As a professional salesperson, the first mission critical skill that must be mastered is the capability of effectively laying out a strategy to accomplish your set objectives and then managing both your time and sales territory in order to achieve that plan.
Time is a salesperson's most valuable asset. When you as a salesperson lose hours, it means lost sales and lost earnings. Planning, organising and allocating priority time to your selling activities is one of the greatest challenges you will face in this profession.
With increasing competition and changing economy, you are being forced to become more effective and productive than ever before. As a result, the more successful salespeople gain competitive edge by working smarter, becoming a master of planning and using their time in the most financially and energy efficient way possible.
Too many salespeople spend their time on non-sales activities.
They fill their days with putting out fires, administration and other non core-sales tasks and then end up wondering why their pipelines are so meagre and why they miss their sales budgets.
Without effective sales plans, many will waste "windshield time" as they crisscross and backtrack their sales territories.
They find themselves making frequent in-person calls on "low lifetime value accounts", and out of desperation will hit the road at the smallest expression of interest.
Poor sales planning and territory management ultimately will lead to missed opportunities, missed quotas and poor results.
Sales Planning
Whilst there are many Sales Planning methodologies around, the object of the exercise must be on execution or the plans will simply not get done! Where the planning process is too complicated or it lacks simple and tactical objectives, implementation gets put into the "too hard basket".
Effective Sales Planning is the key to producing consistent and predictable sales numbers. More effective Sales Performance Plans will help you create, build and nurture a healthy sales pipeline. When you as a salesperson have a properly laid out, implementable and easy to manage Sales Performance Plan, it will ensure you meet your revenue goals and attain your sales quotas.
When you use the power of effective Sales Performance Planning you will also reduce those frustrating revenue peaks and valleys. As a professional salesperson you should not begin your selling year, month or week without a clearly specified Sales Performance Plan, which clearly outlines your key objectives, and action plans required.
With a Performance Plan in hand, salespeople must be able to manage their time and prioritize their activities for maximum impact.
Managing Your Time
Many salespeople experience the same problems. They feel overworked, disorganised and stressed out, with no control of their lives. Yet there are others who have somehow found "a better way!" The great news is that so can you. Time Management and planning is a skill that with time, effort and coaching can be mastered.
You need to truly understand that there are two simple, yet tough rules to dealing with time management and planning.
You can't manage time, you can only manage yourself
Focus and concentrate on results, not on being busy
Many salespeople waste their days in frantic activity achieving very little because they are simply not focused on the right things. The highest achievers, both in sales and other walks of life from business to sport to entertainment and public service, all have developed the skill and capability of focusing on and doing what must be done!
An effective sales plan will help you achieve the focus you require to achieve your sales goals. Ask your sales manager to put you with someone who can model "best practice" time and territory management. Alternatively decide today, decide right now, to become an expert planner and time manager. Go out and buy the top five recommended books on the subject, listen to Time Planning CD's in your car and attend a few time planning seminars. Google "time management", sales planning and read, learn and apply. Remember like any skill, goal setting, time management, planning and territory management can all be learned - with commitment, time and effort.
As one of Australia's leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.
Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.
Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices.
Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team - The 5 Keys To Turbo-Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" and "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work."
Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question "How come some people can sell and most can't?"
Download Ian's latest white paper on how to recession proof your sales team in the next 90 days from http://www.salestutor.com.au/Content_Common/pg-Salestutor-Tools-and-Resources-Articles-and-Whitepapers.seo
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