Managing the Sales Golden Hours
Jeb Blount offers advice on how to effectively manage the golden hours of sales.
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Managing the Sales Golden Hours
Many salespeople get themselves into deep trouble because they do non-sales activities during prime sales time. Take, for example, this question we received from Michael, a Commercial Real Estate Broker from Boston, He writes:
Jeb, I am a commercial real estate broker and have many clients who are very report intensive and demand lots of time on reporting and budgets etc. I find myself buried in the reporting aspect with little time to be aggressive and proactive about prospecting for new clients. How can I be efficient about producing on-time reporting while being diligent about prospecting?”
Michael has unfortunately fallen into the classic trap of doing non-sales related activity during prime selling time – called the Golden Hours. The result is he has left himself little time to sell. This is a tough habit to break for two reasons.
A) Because there will always be clients, managers and peers who will make requests of you that are not related to sales activities but do require your attention.
B) Doing non-sales activities feels important and will always be easier than actually selling. Especially when that selling activity includes cold calling and prospecting activities. Every day thousands of salespeople go deeper in the hole with empty pipelines because they use busy work as an excuse for not prospecting.
Here is your reality check. Salespeople get paid to sell. Therefore if you are a salesperson and you are not doing things that are directly to selling, then you are not doing your job. I already know what you are thinking because I’ve heard it a million times:
“Wait a minute Jeb, what about all of those things my manager or customers need me to do. When am I supposed to get it all done?”
You’ve got a few choices:
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Just Say No. One of the most effective ways to unload non-sales activity is to just say no. You don’t have to take on or do everything that others bring to you. Salespeople naturally want to please others so we have a bad habit of taking on things that we shouldn’t. Whenever, someone brings a task to you that has the potential to take you away from sales specific activities take a moment to evaluate the importance of the task. If it is not mission critical to your job – say no. This won’t be easy at first, especially with customers. However, if you consistently create boundaries, it won’t take long for others to get the message.
- Prioritize. When it comes to sales you have got to get your priorities straight. In my career I have never known a salesperson who was consistently hitting her numbers who got fired for not doing paperwork. But I have known many who got canned for not selling. If you are anything like me, and I bet you are, you’ve got a to-do list that is far longer than you have time for in a day. To be effective in your sales job you must learn to prioritize so that you are getting to the most important things on your list first. Unfortunately in some cases this means that there are tasks that may never get done. That is ok. Get the deals done and no-one will ever remember.
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Do Important Non-sales Tasks Before or After the Golden Hours. There will always be non-sales tasks that you must do. Proposals, reports, contracts, and orders are all important but are not sales activity. Do these things before and after prime selling time. Yes, I already know the buts and excuses: I’ve got a family, a life . . . things to do. Here’s the deal. In sales time is truly money and the money is in the Golden hours. If you want to be successful in sales you will have to make some sacrifices. Get up early, go to bed late, or do some work on weekends but whatever you do don’t waste your Golden hours on non-sales activities – no matter how important you think they are.
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Delegate. One of the most effective things you can do with non-sales related tasks is to delegate them. If you have a sales support staff be sure to leverage them to the fullest. For more information on this read or listen to Episode 85 – How to Leverage Your Sales Support Team. If you don’t have sales support available, consider hiring someone to help you. You can hire someone locally or easily find virtual assistants who will work for you, on demand, by the hour. If you are an independent sales rep like a real estate broker, financial advisor, or insurance agent getting an assistant is a smart move. You may think you are saving a buck by doing things yourself. However, your talent is selling. That is how you earn the big bucks. When you are doing a job someone else can do better and cheaper that is what is really costing you money.
If you are not prospecting, qualifying, information gathering, presenting or closing during Golden Hours you are hurting your career and your income and you are not doing your job as a sales professional. The bottom line is the only thing that you should be doing during the Golden Hours is selling. When you adopt this philosophy not only will you be happier you will be much richer as well.
This is Jeb Blount, the Sales Guy. If you have a sales question please send it to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email.
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