Saw a friend of mine today (we'll call him Jeff for this discussion) who was really struggling in his sales career. He hadn't hit his target in a long, long time and was afraid he would get fired at the end of the month. He invited me to lunch to see if I had any suggestions or ideas.
To make a long story short, I'll jump to the substance of the mini-interview that I took him through as I was trying to assess where the problems were hiding:
Dan: "How many sales related books or blogs have you read in the past month?"
Jeff: "None. I don't have time."
Dan: "When do you do your proposals and paperwork for the day?"
Jeff, proudly: "I get in there first thing at 9 o'clock and get all my paperwork done at the start of the day."
Dan: "Why don't you do that the night before so you don't burn-up an hour or two of selling time?"
Jeff: "Because I like to unwind and relax at night and watch a few hours of T.V. before I go to bed."
There's the problem, in my opinion. And it's not just Jeff's problem. It's a problem that plagues lots of sales professionals: Television. Too much of it, to be exact. And, it's television at the expense of doing something productive.
Do the math: 1 hour of wasted sales time multiplied by 22 selling days per month multiplied by 12 months equals 264 hours of wasted selling opportunity! Add to that the three hours of TV per night that Jeff is watching, which comes out to 792 hours of TV time every year! A grand total of 1,056 hours of wasted time.
Give up the TV. Do a little work at night in preparation for the next sales day.
Just a little correction is necessary in your math. You multiplied days per week AND days per month, giving inflated numbers for "wasted opportunity". Great post though!
Posted by: Stephen G | April 10, 2006 11:09 PM | Permalink to Comment