How to Invest Your Time Effectively to Sell Better

Time is money and yours is valuable.

How can you invest each minute of your work day with a purpose?

Today’s asset most salespeople overlook is: your time. Here are five strategies to use your time wisely and profitably. 

1. The 10:00 AM rule

Take your smartphone and set the alarm for 10:00 AM. I want it to go off every day at 10:00 AM, even on Saturdays and Sundays. 

Now seek to accomplish something significant before 10:00 AM, whether it be responding to a proposal, or taking care of a sales call. It might be doing something with your spouse, your kids. 

When you do something significant, it gets you excited. You feel a lot better.  What’s more, it motivates you to actually be more productive over the course of the day.

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Focus on the most important thing of the day, and purpose to get it done before 10:00 a.m. Why? Imagine your boss suddenly throws a wrench into your day. That’s right, you don’t get anything else done the rest of the day because of what your boss just threw at you. Not so fast! You accomplished something meaningful before 10:00 a.m, so you’ve still had a productive day. 

Find 10 more time management strategies for salespeople here. 

2. Time blocking

I block my time every day and these aren’t just appointments with other people. No, these are appointments with myself. 

In fact, the most important appointments I have are the ones I keep with myself, because I set aside this hour to do this task or another.

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I call it the 2×4 Principle. Yes, like the piece of wood. Now, don’t take it and beat it across your head. Instead, break your day down into four, two hour blocks, and choose a significant task that you’re doing in each one of those. (Of course, placing the most significant one before 10:00 AM, right?)

After you get done with any given two hour block, you evaluate yourself. How’d you do? It’s amazing how much more you’ll be able to get done when you time block. 

Work will expand to the amount of time you give it. Therefore, I’m going to put bumpers on the time I give it.

3. Focus and discipline 

When I’m doing a task, I stay focused on that task. 

“Mark, you don’t understand. My phone rings, or an email comes in.” I get it. 

Here’s the deal. Do you answer the phone when you’re using the restroom? I hope you don’t. So hey, it can wait. 

Sure, you may have to say: Within this two hour block, I’ll allocate two, 15 minute windows to take care of these things that pop up. That’s fine, but the rest of your time block depends on focused, disciplined effort. 

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Check out this episode of Sales Logic: How to Exercise Self-Discipline in Sales.

Catch new episodes of SLP with Mark Hunter and Meridith Elliott Powell anywhere you stream.

4. Consistency

Another way to look at consistency is through a routine. 

The alarm goes off at 4:45 every morning and by 4:50, I’m out of bed, I’ve already made the coffee and I’m starting to do my exercises. I’m in a dead set routine and it absolutely works. 

I am very focused with my routine for the first hour and a half every morning. Why? It gets me focused and disciplined. It has me already practicing time blocking. Plus, it’s getting me ready for the 10:00 AM rule.

5. Be goal focused

Your objective is not to help other people achieve their goals. Your objective is to achieve yours.

I get it. You’ve got your boss, and you have to help them. I understand that, but how does it fit into your bigger picture? 

As you decide how to allocate your time, ask yourself: How is this going to help me achieve my goals? Top performing people review their goals every morning.

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It really comes down to evaluating how you spend your time. I think it’s best to do this on a weekly basis, whether it be a late Friday afternoon, or Saturday morning, but evaluate your time and measure it to the results you achieve.

Join me next week, as I talk about asset #2: your mind. 

This week on The Sales Hunter Podcast…

We welcome Matt Dixon to the podcast for tomorrow’s episode: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision

Matt shares how to have two playbooks: one to convince the customer to actually change the status quo, and another to empower them to finally make a decision–and feel good about it! 

Tune in Thursday to hear what research actually shows…not what you’ve always been taught. 

Subscribe so you don’t forget or miss an episode of TSHP!

NEW: Stop Getting Ghosted Masterclass, open for enrollment now!

Learn what makes customers go dark after what seemed like great conversations. Get actionable strategies to open up dialogue again, move a deal along, or even prevent radio silence in the first place. 

Don’t let customers drive the movement of a deal–or halt it for that matter. You drive that deal. Learn how from the videos and workbook of this great course by Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter. Find out how–> here.

My friend Anthony Iannarino has written a terrific new book specifically for sales leaders called Leading Growth. It’s a comprehensive guide to generating net new revenue. I highly recommended it if you are in sales leadership or a consultant, coach, or professional whose firm is looking to grow.

Find it here on Amazon. 

Copyright 2022, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of A Mind for Sales and High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.