Time Management - Sales Productivity's Black Hole

I spent a number of years as a consulting nuclear chemist and radiation protection specialist at commercial nuclear power plants. Which means I love physics!

I've always been baffled by the concept of managing time, because from a physics perspective time can't be managed. The proof is obvious when we consider... it's impossible to manage our time so effectively that we get 25 hours in a day, nor is it possible to manage our time so poorly that we only get 23 hours in a day.

We can't find time or make time.

The only thing we have control over is what we do in the slices of time each day.

A great deal of people manage their day by using a to-do-list. Stop and think for a moment, traditionally, how do we create a to-do-list?

The phone rings, emails arrive, clients or prospects call, boss assigns a task, a coworker needs a favor, sales calls to make, follow-ups to perform, demos to give, proposals and contracts to write, not to mention; market research to conduct and articles and white papers to read. If new tasks pop up while we're engaged in any of these activities, just add them to the list.

Yes, we can rewrite our task list. Yes, we can assign numbers or letters to denote importance, but what does that have to do with being effective?

So many people confuse their to-do-list(s) with their priorities. They run around with their hair on fire, adding tasks to and checking tasks off the to-do-list.

The gravitational attraction of the mountain of information and activities competing for our attention is like a giant black hole gobbling up space in our head and time in our day. Finally, our busy day ends without completing the key sales activities that add prospects to the funnel, move deals closer to close and increase our capabilities as sales professionals.

So what should we do?

Instead of trying to better manage our time, we should focus on managing our effectiveness. Sales effectiveness is a function of our ability to identify and prioritize high impact sales activities that are in alignment with achieving of our objectives.

Stop focusing all your efforts on planning your day and start planning your week, month and quarter.

1. Develop objectives for your territory, sales and personal development
2. Set objectives for each of the key phases of your sales process
3. Define the success metrics and targets for each objective
4. Create a rolling 90-day action plan and organize tasks by objectives
5. Create a model work week - your weekly schedule
6. Move your tasks off the action plan and onto your calendar
7. Measure progress towards achievement of the objectives weekly
8. Say no to everything else

I highly recommend Sally McGhee's book Take Back Your Life using Microsoft Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized (she even covers work life balance).

So how do we identify the high impact sales activities?

Start by answering three questions:

1. What does a great day of selling look like?
2. What do you have to do to prepare to have that great day of selling?
3. What do you have to do to string more great days of selling back to back to back?

I'm very interested in what you think so leave a comment.

9 Management Philosophies to Develop Teams Into Elite High Performers

I met with a prospect the other day and he asked me "What do high performance managers do differently than average managers?"

I paused for a moment, scanned the long list of behaviors in my mind; distilled my answer down to the critical few things and told my prospect...

High performance managers:

• clarify their understanding of their roles and responsibilities
  
• set non-conflicting short and long term priorities
• use a logical, transparent and duplicable decision-making process
  
• create a well thought out plan of action - they don't wing it
  
• create a realistic schedule for executing their plans

We discussed my answer in relation to the challenges his company was facing and agreed to involve the final person I needed to meet to close the deal.

I started the hour long drive back to the Atlanta airport and pondered a much deeper question.

Why do high performance managers behave the way they do?

I remembered asking my mentor and colleague Alex Nicholas, (the author of Applied Concepts Institutes' Sales Management Leadership Program), this very question.

Here's his answer - High performance managers have a set of management philosophies at the root of their priorities and decisions. This keeps them focused on achieving results through development of themselves, the team environment and the individual team members.

All management behavior is based on daily, demonstrable, non-negotiable standards, values and ethics.

• Personal conduct, decision-making and daily activities must consistently reflect the values and high ethical standards embodied by the company

Leadership skills focus on vision, strategy, values and spirit

• Leadership includes communicating a clear direction for the team, in concert with the corporate vision, strategy, values and goals. Leadership also entails developing and executing longer term business plans and promoting a strong sense of the importance of individual and team contributions.

Management skills target tactical, shorter term development

• Emphasis is on improving results by using proactive behavior, making sound tactical business decisions, improving near term planning, enhancing the daily work environment, and fostering developmental relationships with individual team members.

Focus on team development

• The most important priority for managers is the development of an elite, high-performance team. While accommodating individual employee's needs are important, business and employee decisions should primarily be made to support the greater good of the team.

Team performance improvement begins with the manager’s acceptance of personal responsibility for team actions and outcomes.

• Improving team performance starts with improving one’s self in personal management/leadership skills, job adaptability and business maturity.

The foundation of employee performance improvement is daily development that addresses their behavior.

• All employees are recognized as having unique personalities. Management focuses primarily on developing employee behaviors that are required to successfully perform the job.

Communication between Managers and employees become more effective through a collaborative communication style.

• Situations require differing styles of decision-making and communication, however collaborative communication and decision-making processes can be synergistic.

Develop employees using nurturing relationships

• By consistently using a collaborative coaching process, managers help employees take personal ownership of the job and their productivity. Managers treat employees as “major accounts” for development and coach in the areas of job skills, business maturity and personal adaptability.

Improved employee productivity results in increased employee tenure and sense of self worth

• Leading and managing employees to work through a focused, disciplined, high-energy, and consistent approach is the most effective way to increase results for the team and build employee job satisfaction and tenure.

So it all comes down to the congruency between your management practice and the value system that underpins the priorities you set and the decisions you make.

What are the management philosophies that underpin your approach to making the numbers?