Time is on your side

Matt Lynch is national sales director of LYNKA Promotional Products. John Lynch is president of LYNKA.

"I don't have enough time."

That's the common battle cry of sales professionals everywhere. And it's no different here. It seems that everyone around us - our boss, our coworkers, the government, and even the taxi driver who takes 10 minutes to write out the receipt - slows us down.

But if you think about it, time is really all we have. We each have exactly the same amount - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. What we don't have, it seems, is a good strategy of how to organize our most precious and limited resource.

In our last article, we discussed how your client strategy is the first step in creating a personal sales strategy that will lead to sustained sales excellence. Now that you are armed with a list of key clients and key prospects, the second element of your strategy is organizing your time.

There have been entire books written and day-long seminars given on time management, so all we can do in this space is refresh some of the concepts we may have all heard before, but have long since forgotten.

If your job is to call on the same 125 retail accounts each week, then your time management will look different than if you are selling a product or service that lasts for several years, such as a lease agreement or office equipment. Your approach will also differ if you are the classic "prospector" who's constantly looking for new business by phone or in person. If, as we described last week, you have a finite number of key accounts that make up the bulk of your sales, then your time management will look different yet. In this article, we have tried to keep it as general as possible, so you pick and choose the advice that makes sense for you.

- Start with what's most important. Always make time for your most important clients and prospects first. Then fit the less important stuff around that. Don't let small clients, small projects, and the less important matters control you.

- Develop a good selling rhythm. Work out a schedule that you keep to week after week. For example, on Monday and Tuesday, spend all day in client meetings; on Wednesday mornings, work on preparing offers and spend the afternoon on the phone; on Thursday, schedule more client meetings; and on Friday wrap up the week's business and work the phones. LYNKA's top account manager, Ola, developed a selling rhythm a few years ago that has landed her at the very top among our sales reps.

- Plan similar activities together. If you plan to call 15 clients to set up meetings, call them all at once. This will allow you to get into a rhythm and not be interrupted by other tasks. We recommend making your phone calls in the morning when you are fresh and alert and before the client is "too busy." The same is true for setting up meetings. If, for example, you have to visit a client at the Warsaw Financial Center, see what other clients you have in that building or vicinity, and plan to meet them too. This will cut down on your travel time.

- Be ready to change your plan. Your plan is like a living organism - it changes constantly. Jim Collins in his book "Good to Great," wrote: "Planning is priceless, but plans are useless." Every Friday, review your plan for the next week and look for ways to make it better and more aligned with your goals. And every night, review your plan for tomorrow.

- Prepare for downtime. If a meeting is cancelled or if some free time pops up during the day, sales reps often relax and wait for the phone to ring. Use this time wisely since it is like a free gift. You should have with you at all times a list of all your key accounts and prospects and their phone numbers.

- Stop wasting time. We all have our favorite time wasters: coffee and cigarette breaks, surfing the net, reading the papers, talking to colleagues in the hallway, organizing our desks, and the number-one time waster of the 21st century - e-mail. There are lots of easy ways to be distracted, so if you want to be a top performer, concentrate on the most important item of the day - your top clients and prospects.

Besides these six main time-management guidelines, here are a few more hints:

- Get yourself a good calendar/organizer. We love the Franklin Planner, but there are other systems that can do the job.

- More meetings and calls = more sales. It's not rocket science. Get out there!

- Schedule time for prospecting. No matter how many clients you have and how great your sales are, you MUST reserve time for prospecting. Create and keep your hot prospects list handy at all times. If free time comes up, use it.

- Delegate administrative activities. Reduce administrative work. If possible, have support staff send faxes and help prepare offers and presentations. Do paperwork early in the morning or at the end of the day when the client is not available.

- E-mail is the enemy of good time management. Don't get us wrong. E-mail is great. Just don't let e-mail manage you.

- Master the technology that's available to you to increase your selling productivity. Our sales reps use Maximizer, an excellent contact management software. If your company uses a special program or palm pilot, spend time learning all the features and options.

- Develop great template letters. You are going to send the same five to seven basic letters again and again. Save yourself a ton of time by creating basic templates that you can use every day instead of starting each letter from scratch.

- Visit Business Mixers. Where else can you have the opportunity to meet 20 prospects and clients in a friendly stress-free environment in two hours (not to mention the free food and beer).

Always ask yourself, "Am I doing the most important thing right now?" If you can implement the above suggestions, you are well on your way to achieving sustained sales excellence.

E-mail LYNKA at sales@lynka.com.pl