Audience: sales reps
Message: Sales success is a matter of good time management.
Tone: motivational, instructional
Timing: 12-13 minutes, depending on insertion of details about paperwork

Somebody once said that a motivational speech is like a Saturday night bath—the effects wear off quickly. My favorite saying about motivation is that it energizes incompetence. At best, there are limitations with only motivational pep-talks. They tend to create immediate peaks and long valleys.

Even though I get motivated when I watch Jane Fonda do her workouts, that doesn’t necessarily help me peel off my own flab. That’s why I plan to be more instructional today than purely motivational.

I don’t mean to leave the impression that motivation isn’t important. Even though the effects quickly wear off, you do keep bathing. And even though motivational quickies wear off, we need them. We need to energize our can-do spirit.

But I want to offer you something more than motivation. I want to leave you with some concrete techniques you can use tomorrow morning. We’re beyond hit-and-run selling.

Used to be, all you had to worry about was finding a map of your territory and then making calls. But being state of the art in sales now means that you have to become your own general manager.

Competitive companies like ours are now asking that you be responsible not just for sales volume, but also for seeing that volume makes us profitable. We are expecting you to sell internally to get the support you need. To work with the delivery people,… the installers,… the service people. We expect you to negotiate effectively with the customer within the ranges we outline.

And often, we expect you to develop your own marketing plan. Those of you who’ve been most successful find that you’re conducting product seminars for your customers, coordinating direct-mail, and even designing your own advertising campaigns. And, of course, you’ve always had to learn to balance your high-activity accounts against the time and yield of low-volume accounts.

So what does this “state of the sales industry” address mean to your daily schedule? You’re beyond the techniques that made you successful as a hit-and-run salesperson. You have the same hours in the day, but you have to use them more efficiently.

The sales cycle used to be about 30 days from presentation to close. Today it’s about (number) months. You often have the technical buyer, the user buyer, the economic buyer, and the coach buyer. Four different people or groups you have to make your pitch to. That means it takes much more time to earn the same dollars.

That means that no matter how new the “state of the art” in selling, we are still back to the basics of selling: Time is your best tool; you have to use it to our advantage.

Although time-management tools aren’t new to you, they get lost in the garage on occasion. May I remind you of a few:

First, set priorities. We keep telling you to add value to the products. To be there when customers need answers to their problems—to offer more and more consulting services. But you may be feeling frustration. “If my day is already full,” you may be wondering, “how am I going to add value?”

Focus on the 80/20 rule again. Eighty percent of your results comes from 20 percent of your activity, from 20 percent of your clients. So list all your activities and set some priorities. What activities bring in the most revenue? What things could an assistant do to free you up for those top selling activities? Could you pay a $20,000 assistant to increase your commissions by $50,000? What activities could you stop doing to give yourself more time to concentrate on those profit-making priorities?

You’ve heard it said: “You win some; you lose some, but you’ve gotta get dressed for them all.” Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you have to take the time to rent a tux and get a haircut just to go out for a Big Mac. Some sales efforts call for blue jeans. Only the most profitable demand time to rent a tux.

Second, determine the right mix between reach and frequency. You always have to balance these two: Do I spend my time and budget reaching more people with our message? Or spend my time contacting the people who buy more frequently? Generally, it’s more important for your potential customer to get your message more often…. than for a large base who may or may not be potential customers to hear your message sporadically.

Third, learn to give CPR by phone. Telemarketers are having great success with what telemarketing expert George Walther calls CPR. Consult…. Personalize…. Recommend…. Consult by asking questions of the customer about his or her needs. Personalize by explaining the benefits of your product in terms of the needs the customer has just expressed to you. You’ve asked the right questions. You’ve intelligently related your answers to the customers’ needs. Then at that point, you’re in a position to recommend what the customer needs to buy from you.

With the cost of our average sales call now topping $(amount), we’ve got to get off the plane and on the phone. Nobody said the telephone has to be impersonal. Just remember, not the same pitch to everyone. CPR. Consult…. Personalize…. Recommend….

Fifth, use letter-writing as a pro-active sales strategy. Instead of those three-hour, goodwill-building visits, write a “thinking-of-you” letter or note.

Such as “Saw a great article that answers some of the questions you raised last month. I’m enclosing a copy.”

Such as “Harry Smith ran into me at the convention last week and asked about you. You may want his new address and phone number, which I’m enclosing.”

Such as “I’m wondering how your new (product) is working out for you. Do you need a (product) to go with it?”
Letter-writing, once you get a collection of models for your customers, can be a sales strategy unto itself. A side benefit is that it builds goodwill in less time than a half-hour phone conversation or a two-hour trip to the customer site.

Fifth, stop putting everything in writing. Get rid of those ubiquitous transmittal letters that say, “Here it is.” That habit ties up your sales correspondence in the word-processing pool for days. Just put your business card or a handwritten note on the literature, the price list, the specs and put them in the mail. Underline the answers to their questions in the sales lit. A handwritten note says to the customer that you’re personalizing your pitch,… that you listened to their needs,… that you preferred a speedy response to a formal typewritten transmittal.

Just decide how formal the paperwork has to be. If a note will get the job done, why send a 20-page report or proposal?

[Insert details about which paperwork you as a group can eliminate or do more efficiently.]

Sixth, get rid of the clutter. On the plane this week, I saw a sales rep who probably thought he was being efficient. No sooner had we gotten off the runway than he had his briefcase out, trying to fill out his expense report. The problem was that he spent half an hour listing his expenses on half a page because he couldn’t find anything. A receipt in this pocket. A receipt in that pocket. A blank form—somewhere. Now, where did he lose that pen? Clutter is not the sign of hard work. It’s the hallmark of the disorganized and the inefficient. Get organized.

Abraham Lincoln quipped: “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” Ask yourself at the end of the day tomorrow, at the end of next week, are you using your time or losing your time?

If you’re losing it, set priorities. Determine the right mix between reach and frequency. Give CPR by phone. Adopt a pro-active letter-writing strategy. Stop the unnecessary paperwork. Get rid of the clutter.

In sales, well done is better than well said.