How can I plan my selling week?

In my many interactions with sales people I have found that many find they have problems prioritising their week.  They often get caught up in activities that do not produce revenue, leaving them vulnerable.Are you finding that you are over servicing your existing clients and not bringing in new business?

 Are you running out of time each week to do the important sales jobs such as prospecting?

Are you at risk of not meeting your sales budget?

Let’s look at the key activities that should feature as priorities in most sales people jobs:

• Revenue generating activities.
• Direct prospecting (phone calls, etc).
• New business client meetings (with new prospects and existing accounts).
• Account management.
• Proposal development, submission and pitch.
• Proposal follow-up.
• Referrals.

Indirect:

• Advertising.
• Networking.
• Pipeline management.

Support activities:

• Customer service.
• Sales meetings.
• Internal meetings.
• Administration.
• Professional development.

Where are you investing your time?

Without a systematic method of finding clients you will rarely produce outstanding sales results.

In order for a sales person to be successful in their role, they need to organise their week and their time. 

This concept quite simply is called an ideal week.  

An ideal week is designed to help sales people be more focused and more productive by chunking key tasks together.  For example, in many ways it makes sense for a sales person to be in the office in the morning followed by appointments with clients in the marketplace in the afternoon.  This means that all administration and prospecting activities are out of the way early, leaving the afternoon to really focus on clients’ needs. 

There is no one “right” ideal week, however having a structure and focus in how to set up your appointments, administration and prospecting time will be one of the keys to you becoming rapidly successful.

Experienced sales people may need to come back every three to six months and review their ideal week to ensure that it’s delivering a great result.

A systematic method

A systematic method of finding clients is critical for a salesperson’s success. 

We need to ensure that time is put aside each day to prospect, so that we can continue to feed our pipeline of new clients.   Importantly, we need ensure that we have a consistent and ongoing focus on finding new clients.

Our ideal week needs to include personal time, finding time, and selling time, so that our time is filled with dollar-productive activity.

Example of an ideal week 1

In this example the sales person has chosen to have three days in the marketplace with Monday and Friday being focused on setting up for the current and coming weeks.   Monday is reserved primarily for prospecting and Friday is reserved for planning, administration, research, and catch up, as well as some sales management support*.

Example of an ideal week 2

In this example the sales person has chosen to have mornings in the office and afternoons in the marketplace. 

Both of these examples can and will work well.

The key is having an ideal week and using this as a benchmark for faster decision making.  It’s important to understand that the week will probably never work out 100% like this, but it gives us a benchmark for how to structure our week for maximum productivity.

* Sales management coaching and support

It is unlikely that an experienced sales person would have a one-on-one coaching session every week, especially highly experienced sales people.  However, do not forget to spend regular time (say once a month at least) with an experienced sales person as they too can benefit greatly from personal development. Whereas, new sales people should be having a one-on-one coaching session every week to get them up to speed as quickly as possible.  

Sue Barrett is founder and managing director of BARRETT, a boutique consultancy firm. Sue is an experienced consultant, public speaker, coach and facilitator. Sue and her team are best known for their work in creating high performing people and teams. Key to their success is working with the whole person and integrating emotional intelligence, skill, knowledge, behaviour, process and strategy via effective training and coaching programs. Click here to find out more

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