Despite abundant productivity tools, most salespeople struggle to meet quotas. Too many distractions sap sales time, leaving little accomplished. To succeed in sales today, productivity alone is insufficient. Salespeople must work smarter, ensuring they complete the most critical tasks better than before. To free up more selling time, sales leaders should take six steps: Set team challenges to recapture lost time through tasks like more calls and meetings. Your reps will then close more deals without hiring. The best part? You won't need more salespeople to hit your numbers.
In today's "age of distraction," the challenge to increase selling time is compounded by the myriad of diversions that erode our focus and diminish our capacity to think clearly, creatively, and strategically. The incessant busyness, often worn as a badge of honor, is misleading; despite the pressure to perform, studies indicate that professionals working 13.5 hours a day, 6 days a week, are not necessarily more productive. In fact, productivity research suggests that working over 55 hours a week can be counterproductive. The optimal approach is to organize and work productively for 55 hours, then rest, as more hours do not equate to better or more work. The internet, an "always-on" technology, is a significant source of distraction, constantly delivering information that interrupts deep thinking. When engaged in customer-focused thinking and research, we use the prefrontal cortex, which helps us stay on task. In contrast, aimless online browsing activates the amygdala, a primitive brain region that rewards us with dopamine for noticing new stimuli, effectively turning the web into an interruption engine. This leads to wasted productive hours on irrelevant information, causing stress rather than satisfaction from achievements. Sales is a thinking profession that requires research, trend spotting, data analysis, anticipation of needs, problem-solving, consensus building, strategy development, and innovation. Traditional time management fails in this digital world, where salespeople must be online for email communication and research. Jill Konrath emphasizes that to succeed, we must stop wasting time on dopamine-inducing distractions and adopt new work methods to sell more in less time. Change is challenging and requires effort against our natural tendencies. Konrath advises taking one step at a time to improve productivity, suggesting a daily tiny step in the right direction. Setting a SMART goal can help the subconscious figure out how to achieve more sales in less time. Transformation should not be attempted overnight; instead, it should be a process of continuous improvement, with an action plan for each step. Closing more sales in fewer hours is the ultimate victory in this personal challenge.
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