Think about your typical work week and those all too frequent time wasters that reduce the time that you have for customer contact and follow up.  Sales time wasters prevent you from accomplishing higher priority tasks such as planning for sales calls and prospecting for new business.

Common Sales Time Wasters

The following list of common sales time wasters has been developed during brainstorm discussions with salespeople and sales managers who have attended STAR workshops.  STAR’s May newsletter features the top 6 time wasters in more detail.  The more time lost engaging in time waster behaviors means less time spent on sales strategy, planning and face-to-face time with customers.   The net result is fewer and lower quality sales calls.

Top 6 Sales Time Wasters

• Calling on the wrong accounts
• No appointments (just stopping in)
• Failure to plan
• Responding to too many emails or voice mails
• Paperwork and sales reporting 
• Unproductive meetings 

 Other Sales Time Wasters

• Disorganization
• Procrastination
• Too much time socializing
• Failure to automate routine tasks
• Waiting time
• Travel inefficiency 
• Incoming telephone calls and voice mails (some of them)
• Interruptions by other people
• Unnecessary follow up (such as sending a sample to a customer who isn’t interestested)

Eliminate Time Wasters
Set a goal for yourself this week to eliminate one time waster that prevents you from spending more time with customers.  Write it down where you can see it for a daily reminder throughout the week.  At the end of the week, if you’ve been successful at eliminating one time waster congratulate yourself and set a goal to eliminate another.  Strive to eliminate those time wasters one week at a time.

We’d like to learn from you – send us your examples of how you’ve conquered time wasters.