selling literature, technical bulletins, computer reports, web pages, emails, voice mails, and memos from the boss that we have to encounter every day. All these are types of information. If we gave in to the lure of dealing with all the information that comes our way, we could easily spend 8-15 hours a week doing simply that.
And that would not be a good idea. It would detract from our ability to create sales time, and immediatelyand negatively impact our performance.
That brings us to this best practice. The best performers don't waste a lot of time dealing with useless information. They stay focused on the heart of the job - sales time - understanding that without quality time with their patrons nothing else matters.
So, they create disciplines and strategies that enable them to deal with all the forms of information quickly and expediently. The run-of-the-mill sales people waste inordinate amounts of time processing information.
About Author:
Dave Kahle is a high energy, intense world-class speaker who specializes in B2B sales training. His sales training seminars have been globally presented and received with enthusiasm.