Lynchburg Business

There Is No Time Like the Present

Issue: August 2010 by David Norcross in Inside The Magazine, Marketing & Sales

“I just do not have the time…”

Throughout the course of your day, how many times do you find yourself uttering these same words? Or how many times do you end your day disappointed that you did not accomplish what you set out to do? We all have interruptions—the phone will always ring, you will always receive that sidetracking email and that fire will start every day and you will have to stop and put it out. As a result, our best laid plans to make that follow-up phone call or send that letter or email to a customer or prospect is always placed on the back burner. You can have the best marketing plan in place, but if you do not take the time to sell to potential clients then your business will not grow or, in many cases, it will decline.

Sales is indeed a numbers game and it is a process. Stop right now and take a moment to examine your list of priorities and the priorities of your organization. Where does sales fit into these priorities? Is your company a sales-driven organization? The answers to these questions will heavily depend on just how much time you spend each day selling your product or service. Some of you may work at a place that has a sales team to take care of those daily calls, emails and prospecting, and while this may be true, how many prospects does your sales team actually contact each day? Or do they also say those dreaded words, “I just do not have time”? The average sales person spends just 50 percent of their time actually selling and only 38 percent of that time prospecting. Therefore, throughout the course of a 40 hour work week, the average sales person spends just 7.6 hours per week prospecting for new clients. In the end, how much time does your sales personnel spend actually selling your product or service?

Earlier, I mentioned that sales is a process and a numbers game. There are many who do not agree simply because they are forming their opinions around prehistoric cold calling techniques that do not work and never have, in my opinion. We have all established that time is tight, life brings too many interruptions and we do not spend nearly enough time working to grow our business. So what do we do about it? How do we fix this problem? My first question to you is, “What is your ‘sales process?’” Do you have one and is it consistently implemented throughout your organization on a daily basis?

The sales process should be a series of uniform steps that happen each day in every organization. These need to be executed in a manner that does not consume your valuable time. In other words, how productive is that 7.6 hours that you spend on prospecting each week? You see, I am not suggesting that you spend more time prospecting. I actually believe that you can indeed increase sales by spending 10 hours or less each week prospecting for new clients. That is, of course, if you have a system in place that will make your sales process painless and effective at the same time.

My system is very simple. I send five letters every day and make five follow-up phone calls every day. With a lot of practice and the help of contact management software, I am able to prospect each day in 30 minutes or less. During this time, I close the door, do not check my email and make every attempt to minimize interruptions. For every 10 follow-up phone calls that you make, you will likely get at least one appointment and, on average, you will get one new customer with every five appointments. While this system works for me; it may not work for you or your type of business. The point that I am working to emphasize here is that prospecting does not have to be hard, painful or time-consuming to be effective.

I recently viewed a video by sales and marketing icon, Jeffrey Gitomer. In this video, he was almost coming through the screen at the viewer, telling them to pick up the phone. His point? Either no one wants to prospect or they just do not prospect. Is this you? Is your business one of those that just prospects when your sales team has a minute or do they have a process and a system in place?

Customers move just through attrition. Buyers change jobs, companies change offerings and the sales cycle is just that—a cycle. If your business is not adding new customers on a regular basis, you need to seriously examine your sales process and begin prospecting for new business every day. If you say you do not have time today, there is a good chance that you are not putting business growth first. It is my hope that you do not have time because you are growing and your sales process is working like a well-oiled machine. If not, then I hope you think long and hard before you say, “There is no time.” Instead, you should be saying, “There is no time like the present.”

Until next time, make marketing your mission…everyday!