Why can’t salespeople get more things done?
“THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN URGENCY AND IMPORTANCE.”

Everyone says they have “no time.” That’s baloney – everyone has the same amount of time, it just depends whether they spend it or invest it. If you’re not working on your “A” project or “A” prospects (top priority) list or preparing something for your “A” customers, you’re pretty much wasting your time.

What most people do with their time is spend it rather than invest it.

You can better understand it with the euphemism “piss on fires.” They do what’s urgent at the moment but not what’s important, to their job as a salesperson. When you’re doing something important (an “A” project), and something urgent comes up, it takes away from their important time. It is imperative to understand the difference between urgency and importance.

Someone barges into your office, or calls you on the phone, and says, “Hey we gotta do this right now!” That’s urgent. A customer calls on the phone and we’ve shipped them the wrong order, or it didn’t arrive on time. It’s lost on a truck someplace. It’s backordered and they weren’t expecting it to be backordered. That’s urgent. Most urgent things are preventable — even heart attacks.

Important things build yourself or your career or your family. Actions that achieve your goals. Short term actions with long-term imperatives and positive results.

Do you have to take care of the urgent things? Of course you do. You also have to deal with SOME of the important things of the day. Meeting deadlines and making quotas often have urgent actions that can be avoided with important planning and self-discipline.

The problem with most salespeople is that they fail to balance their use of time because they think they MUST handle every urgent matter themselves. Big mistake. And big misuse of time.

So, how do you schedule your time, Jeffrey?
“I SCHEDULE TIME WITH SPACE FOR CLARITY.”

I try to schedule my time so that it gives me full use of each hour of the day. BUT, I want to write that proposal during my time when I can have the benefit of clear thought and energized thought, instead of forcing myself to do it in the middle of the heat of all the other crap of the “normal day.”

My main objective during the day is to make sales and sales calls. Same as yours.

Sometimes I’ll leave where I am, and try to get to some place of solitude. As an example, I’ve thrown myself out of my own office. I have a desk there, but I have no office. I work out of my home office because it gives me peace, comfort, and I’m 1000% more productive. My books are there, my laptop is there, only a few people know my phone number there. I am free to produce.

NOTE: If anyone in the world calls, I take their call no matter what. I don’t want to change that, so, out of fairness to me, I’ve decided that I’m just going to be in the office less frequently. I don’t want to lie to somebody and tell them I’m not here if I’m here. That’s not right. But I wanted my time back, so I went home.

How can people become “do it today people?”
“SWITCH FROM NIGHT PRODUCE TO DAY PRODUCE.”

I found a secret about my life that was huge. If I ask if you’re a “morning” or an “evening” person, most people think they’re an “evening or night person.” And they’re wrong. I thought I was an evening or night person for 43 years. You can accomplish the most in the morning when you’re clear. People who think they’re a “night” person are really saying, “I ruin myself in the evening, and I can’t get up in the morning.”

The symptoms are: doing too much non-work in the evening, or drinking too much wine in the evening, or eating too much food in the evening, or staying up too late in the evening, or watching too much television in the evening. The answer is: prepare for tomorrow tonight, go to bed earlier, and when you wake up in the morning do some kind of exercise either mental or physical. Your entire world of thought and productivity will change. Mine did.

There’s a secret to the secret. Make certain that before you go to sleep, your head is “clear to solve” by writing down everything that you need to do and everything you’re thinking about. A to-do list for the next day, and a to-do list for the next month. A project list and an idea page. Just write it all down. When you write down it’s “off your mind,” and your mind is free to solve. It allows you to wake up with solutions instead of waking up thinking about your problems.

Free GitBit! There are several “sales productive” things you can do DURING your sales day. MapAnything, the global sales productivity leader, has compiled a list of how you can produce more during your day. Want the list? Go to www.gitomer.com and click on GitBit. Register (if you’re a first time user) and enter the secret word “PRODUCE”.

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