What holds salespeople back from selling more?

They don’t spend enough time selling!

Salespeople typically spend twenty-five to thirty-eight percent of their time devoted to selling and getting orders.

The rest of the time is spent juggling balls, dealing with mistakes, fixing problems, fulfilling orders,searching for information, spending time in unproductive sales meetings,managing inventory, collecting data for company CRM reports, and servicing accounts to reduce customer costs.

No wonder salespeople complain there’s not enough time to sell.

Selling efforts must be organized for maximum performance; time is a limited resource. You may be working to hard to get things done, but the sales job is to work smart and make things happen.

Successful Selling Is About Productivity, Not Activity.

Here’s a simple two-step plan to help focus on what really matters; closing deals and making sales.

#1 – Stop creating a daily schedule of things to do

Every action we take does not have equal impact on achieving success or reaching goals.

If you don’t use this principle to your advantage it’s likely to accelerate poor performance and eventually lead to failure.

Use time and organization as a selling asset. Without a sense of priority, time may be eaten up dealing with things that have little to do with achieving goals.

Become a master of structuring activities for peak efficiency.

#2 – Start scheduling your top priorities first

The concept of “fit” or knowing how to fill up a jar with rocks, pebbles and sand illustrate the importance of doing the critical things first:

Start with a large jar. To fill the jar completely, put the big rocks in first. Next, add the pebbles and finally, fill the jar with sand. If you have a jar filled with rocks, pebble sand sand, you have effectively filled in the space.

However, if you empty the jar and fill it with the sand first, you will not be able to put all the rocks and pebbles back in the jar.

Just like getting the big rocks in the jar, manage time by scheduling priorities before you move on to less important tasks.

Don’t lose track of what you’re hired to do or what the sales job is. Salaries, commissions, advancement, added responsibility and security are based on your ability to perform.

What separates average salespeople from top sales performers is focus. Get more efficient at doing what works and dumping what doesn’t.

Don’t try and do it all, just do the sales two-step. It’s only what you sell and the deals you create that get measured,applauded and rewarded.

Copyright 2009 Brian J. Bieler – Reprints welcome so long as byline and article are published intact and all links made live.

Brian J. Bieler is the author of Powerful Steps and The Sales Operator. He draws on thirty plus years of experience as the President Viacom Radio Group and VP/General Manager of seven broadcast companies. He is a one-one-one leadership coach and consults companies on strategic planning and sales development. Visit www.brianbieler.com or e-mail Brian at brian@brianbieler.com