The Struggle of All Salespeople
Here’s what you should know about salespeople, and really people in general.
They don’t struggle with time management, they struggle with self-management.
You can’t manage time, time ticks whether we want to or not.
Here’s why we struggle with self-management
In the absence of a clearly defined plan, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts.
This is what we call creative avoidance.
What is creative avoidance?
Creative avoidance is masking distractions as productivity.
We’re creating something for ourselves to do so we can make ourselves feel like we’re being productive.
But what we’re doing is creating it as a defense mechanism to avoid doing this other task.
We have to absolve ourselves of creative avoidance.
So just to be clear, the number one reason salespeople fail, is not a lack of skill, but a lack of focus.
That’s the number one reason why personal brands fail.
What is Money Value of Time and Why it’s Important
Everybody in the world has an hourly rate of pay.
The money value of time is not the same as the time value of money.
Time value of money is saying what is the worth of $1 invested today a couple of years ahead?
The money value of time is different.
Take your total income for the year and divide it by the number of hours you work.
That is your hourly rate of pay.
That is your MVOT.
Why is this important?
Once it becomes clear what your MVOT is, you won’t waste time.
If someone was standing next to you giving you money for every minute you spend on a sales call you wouldn’t stop making calls.
One technique that will help your team have a better attitude, is to teach them to think in terms of being paid for their activity and not for their results.
You have to create a culture where your salespeople realize that they always eventually get paid for the work they put in but not necessarily right away.
They need to know this so they don’t become discouraged.
Part of what you’re doing as a sales manager is not only managing processes, but you’re also managing emotions.
The vast majority of salespeople will become masters at finding things for themselves to do as a justification for not doing the things they know they should.
How to Push Your Team Towards Greatness
Here’s what salespeople do.
They show up for the call and if they buy then great, but if they don’t show up on the call, “I don’t have time to be tracking them down.”
“If they didn’t buy on the call, I don’t have time to be tracking them down.”
They sure as heck have time, but they will create a thousand other things to do other than doing that.
They have to be managed.
That doesn’t mean you’re yelling at them, claiming they’re lazy or questioning their intelligence.
All it means is that you’re drawing their attention to the fact that there is a pool of people sitting in this pipeline stage that they need to call.
At that point, they’ll realize that they do need to call them and that it’s a super high priority.
So, the key takeaway is to not manage your team by being mean and condescending but to instill these values into the culture of your business and show them the reasoning behind it.
