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Articles on Time Management
for Sales People

• SD-13 The two most important decisions a salesperson makes
  It's 10 AM Tuesday, and you are about to visit one of your customers. Why are you here? That's the question I have asked ... [ Read More ]

• S-28 First Steps to Effective Sales Planning
  Most salespeople love to be active - out in their territories, seeing people, solving problems, putting deals together. This activity orientation is one of the necessary characteristics of a sales personality. A day sitting behind a desk is their idea of purgatory. Unfortunately, this activity orientation is both a strength and weakness. Much of a salesperson's ability to produce results finds its genesis in the energy generated by this activity orientation. But it can be a major obstacle. Far too often, salespeople are guilty of going about their jobs directed by the credo of " Ready, shoot... aim." The luxury of this kind of unfocused activity is a casualty of the Information Age. In order to be effective, salespeople must be focused and thoughtful about everything they do. Activity without forethought and planning is a needless waste of time and energy..... [Read More]

• S-25 Strategic Planning for Sales People
  "Ready, shoot, aim." Unfortunately, that's the all too common description of the field salesperson's modus operandi. In a misguided attempt to stay busy and see as many people as possible, too many salespeople subscribe to the theory that any activity is good activity. There was a time when this was true. Customers had more time, sales was a simpler job, and any conversation with a prospect or customer was a good thing. But times have changed, and the job of the salesperson has become much more complex. The pressure on the salesperson to make good decisions about the effective use of his time has never been greater. Salespeople now must confront an overwhelming number of potential "things to do," and that requires them to make decisions about which customers in which to invest their time, to prioritize their activities every day, and to continually choose from a menu of possible activities. In other words, salespeople must now engage in strategic planning..... [Read More]
  
  

• S-78 Developing Account Strategies
  Excerpted with permission of the publisher, from the First Steps to Success in Outside Sales, Copyright 2003, by Dave Kahle.
  Our objective is to equip you with an understanding of the principles and processes you'll need in order to develop effective account strategies. First, let's define our terms. Strategy means a series of steps designed to bring your prospect or customer from where they are now to where you want them to be. It's the long-term view. Realistically, it's a planned series of sales calls in which each sales call has a distinctive set of purposes, a distinctive piece of education, a person or set of people to speak with, and a distinctive agreement that you'd like to attain. The purpose, the timing, the organization, and the sequence of that series of sales calls is the strategy. It's the long-term perspective, the big picture, of what you want to do and how you want to do it.....[Read More]

• S-76 Creating Long Term Goals
  by Dave Kahle
  One of the habits often practiced by highly successful people is the habit of regular goal setting. There is a reason for that. Goals compel you to work with discipline and concentration rather than going about your job mindlessly and routinely. Goal-setting is a discipline that helps you focus. Here´s how to go about creating long-term goals... [Read More]

• S-21 Biggest Time Wasters for Salespeople
  by Dave Kahle
  Good time management for salespeople has been an obsession of mine for more than 30 years. In the last decade, I've been involved in helping tens of thousands of sales people improve their results through more effective use of their time. Over the years, I've seen some regularly occurring patterns develop - tendencies on the part of sales people to do things that detract from their effective use of time. Here are the four most common time-wasters I've observed. See if any apply to you or your salespeople.... [Read more]
  

• S-20 Think a Lot
  by Dave Kahle
  It's a difficult year for a lot of sales people. The world is changing rapidly, and every new headline seems to some how impact business in a significant way. The competition is more active, customers are more discriminating, and no body had enough time. There was a time, just a few years ago, when it was easier. You could work hard for awhile, and then you could relax and enjoy the fruits of your labors. You'd reach a point where life became easy, your customers were buying from you consistently, and you had your job figured out.... [Read more]
  

• S-18 The Ninth Time Management Secret: Nurture Helpful Relationships
  Excerpted with permission of the publisher, from the 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople, Copyright 2003, by Dave Kahle. Published by Career Press, Inc., Franklin Lakes, NJ. All rights reserved.
  Early into one of my sales positions, my boss informed me that the operations manager was upset with me. I was too focused and task-oriented in my dealing with the company's internal personnel who made things happen in the business. I'd come into the office, drop projects and requests on everyone's desk, and head out again. My task-oriented behavior was upsetting people. As a result, they were balking at cooperating with me. My projects were being left on the bottom of the pile, and other salespeople were getting more cooperation. I had better change my attitude, he told me, or I'd find it very difficult to succeed in this organization. My lack of good relationships with the people who could make things happen for me was hurting my performance. Eventually, I came around to understand that. I swallowed my pride, bought each one a six-pack of premium beer, apologized, and started focusing on building positive relationships with everyone inside the company.... [Read more]
  

• S-1 How can I sell more when I have so much to do?
  by Dave Kahle
  How can I sell more when I have so much to do? You have new products to learn, paperwork to complete, hundreds of customer problems to solve, meetings to attend, inside people to cajole, managers to mollify - and, on top of all this, you are expected to sell something! Let's start by identifying one of those essentials. Think about the sales process - the activities that it takes to make a sale - and certain key activities come to mind.... [Read more]
  

• S-15 On Entertaining Your Customers
  by Dave Kahle
  How much time should I spend entertaining my customers? Good question. The world of the field salesperson is changing rapidly these days, and everything is in question. The practice of entertaining customers is one of those issues that needs to be rethought. First, let's consider whether or not you should entertain your customers. In these days of e-commerce and Internet communication, is there a place for this age-old practice.... [Read more]
  

• QA-S-20 Dave, how can a sales person have a life at night and not be reactive to customers calling at night - seven or eight per night?
  I have a hard time imagining why you would need to receive seven or eight calls every night from customers. I think the issue lies in your view of what the job of the salesperson really is, and what strategy best brings success to the salesperson. A lot of sales people view themselves as merely extensions of the company's customer service operations. In other words, they believe that the reason their customers do business with them is because they (the sales person) bends over backwards to respond to every whim of the customer. These salespeople then inadvertently train their customers to call them with every problem and need they have. Many times, many of these calls and problems could and should have been better directed to the company's customer service representatives.... [Read More]

Sales Time Management Interview
Listen to Dave Kahle being interviewed about time management for salespeople

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