How much of your day is spent doing actually what you’re supposed to be doing? Your job title includes the word “sales.” Your job description has the word “sales” spelled out probably 17 times. If your job is to sell, why are you spending so much of your day doing everything but selling?
Video: Customer Facing Time- What Is It?
“CFT” stands for Customer Facing Time. It is a metric that matters and includes whatever amount of time you spend talking with customers. This might be in person, on the phone, video call, or email – either way, it doesn’t matter what form of communication, but that you’re interacting with a customer. Honestly, it’s a shame that we even need to have this measuring tool. You would think if sales is what we do, then we do it. Sadly, that is just not the case!
If you don’t wake up each morning thinking about CFT, it’s amazing how quickly the day can slip away. Too easily, you can get caught up in taking care of other stuff, handling requests, and doing everything but selling. The biggest confusion around CFT is the tendency to amp it up by babysitting customers that do not need a babysitting service.
CFT is about creating incremental sales. If your focus is on babysitting existing customers, I’ve got another metric for you: “CSE,” known as Customer Service Engagement. I’ll save my CSE explanation for another time; let’s focus on CFT.
Your objective is to focus on doing everything you can to increase your Customer Facing Time everyday.
I can’t talk about CFT without calling out sales managers, so listen up. You play such a key role in this. It’s your job to not throw constant tasks at your salespeople. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that it will only take a salesperson 15 minutes to do the “quick” thing you want them to do. That’s a myth! Things always take longer than you expect. Each of your requests does one thing: takes time away from CFT!
Now, ask yourself this question: What will earn me and my sales team next year’s top performers trip to Hawaii? Will it be getting reports done on time or blowing past your quota?
Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result
