How much does each salesperson aspire to make next year? 50,000, 100,000, 200,000??
Let's use 100,000 as an example. You can adjust the number for the situation. If a salesperson works 2000 hours a year (40 hours per week), he or she will earn $50 per hour. (Every hour that completes itself contributes the most cherished component of a salesperson's day - time.)
Sales Managers with High Activity Salespeople (sales cycles from initial contact to close - 90 days or less ...)
How do your salespeople handle interruptions to sales time? How do business demands interrupt the team's selling time? How many hours of the day do your salespeople spend either in front of someone or fighting to get in front of someone? How much of their day is spent idle? How often do they react to things rather than schedule them? How much of their day do they spend prospecting or selling in a face-to-face meeting in order to achieve their sales goal? And, finally ... how do they maximize the amount of time spent face-to-face in front of prospects? And, how do you support or coach sales efficiencies and productivity?
Sales Managers with Major Accounts' Sales Teams (with sales cycles of 90 days and up, even 2 years or more ...)
How much sales time is spent thinking about and determining strategies? How much of your team's time involves getting other peoples' input for decisions about next steps? How much time do your reps put into writing and rewriting emails, approach letters, responses to questions, power points, etc.? How much of their time is spent finding ways to get the next important advance accomplished - one that moves the sale another degree in their favor? In other words, how do they structure their sales time to plan out the next thing to do with the right person(s) at the right time - then do the sales action - and then review their account positioning to plan out the next thing to do, etc. etc. etc.? Plan - Do - Review, Plan - Do - Review.
For all salesperson on high activity or major accounts sales teams, time is valuable. It may be used differently - it's still valuable. With 2000 hours in a year, one hundred thousand dollars is earned one hour at a time ... $50 dollars an hour.
And, once gone, a salesperson cannot recover time - it's gone - $50 or more each and every hour - burned up by waste or good intentions or a lack of understanding.
$ Per Hour
At $100,000 a year - $50 an hour
At $200,000 a year - $100 an hour
Examples
How many sales does someone need to make to earn $100,000? $200,000 ... $300,000.
Divide the number of sales in a year by 2000 hours in a year and you know the number of hours available for each sale.
For example, a cellular salesperson for some companies must make 1000 sales in a year to earn $100,000.
1000 sales/2000 hours = 1 sale every 2 hours (lots of face-to-face time in a week)
In some firms, a commercial real estate broker must make 10 sales in a year to earn $200,000...
10 sales/2000 hours = 1 sale every 200 hours (200 hours mostly made up of planning and reviewing before doing a prospecting or face-to-face activity
So, do your people value their time at $50 or more per hour? Do they realize that what they do with time is having a dramatic effect on their family's security or well being, or their achievement, or their security, or the recognition they receive, or just their ability to do their duty - to achieve a minimum sales amount for their company?
Salesperson time tips...
Every meeting does not need to happen nor does it need to be an hour long.
Do not automatically say yes to any use of time.
Every email does not instantaneously need to be responded to or even read.
The use of the Internet needs to improve your sales during sales time.
When someone wants to talk with you for "30 sec," do you just react and by your actions say, "Yes?"
Schedule more of your day calendar into blocks of productive time.
Block out time to find new opportunities (lead generation) and time to prospect them on the phone.
Block out appointment time for face-to-face sales calls.
Block out time for important strategy sessions (major accounts)
Start 'a stop doing this with time' list
For high activity sales teams, focus sales time on being in front of prospects or fighting to be in front of them
For major account sales team, focus sales time on planning, doing, and reviewing ... then start this cycle over.
We often forget about our most valuable sales asset - time. The activity trap of multiple tasks, sensory lures, and interruptions get us off track. Let's stop the cycle or at least begin the process of slowing it down now. You can do it. Keep remembering at the end of the day, and the year, what's important - really important, and change. Get better.
