How scattered do you feel? How many things do you think you’ll work on today? Maybe a proposal or two, a sales call or two, some prospecting? Maybe you don’t know yet? If there is one improvement most sales professionals can make, it’s in their ability to focus on the task at hand. It’s not because salespeople are scatter-brained – most sales people are very focused in other areas of their lives. However, managing a sales quota has a million or more directions for one to head… and there is usually urgency tied to all of them. This one idea presented below will improve your ability to focus immediately. It takes discipline and trust, but it works…
Idea for this Tuesday: Check your email three times a day, at the most. Do NOT answer emails as they arise. Turn off your email application except during your three allotted times. Here is what I do…
- I check email when I arrive at my office. I know – everyone says not to do this because it takes you away from your objectives of the day, but it works for me. It usually takes me about 10 minutes to clear my inbox.
- I check it a second time around noon or so. During this time, I’ll file emails out of my inbox to a “review tonight” folder.
- Finally, before I go to bed, I clean everything from my home office. My wife and daughter have a routine of watching TV in our bed for about an hour and I head to the office. Going to bed with a clean inbox enables great sleep! BTW, this is why it’s easy for me to check email again first thing in the morning.
A few tips:
- Don’t turn your app all the way off. I keep Outlook on, but I work offline. This allows me to send emails, which sit in my outbox until I connect again, but not get distracted by incoming emails.
- When I’m waiting for something like an appointment or flight, I’ll go on an email clean-up binge. I’ll try to knock out as many as possible in the short amount of time. This makes my close out that night much easier.
- For the first few weeks, send an outgoing message that let’s your senders know that you’ll return their email within 24 hours. If they have an urgent need, they should call you. This is not necessary, but will make you feel more comfortable with this change.
Try this. Please, try this. It’s uncomfortable, and most of you will think that you can’t do it. If you do this for three weeks, I promise that your efficiency will dramatically improve and you’ll never go back to being that reactive robot, answering every email that pops up.
If you think I might be able to help your sales organization become more efficient with its process, please click here.
