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Suggest You - Focus On Your Most Important Investment - Your Time
The more you know about people the easier it gets to run a small business. This statement is so true, yet I don't know many business owners that use this power principle.Are you working long hours? Do you have few holidays? Would you like to grow your business, but you already work many hours and don't want to work any harder? This article is for you!When it comes to recruitment there are 3 key points to understand. Business owners fail to understand these 3 points and wonder why they hired a person who doesn't do what they want them to do. Or, they work really hard for the first few days or week then their performance wains over time.So let's look at the 3 points.First, most people hire on experience instead of attitude. That's the first mistake business owners make. Instead, a better aspect to hire on is ATTITUDE.
Today I use an online CRM because I like to keep everything about my client interactions in one place that I can access from anywhere. Every CRM on the market allows you to create scheduled appointments, unscheduled tasks and to do’s. At Engage we use Salesforce.com because it easily can be accessed in real-time on the road and can be synched up to my Blackberry. Act, Maximiser, SugarCRM, and Outlook, are all also great tools
10. If you are waiting to get motivated before you make calls remember this: Motivation comes from action not the other way around. Most sales people wait to get motivated before they take action. You must do the opposite. Take action now! Regardless of how you feel. Simply pick up the phone and start making calls. Your activity will motivate you to keep going. You will always feel better after you accomplished something profitable.
11. Minimize office meetings, especially during prime selling time. I expect the sales teams I coach to have their weekly meetings starting at 8 am or after 4pm. My dad used to have his sales meetings
The best contact centers must be leading providers of high quality contact center services. A contact center is the central point in an enterprise from which all customer contacts are managed. The contact center usually includes one or more online call centers but may also maintain other types of customer contact as well, such as e-mail newsletters, postal mail catalogs, website inquiries and chats, etc. A contact center is primarily meant for customer relationship management.The best contact centers will have ideal infrastructure that will enable the customer service representatives to attend personally to each customer. The customer service representatives are well trained in language skills and knowledgeable in U.S. business practices and customer service standards. Good contact centers will have good managers as well. The centers will have
When it comes to sales, this boils down to focusing your time on the three Holy Grails: Prospecting, Presenting and Closing. Notice that all three of these activities involve prospects or customers. That’s because you sell more when you spend more time in front of your customers, whether prospecting for new business, presenting solutions to problems or closing business.
Despite knowing this intuitively most sales reps I meet complain regularly that they can’t find the discipline to practice it regularly. What this says to me is they won’t get organized to manage their time effectively.
If you hear yourself saying "I can’t focus on making calls yet, I’am too disorganized!” or “I need to get motivate before I can make calls!” consider implementing the following 11 time and organizational techniques every day:
1. Set a monthly sales target, and calculate how many prospects you need to talk to each month in order to generate enough business to hit that target. Once you have those numbers set, your priority becomes making the calls. Your second priority becomes working those leads that are already in the sales funnel, and moving them closer to a sale. For more tips on how to set goals to move your career ahead, check out our article on Goal Setting to get you started! Tie every piece of activity you do during the day to your goals.
2. Calculate the value of your time. What is every productive hour worth? There is a simple calculation at Secrets of the Top 10% - Part IV: Stay Focused
If you want a more accurate calculation of your times worth try this. At step 2, divide your desired earnings by only those productive hours in each day. Be honest with your self, most executives guess that they have less than 1 hour of productive time per 8 hours of work. Productive time does not include water cooler talk time, smoke or bath room breaks, sales meetings. Productive time is that amount of time engaging with customers, prospecting presenting and closing.
3. Block time off in your calendar everyday to make calls and prospect. Don’t just make a mental note – actual block the time off physically so you and everyone else can see it clearly.
4. In a place you can easily see everyday post your revenue goal in big, bright numbers.
Staring at this number everyday will remind you what you need to do first thing every day.
Staring at your goal everyday will help you stay focused. I recommend posting it both at home and in the office to achieve maximum effect. My goal is pasted on the bathroom mirror so I see it first thing in the morning.
5. Remember that, in sales, there are only two times of the day: pay time, and non-pay time.
Simply put, there are only so many hours in a day that you can talk to customers, so use that time wisely. Any activity that is not directly related to meeting people, building relationships and closing business should be done before 8am or after 5pm - unless of course you're selling to different time zones!
6. Stay away from the Life Suckers in your office. They are not customers, and they will not buy from you. Your customers are on the outside (or the other end of the phone). Life Suckers will waste exactly as much of your time as you permit. In the end your profits will be reduced by them, and you will only have yourself to blame.
7. Close your door, hide, and work from a different office! As Dan Kennedy says: “If they can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you.” I put my phone on do not disturb for at least 2 hours per week while I am making prospecting calls. I answer all messages at 11:30 am that day. I suggest leaving a very specific outbound message alerting callers. “Hi this is Colleen, I will be on the phone with clients from 9-11 today. Please leave a message and I will return your call at 11:30”.
8. Be on time. I find that the more often I am on time for meetings, calls or appointments the more often people treat my time with respect. This is not a coincidence. Its reciprocity at work. Simply put, show respect for other people’s time and they will eventually show respect for yours.
9. Make and use a Hot list or task sheet everyday. Preferably in your CRM but if you have to use pen and paper a yellow legal pad is better than nothing. When I started in sales at London life we used a shoe box and index cards. Both kept all my client information in one place allowing me to focus on calling my clients, not on wondering where I put their information.
Today I use an online CRM because I like to keep everything about my client interactions in one place that I can access from anywhere. Every CRM on the market allows you to create scheduled appointments, unscheduled tasks and to do’s. At Engage we use Salesforce.com because it easily can be accessed in real-time on the road and can be synched up to my Blackberry. Act, Maximiser, SugarCRM, and Outlook, are all also great tools
10. If you are waiting to get motivated before you make calls remember this: Motivation comes from action not the other way around. Most sales people wait to get motivated before they take action. You must do the opposite. Take action now! Regardless of how you feel. Simply pick up the phone and start making calls. Your activity will motivate you to keep going. You will always feel better after you accomplished something profitable.
11. Minimize office meetings, especially during prime selling time. I expect the sales teams I coach to have their weekly meetings starting at 8 am or after 4pm. My dad used to have his sales meetings a
India Story Just Got BetterWithin a week (31 Dec.-7 Jan), the UPA Government has revised the GDP growth estimates for both, the previous fiscal as well as for the current year. The FY04 estimate was raised from an already impressive 8.2% to an even better 8.5%, and the forecast for FY05 was raised from 6-6.5% to 6.9%. The improved performance for the previous fiscal is not surprising, as it was on a low base, and a bumper harvest. But, to have an economy grow at nearly 7% on an extremely high base is just superb. What makes the upward revision in the current fiscal’s growth projection even better is that the farm output this year will be much lower than last year’s production. Agriculture growth this year will shrink to a negligible 1.1% versus a solid 9.6% in the previous fiscal. Still, the overall impact on the economy will be much lower, th
1. Set a monthly sales target, and calculate how many prospects you need to talk to each month in order to generate enough business to hit that target. Once you have those numbers set, your priority becomes making the calls. Your second priority becomes working those leads that are already in the sales funnel, and moving them closer to a sale. For more tips on how to set goals to move your career ahead, check out our article on Goal Setting to get you started! Tie every piece of activity you do during the day to your goals.
2. Calculate the value of your time. What is every productive hour worth? There is a simple calculation at Secrets of the Top 10% - Part IV: Stay Focused
If you want a more accurate calculation of your times worth try this. At step 2, divide your desired earnings by only those productive hours in each day. Be honest with your self, most executives guess that they have less than 1 hour of productive time per 8 hours of work. Productive time does not include water cooler talk time, smoke or bath room breaks, sales meetings. Productive time is that amount of time engaging with customers, prospecting presenting and closing.
3. Block time off in your calendar everyday to make calls and prospect. Don’t just make a mental note – actual block the time off physically so you and everyone else can see it clearly.
4. In a place you can easily see everyday post your revenue goal in big, bright numbers.
Staring at this number everyday will remind you what you need to do first thing every day.
Staring at your goal everyday will help you stay focused. I recommend posting it both at home and in the office to achieve maximum effect. My goal is pasted on the bathroom mirror so I see it first thing in the morning.
5. Remember that, in sales, there are only two times of the day: pay time, and non-pay time.
Simply put, there are only so many hours in a day that you can talk to customers, so use that time wisely. Any activity that is not directly related to meeting people, building relationships and closing business should be done before 8am or after 5pm - unless of course you're selling to different time zones!
6. Stay away from the Life Suckers in your office. They are not customers, and they will not buy from you. Your customers are on the outside (or the other end of the phone). Life Suckers will waste exactly as much of your time as you permit. In the end your profits will be reduced by them, and you will only have yourself to blame.
7. Close your door, hide, and work from a different office! As Dan Kennedy says: “If they can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you.” I put my phone on do not disturb for at least 2 hours per week while I am making prospecting calls. I answer all messages at 11:30 am that day. I suggest leaving a very specific outbound message alerting callers. “Hi this is Colleen, I will be on the phone with clients from 9-11 today. Please leave a message and I will return your call at 11:30”.
8. Be on time. I find that the more often I am on time for meetings, calls or appointments the more often people treat my time with respect. This is not a coincidence. Its reciprocity at work. Simply put, show respect for other people’s time and they will eventually show respect for yours.
9. Make and use a Hot list or task sheet everyday. Preferably in your CRM but if you have to use pen and paper a yellow legal pad is better than nothing. When I started in sales at London life we used a shoe box and index cards. Both kept all my client information in one place allowing me to focus on calling my clients, not on wondering where I put their information.
Today I use an online CRM because I like to keep everything about my client interactions in one place that I can access from anywhere. Every CRM on the market allows you to create scheduled appointments, unscheduled tasks and to do’s. At Engage we use Salesforce.com because it easily can be accessed in real-time on the road and can be synched up to my Blackberry. Act, Maximiser, SugarCRM, and Outlook, are all also great tools
10. If you are waiting to get motivated before you make calls remember this: Motivation comes from action not the other way around. Most sales people wait to get motivated before they take action. You must do the opposite. Take action now! Regardless of how you feel. Simply pick up the phone and start making calls. Your activity will motivate you to keep going. You will always feel better after you accomplished something profitable.
11. Minimize office meetings, especially during prime selling time. I expect the sales teams I coach to have their weekly meetings starting at 8 am or after 4pm. My dad used to have his sales meetings
Speed reading programs are developed to help individuals considerably increase their productivity and efficiency when it comes to reading. There are two primary schools of thoughts that are divided up between the lion's share of speed reading programs offered throughout the globe. The first has to do with scanning and is known as the traditional method of speed reading. The most recent speed reading teachings state that scanning is not the most effective way to speed read, and in its place it's possible to read entire chunks of a page at a time without moving your eyes to scan the pages.There are disagreements over which methods are better, and at long last it comes down to personal preference. One thing that many within the scientific community tend to agree with is that speed reading will never be able to allow you to fully understand the co
3. Block time off in your calendar everyday to make calls and prospect. Don’t just make a mental note – actual block the time off physically so you and everyone else can see it clearly.
4. In a place you can easily see everyday post your revenue goal in big, bright numbers.
Staring at this number everyday will remind you what you need to do first thing every day.
Staring at your goal everyday will help you stay focused. I recommend posting it both at home and in the office to achieve maximum effect. My goal is pasted on the bathroom mirror so I see it first thing in the morning.
5. Remember that, in sales, there are only two times of the day: pay time, and non-pay time.
Simply put, there are only so many hours in a day that you can talk to customers, so use that time wisely. Any activity that is not directly related to meeting people, building relationships and closing business should be done before 8am or after 5pm - unless of course you're selling to different time zones!
6. Stay away from the Life Suckers in your office. They are not customers, and they will not buy from you. Your customers are on the outside (or the other end of the phone). Life Suckers will waste exactly as much of your time as you permit. In the end your profits will be reduced by them, and you will only have yourself to blame.
7. Close your door, hide, and work from a different office! As Dan Kennedy says: “If they can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you.” I put my phone on do not disturb for at least 2 hours per week while I am making prospecting calls. I answer all messages at 11:30 am that day. I suggest leaving a very specific outbound message alerting callers. “Hi this is Colleen, I will be on the phone with clients from 9-11 today. Please leave a message and I will return your call at 11:30”.
8. Be on time. I find that the more often I am on time for meetings, calls or appointments the more often people treat my time with respect. This is not a coincidence. Its reciprocity at work. Simply put, show respect for other people’s time and they will eventually show respect for yours.
9. Make and use a Hot list or task sheet everyday. Preferably in your CRM but if you have to use pen and paper a yellow legal pad is better than nothing. When I started in sales at London life we used a shoe box and index cards. Both kept all my client information in one place allowing me to focus on calling my clients, not on wondering where I put their information.
Today I use an online CRM because I like to keep everything about my client interactions in one place that I can access from anywhere. Every CRM on the market allows you to create scheduled appointments, unscheduled tasks and to do’s. At Engage we use Salesforce.com because it easily can be accessed in real-time on the road and can be synched up to my Blackberry. Act, Maximiser, SugarCRM, and Outlook, are all also great tools
10. If you are waiting to get motivated before you make calls remember this: Motivation comes from action not the other way around. Most sales people wait to get motivated before they take action. You must do the opposite. Take action now! Regardless of how you feel. Simply pick up the phone and start making calls. Your activity will motivate you to keep going. You will always feel better after you accomplished something profitable.
11. Minimize office meetings, especially during prime selling time. I expect the sales teams I coach to have their weekly meetings starting at 8 am or after 4pm. My dad used to have his sales meetings
The Super Blog as it now stands is a powerful new medium for mass communication that will empower both small and large companies with the ability to control internally 100% of media releases. Because the avenues for widespread media exposure are shrinking through traditional channels such as newspapers and magazines the dynamic creation of a Super Blog was necessary.As many of you know, especially those of you in any form of communications distribution, the death of traditional Press Releases is upon us. The very fact that all printed publications have been slashed in size is leading to an ever increasing difficulty when it comes to placement. Not only is the placement much more difficult but as the sizes of publications have decreased so has the readership. This is making for the double whammy effect on newsworthy content placement. Talk
7. Close your door, hide, and work from a different office! As Dan Kennedy says: “If they can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you.” I put my phone on do not disturb for at least 2 hours per week while I am making prospecting calls. I answer all messages at 11:30 am that day. I suggest leaving a very specific outbound message alerting callers. “Hi this is Colleen, I will be on the phone with clients from 9-11 today. Please leave a message and I will return your call at 11:30”.
8. Be on time. I find that the more often I am on time for meetings, calls or appointments the more often people treat my time with respect. This is not a coincidence. Its reciprocity at work. Simply put, show respect for other people’s time and they will eventually show respect for yours.
9. Make and use a Hot list or task sheet everyday. Preferably in your CRM but if you have to use pen and paper a yellow legal pad is better than nothing. When I started in sales at London life we used a shoe box and index cards. Both kept all my client information in one place allowing me to focus on calling my clients, not on wondering where I put their information.
Today I use an online CRM because I like to keep everything about my client interactions in one place that I can access from anywhere. Every CRM on the market allows you to create scheduled appointments, unscheduled tasks and to do’s. At Engage we use Salesforce.com because it easily can be accessed in real-time on the road and can be synched up to my Blackberry. Act, Maximiser, SugarCRM, and Outlook, are all also great tools
10. If you are waiting to get motivated before you make calls remember this: Motivation comes from action not the other way around. Most sales people wait to get motivated before they take action. You must do the opposite. Take action now! Regardless of how you feel. Simply pick up the phone and start making calls. Your activity will motivate you to keep going. You will always feel better after you accomplished something profitable.
11. Minimize office meetings, especially during prime selling time. I expect the sales teams I coach to have their weekly meetings starting at 8 am or after 4pm. My dad used to have his sales meetings
You probably have realized that word-of-mouth can be a very strong marketing tool. Most self-employed professionals know that referrals can be a great building block. But you may think that building enough word-of-mouth to generate a substantial amount of business is a dream. It isn't.You can count on some referrals from your existing clients and your friends and relatives. But did you know that you can get referrals from people outside of your circle as well?All you have to do is increase the size of your circle to include more people. In order to to get referrals, people need to like you and trust you. They are putting their reputations on the line by sending clients your way. In order to gain that type of trust, they need to know you.Wouldn't you love to have 100 people who were willing to send you clients? What if they put th
Today I use an online CRM because I like to keep everything about my client interactions in one place that I can access from anywhere. Every CRM on the market allows you to create scheduled appointments, unscheduled tasks and to do’s. At Engage we use Salesforce.com because it easily can be accessed in real-time on the road and can be synched up to my Blackberry. Act, Maximiser, SugarCRM, and Outlook, are all also great tools
10. If you are waiting to get motivated before you make calls remember this: Motivation comes from action not the other way around. Most sales people wait to get motivated before they take action. You must do the opposite. Take action now! Regardless of how you feel. Simply pick up the phone and start making calls. Your activity will motivate you to keep going. You will always feel better after you accomplished something profitable.
11. Minimize office meetings, especially during prime selling time. I expect the sales teams I coach to have their weekly meetings starting at 8 am or after 4pm. My dad used to have his sales meetings at 4pm every Friday! – I guess I learned this time management technique at an early age. To maximize profits you must maximize client meetings when your clients are at work. Remember – you can not sell to your fellow sales professionals.
Losing control of your time is the worst mistake a sales professional can make. You must jealously guard your time in order to stay productive. If you are productive you are in control. If you are concerned about your productivity – or are not hitting your goals – take an honest look at who is controlling your time most often. You, or someone else? If you can honestly say it’s someone else, then implement a change immediately. Take at least one of the 10 techniques above and implement it in your business immediately. Taking action will always yield you a better, more profitable result
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