Prioritization
“IN SALES, THERE’S NOTHING MORE UNEQUAL THAN THE EQUAL TREATMENT OF UNEQUALS.” --Sales Leader, Automatic Data Processing (ADP)
We are all busy. If you are an executive or manager, you are likely managing several people plus a series of key business initiatives. If you are a sales or service person, you are probably managing several prospect and/or client relationships and numerous opportunities. Treating all people and priorities equally is not fair to you. We often have a bias toward equality that just doesn’t make sense. If you are a manager, should you really spend the same amount of time with each one of your team members? If you are managing large and small accounts, should you really provide them the same level of service?
Here are a few basic best practices top performing sales associates incorporate into their regular efforts to prioritize:
- What are your next 3 sales? The best salespeople regularly ask themselves this question. They write down the answer, and then they plan their next step on each top opportunity.
- Focused hunting. When searching for your next deal, there may be elephants, rabbits, and deer. In many businesses, it takes just as much work to land an elephant as it does a rabbit. If that’s the case, you probably want to make sure you’re spending your time on big deals. Are you?
- Find proactive time. Most of us have clients and prospects that call us. Are they the ones we want to be spending our time with? Sometimes. Schedule time each day and week for you to focus on the clients and prospects you want to work on, not just the ones that contact you.
General Planning Tip (derived from Getting Things Done guru David Allen)
Depending on how many days you plan to work in December, you probably only have 10-15 working days left! What do you want to accomplish before the year ends? Here’s a best practice for planning when you have a lot to get done in a finite time period:
- Identify priorities. Make a list of projects and key opportunities to focus on in December.
- Define success. What do you want to happen by December 31st with respect to each priority? I.e. if your priority is to close the Acme account, success may be a signed contract of $100,000 or more by December 31st.
- Set the next step. For each priority, write down your specific, controllable next action step. Then schedule in your calendar. We do not do projects (e.g. hiring a new employee), we do actions (e.g. spend 15 minutes planning for Acme meeting).
Try to go through this planning cycle on a weekly or daily basis. It takes discipline. Top performers do it, because it clears their head of all the traffic and allows them to devote their full energy to the current activity.
So remember, whether you are a salesperson or sales leader, it’s not fair to yourself to treat all your people or opportunities equally. Regularly prioritize, so you get more done and make a larger impact.