PrintingNews.com

At every presentation or workshop, we ask, “What is the single biggest obstacle you face in generating more printing sales?” The answer may surprise you. It is not competition from the Web, not difficult decision makers or the economy. It is simply the lack of time to get things done.

Time management is a challenge for most business professionals. Though managing time can make you successful, it does not mean that successful people manage their time well. For salespeople, mastering time management skills is critical, because wasting time means losing sales.

Even if you are a born procrastinator, by practicing a few simple techniques you will get back valuable time to focus on productive selling. There is not a more relevant phrase for sales people than “time is money”. Top producers consciously look for ways to gain the most effective selling time out of each day.

For many, the stress of the current recession has made their time management problem worse. In this economy, many salespeople have extra time in their day as customers are spending less, and in some cases refusing to take meetings.

As a result, we are finding many sales people are in the state of selling paralysis where nothing is getting done. This may be caused by the fear of not meeting their sales goal, depression and/or uncertainty.

Time management guru, Timothy Pychyl of the University of Ottawa suggests, “Uncertainty and not knowing the next step to take is a key factor in procrastination. Learning how to take manageable steps is crucial to getting started.” If you don’t know the next step to take on a project, ask a mentor or a manager, don’t get held up by uncertainty.

Set Goals

A simple first step is to ask exactly what your goals and priorities are, and what you need to do to accomplish to them. How much income do you want to earn this year? Write it down. Determine how many new customers you need to generate. What new applications do you need to close? How large must each transaction be? It is astounding how many print salespeople do not take the time to ask themselves these simple but important questions. Without specific goals, priorities and objectives there is no basis to structure your day. Knowing what you want and what you need to accomplish is an important first step to better time management.

Create a Plan

Once you have set your goals, determine what activities you need to execute daily, weekly and monthly. How many customers must you see face-to-face? How many proposals or quotes do you need to generate? How many prospecting e-mails or phone calls must be made? Decide exactly what must be done to meet your goals. Getting the plan down to the vital few will help you to leverage the 20/80 factor, where 20 percent of your activities will generate 80 percent of your business.