As a sales professional, you know that all that what really matters in the end are the results you are able to achieve. So if you want to be successful in sales, it is not about how much effort you put in every day or how much activity you perform daily. It is about the results you are able to produce. Of course more daily activity will equal improved results, but can you imagine how you could exponentially improve your sales performance, if you prioritised your activities, ensuring you were using your time as effectively as possible, to only carry out the right sales activities every day.
Stop Spinning your Wheels
Unsuccessful people attach far too much importance to things like spending long hours at work, frantically flailing around, aimlessly working in distraction, completely unfocused with no purpose to their actions at all. Despite this frantic daily effort, which sees them arrive home exhausted and overwhelmed every evening, they still do not manage to achieve the results they want. They are effectively just spinning their wheels every day, achieving very little.
If you want to finally start achieving the results you want, then it is time to stop spinning your wheels. It is time to “stop, breathe, think and then act”. Invest the time to slow down or even stop your frantic efforts for two or three days and reassess, everything you are doing every day.
I know you feel overwhelmed and short of time as it is, so the thought of actually stopping your frantic efforts for two or three days must seem impossible right now. Well actually stopping, giving yourself time to breathe and to think about what you are doing, is going to not only save you buckets of unnecessary stress going forward, but is also going to add hours of valuable productive time to your day. This is one of those investments you can’t afford not to make.
Action Idea: Before you invest the time to take two or three days to explore how you are doing things, it is a good idea to use an “Activity Log”, to log how you are currently using your available time. This is a simple process, where you record what you did in the previous hour on a sheet of paper. Keep doing this for seven days. At the end of the seven days, collate the information, recording all the places you wasted time and where you used your time effectively. After completing this simple exercise, you will be astounded at how much time you are actually wasting every day, either in distraction or just spinning your wheels.
Fixing Things
Armed with the information from your “Activity Log”, it is time to explore how you are going to fix things. My wife has a close friend, Chantell, who does office makeovers. Before she starts, she empties the room completely, removing everything from the room first. She then starts to add some of the existing furniture back into the room; she then adds in a few new crucial new pieces and removes all the clutter from the room. The results she manages to achieve for very little cost are quite staggering. The room looks fresh, new and vibrant after she is finished.
Fixing how you invest your available time every day is no different to the way Chantell does her office makeovers.
You need to first empty everything out of the room, i.e. start with a blank page, and remove all your current ways of doing things completely.
Now armed with your activity log, explore and discover the furniture which will make it back into the room, i.e. discover those activities, which contribute most towards your success and include these in your plan.
Now you need to introduce a few new crucial pieces into the room i.e. you need to uncover a few new routines or behaviours, which will support you to improve the way you use your available time. Introduce these into your plan.
Finally discard the clutter from the room i.e. get rid of all those time wasting activities, which consume time and keep you spinning your wheels.
If you are not satisfied with the sales results you are managing to achieve, then it is time to do an “Available Time Makeover”. It is time to become fixated on results and to stop focusing on frantic, pointless activity. If you pick up the garbage every day, but due to distraction and zero focus on task completion, you only make it from the kitchen to the front porch every day. The garbage will just keep accumulating in front of your home, it will never get removed.
The same is true with your life as a sales professional, if you continue to just spin your wheels and you do not prioritise, focus and carry out only the right sales activities every day. The garbage of poor results will continue to accumulate and your sales performance will remain poor. Measure yourself by the results you manage to achieve, not by the frantic, overwhelming pointless efforts you put in every day and you will soon be achieving incredible sales results.
Andrew Horton is one of South Africa's top sales training experts. He will support, uplift and inspire sales professionals to explore the limits of their potential and awaken the sales giants, which resides within all of them. His sales training presentation is aimed at inspiring sales professionals, helping them to become re-energised and eager to achieve their sales targets. The sales tools and powerful tried and tested practical sales techniques, they will be introduced to during his presentation, will help any sales professional to immediately up their game and to become a real sales giant, within their markets. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za/sales-training