“Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference.” - Nolan Bushnell, Executive

Time management has few secrets. Books and courses on time management abound. Many slogans proclaim their cure for time management, such as “First things first.” Peter Drucker says, “Leadership is doing the right things, while management is doing things right.” Effective time management is to efficiently do the right things. The key again from Drucker, is to “Ask the proper questions.”

Caesar asked at the end of my new manager training session on time management, “How do I motivate my poor producers?”. Caesar was a star at age 22. He made his reputation by selling five orders in five in-home presentations scattered over a 23-hour, 1000 mile driving marathon. It was the wrong question, one often asked. I replied, “Caesar, your job is to motivate your eagles to soar rather than trying to get your ducks to takeoff.” Thereafter I distributed yellow rubber duckies and plaster American eagles during my time management clinics

Focus on recruiting and training new people and supporting your best producers. Sales managers who spend ninety per cent of their people management time with either their eagles or their new sales recruits maximize their effectiveness. They build empires.

Treat all your sales force benignly. You are nice and appreciative to your marginal producers, but you cannot give them very much “couch time” and expect to develop a sales empire. Spend time wisely.

Despite pressures and inclinations to spend your time on the wrong people, the triumphant sales managers develop the will and habit to concentrate their time on the eagles and new sales people. They know they are more likely to find new eagles from constant recruiting than from trying to convert ducks into eagles. Jack Welch makes a similar point in Chapter 11 of his book, Jack, Straight from the Gut.

Now let’s move on to how to leverage your time by focusing on what you do best, on what you do that makes a difference in sales management. If there are activities that earn you $100 per hour plus, then avoid activities that that produce less income. Hire competent staff. Use your daily planner to schedule yourself to perform high impact activities.

I have had sales managers tell me, “I can’t afford to hire a secretary or marketing support staff.” Once you approach managing ten or more people, you cannot afford NOT to pay someone to handle your routine administrative tasks and maybe some of your lead generation activities. This is a simple math problem. How much money do you earn per hour when you do the following?

Write personal orders

• Recruit
  
• Train
  
• Motivate
  
• Handle paper work
  
• Order supplies
  
• Place recruiting ads in newspapers
  
• Go to the post office
  
• Maintain your schedule calendar
  
• Organize tax records
  
• Photo copy training materials
  

How much are you paid per hour when performing sales management activities, including writing personal orders? Now calculate how much per hour you will pay a secretary to handle your NON-MANAGEMENT activities. Is there a difference?

How much time do you have to book places for booths, trade name lists for a direct mail program, or plan and conduct lead generating activities like take-one boxes, or passing out flyers at offices? A well-trained and enthusiastic marketing manager can generate far more sales volume than the cost of his or her salary and expenses.

Well-organized, successful sales managers maintain a calendar going forward for at least ninety days, which is updated weekly. The larger your organization, the further forward you need to plan. The ninety-day calendar is a simple, powerful tool that maximizes effective use of your time. The ninety-day calendar puts you in charge of your life. The calendar allows you to do important thing before a crisis arises. A calendar is essential to becoming, or staying, proactive instead of reactive, and avoiding the “Tyranny of the Urgent.”

Activities are either important or unimportant, and either urgent or not urgent. Therefore an activity fits into one of four categories:, Important and Not Urgent; Important and Urgent; Unimportant and Not Urgent; Unimportant and Urgent.

“Not urgent and important” means you plan so that important tasks are completed BEFORE they become urgent. For instance, a sales manager who sets an example with a “bank” of five to seven sales appointments booked by Monday morning, means that the appointment setting was done in “Important, but not Urgent” category. Another sales manager, lacking booked sales appointments, will have to spend time in the “Urgent and Important” category because of not planning ahead.

“Urgent” means last-minute activity to solve a problem that usually could have been handled calmly and better by planning ahead. A perfect world would have no Urgent and Important activity because your important work would be done before it become urgent.

“Urgent and not important” consists of small time consuming, but hard to avoid tasks, that interrupt our day. An example of “Urgent and not Important” is the telephone: you need to answer the phone now, the phone call could be important. As a sales manager you should have already delegated all possible, “Not urgent and unimportant duties.”

Consider two practical exercises to improve the use of your time.First, List up to twenty-four activities that you have DONE in the past month and place each under one of the four categories. This will give you a good idea of where you stand in personal time management. The next part of the exercise is filling out a second sheet with the same twenty-four activities. This time, place them where they SHOULD be.

Second, List your ten most IMPORTANT sales management activities. Once you have that list, it is easier to schedule those activities in the “Important, not Urgent” category.. Compare your “should do” list of your ten most important sales management activities with what you actually DID over the past four weeks. Put these activities in their proper place..

As you fill the columns with the activities you are doing, you might ask yourself:

• “Am I waiting too long to plan for events?
  
• “Am I performing functions that others could do?”
  
• “Am I performing functions that should not be done at all?”
  

After completing the exercises ask yourself, “Am I satisfied with my time allocation?” What will I do differently going forward?”

Put this time management theory into practice in your time management system. The purpose of the ninety-day planning schedule is to move as many important functions, such. as personal selling, recruiting, training, and sales meetings, into the proper category Your sales volume will increase when you concentrate your time where it matters.

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