Focus is your secret weapon in sales and business
There are plenty of actions that can pull you away from getting projects done. Most salespeople lose out on deals because they are not effective with their time.
You can lose out on deal because of a few items that you may not have thought of:
- Emails
- Got a minute meetings
- Phone calls
- Sport conversations
- Trash talking other people
- Water cooler talk
Losing momentum is time crushing by 20 – 30 minutes per interruption. If you are working on a task you do have to know that every interruption adds to the time to complete the project. This just isn’t in the interruption it is also in the time it takes to get momentum back again.
Putting out fires:
You do have to put out fires and problems or you will end up with more concerns down the road. If you have a client that needs your help you may be able to schedule time to see them once your project is completed.
Inspect your time:
Where are you wasting time, if you want to see something telling keep a list of interruptions. You will be surprised at how many times people stop you.
People want to tell you all about their problems:
- Bad clients
- Deals they closed
- Personal problems and issues
- Business problems and issues
You have to decide who you are going to be to people and when you will talk to them.
You may have to treat friends differently than co workers. There will always be people in your life that you have to deal with but do not want to. When you set the rules early on this does help.
Your worst enemy is people who interrupt you and that do not value the time you have. If you give people time they will take it just about every time.
Solutions short term and the long term and the long term for focus:
- Set a schedule – don’t interrupt me have some powered focus – opera playing
- Do a task until it is done “Do it until its done” – Dr Kevin Hogan
- Know things will break, there will be problems – the bigger the problems the more the problems
- Discouragement breaks most people – most calls I get are about discouragement and why closing isn’t happening
- Say your problems out loud and get them off your chest
- Hire a gate keeper so you don’t get distracted – Dan Kennedy
- Use a digital calendar – Calendly is one service you could use
- Charge people for your time
- Put your phone on Airplane mode
- Don’t react to the phone ringing
- Check emails 2x per day
- Check social media 2x per day
- Wear headphones
- Use otter.ai – talk through a problem or word track
- Meditation
- Exercise on a regular basis
- Get enough sleep
- Get out to nature
- Map out what you are going to do an expectation
- What will you do at a moment of failure – hap hazard list
Scott Sylvan Bell
@scottsbell
#sales #focus #Hawaii #Podcast #howtosellshow
This episode was recorded on the North Shore of Oahu Hawaii at Hale’iwa Ali’I Beach Park