CHAPTER 2
Managing Time and Information for Profitability

PHONE SALES CHALLENGE – Anthony, in IT placement, tells us: “I called a customer earlier today and was actually surprised when he answered the phone. Then I tried to find my notes from our previous conversation and they had disappeared!”

Too often, sales pros get lost in thinking they don’t have time to dig around for or keep track of details on customers. The focus is the phone call, the moment, right? Not even close! Today’s customer doesn’t have time for glib conversation. Unless you can offer something directly relevant to the customer’s challenges in the very first breath, you are revealing that you’re just another nuisance call. You might even be experiencing exchanges like these:

SALESPERSON: Oh, hi John, how are you today? This is Anthony, uhm, from xyz Services. I wanted to check with you to see, uh …

CUSTOMER (interrupting): Well, Anthony, I really don’t have time to talk to you. Goodbye.

In this example Anthony clearly wasn’t prepared for the call. He has forgotten that call-to-close ratios can be improved with solid customer information and call planning.

SALESPERSON: Hi, Rebecca, I’m from ABC Enterprises. I’m not sure if I talked with you before or not, but I wanted to share an idea with you.

CUSTOMER: Well, I’m sure that we haven’t spoken before, and I can tell you that we have no interest. Goodbye.

Here’s a typical example where a phone salesperson is excitedly promoting a new product or service. But since the salesperson isn’t even organized enough to know if he or she has spoken with the customer before, the customer pretty quickly assumes that the call will be lame.

SALESPERSON: This is Josh from Aggregate. I apologize because I know I was supposed to send you a confirmation email after our last conversation.

CUSTOMER: I’m glad you called, but we had to make a decision last Tuesday. We really liked your product, but when we didn’t hear from you …

Wow! Because of a lack of promised follow-up, this rep was blind-sided by a major change in customer circumstances. If he was counting on this sale in his weekly report, he’s certainly going to come up short. Commitments made to customers are tests of credibility. If you say you are going to follow up on Thursday, do it!

If you are a professional salesperson, and especially if you are on commission, time spent on the phone translates directly into money. But if that time is inefficiently or ineffectively spent, it will ultimately cost you. For this reason, maximizing the use of your time requires careful preparation for phone sales calls. This process includes locating contacts, tracking customer needs and accounts, and even enhancing your skills (such as reading this book). Improving your call-to-close ratios will pay off in large dividends.

First, you need to get a clearer picture of what your time is worth, and how to increase your dollar yield per hour, minute, and year. Keep a consistent pattern of planning, tracking, and following up. If you fall down in any one of these areas, you’re likely to become just another statistic of a failure caused by the inability to plan. This chapter is about making and improving that connection by managing your accounts and then gathering and utilizing customer information so that your call planning leads you to closing more sales. Information isn’t just power—it’s money!

Second, you need to improve your efficiency, both in finding qualified customers so that your phone time is well spent and in gathering and managing the information that is most useful to you in planning whom to call, how often to call, and even what time of day is best. The information storage system that you use can be customized for your purposes, but there is one absolute for successful phone selling: You must have sufficient information about the customer to establish credibility instantly. Your good looks and charm are not helpful when the customer can’t see you.

Improve Your Time-to-Sales Ratio

There are many ways to increase your efficiency as a sales professional. None, however, are magical—nor will they work if you don’t use them. The recommendations in this chapter might be a significant departure from “I’ve always done it that way.” One truth emerges, however: If you continue your phone selling in the same way, you will get the same results.

Time management to increase your call-to-dollars relationship will require some changes on your part. Though many reasons exist for you to make some of these important changes, the best is the table in Figure 2-1.

THE TIME/COST TRADE-OFF

What is your time worth?

Let’s break down the numbers to help determine why it’s so important to improve your efficiency. As you look at this table, first figure out how much each hour of your time contributes to your income. Find your salary, then scan across to the column that tells you how much more green you can bring home by becoming more efficient—by eliminating wasted time, thus adding an extra hour to your working day.

Figure 2–1

How Much CAN You Make?

If you waste an hour a day, look how much you have squandered. If you are on a commission plan, the numbers are even more dramatic. So, the way you manage your time has a direct impact on your income. If you are on straight commission, or receive bonuses, that extra hour each day you might spend shopping online sucks up more than cash. Wasted time translates directly into lost money for you.

Now, let’s look at your day and see just where your time is spent. Do the following to help you understand more clearly where your time goes:

1. Track everything you do for three days, rounding your activity to fifteen-minute increments. From the first minute you pick up the phone, record what you do all day. Be honest with yourself, because no one will see this but you, and its purpose is to help you make more money through greater efficiency. Note what wastes your time during the course of the day. Most people find that personal phone calls, chats at the coffee bar, and online activities are their worst enemies when it comes to time away from the phone.

2. At the end of the three days, sit in a quiet room and carefully analyze the log you’ve created to see how you are using your time. Take a look at what you, personally, have control over.

Then consider how you can make better use of your time in different ways. After tracking your time, you might determine that by simply beginning your calls fifteen minutes earlier, which allows you to make eight more calls per day or forty more per week, you might close three more sales per week. If an average sale for you is $1,000, that adds up to $3,000 per week, which multiplied by fifty-two weeks equals an increase of $156,000 in sales per year!

At a 10 percent commission rate, you have now generated an additional $15,600 by simply beginning fifteen minutes earlier each day. This seems like a small price to pay for a sizable return.

As soon as you seriously examine what you do with your time, you’ll begin to see how much money you are losing to time-suckers. Although each person is different, every sales professional can manage time more effectively by choosing activities that enhance well-being, whether personal or professional. Taking care of your health, for example, by exercising, taking breaks, and getting out for lunch, is not wasted time: These activities result in better productivity. But if your friend doesn’t like her job and she calls you to talk for an hour a day, she’s costing you money.

At some point, you need to seriously weigh how much you need to make versus how much your time means to you—in actual dollars. Start thinking about concrete ways to optimize your selling time and invest your time wisely. Don’t let it just pass by while you sip lattes and text your friends.

DISPELLING THE 80/20 RULE OF SALES

Every salesperson has heard of the 80/20 rule, that 80 percent of our business typically comes from 20 percent of our customers. It’s amazing that we all seem to believe that this 80/20 rule exists no matter what our business is. Let this be the place where you finally hear that it may not be true.

The 80/20 rule presupposes a mathematical relationship. If your sales goal is predicated on 20 percent of your customers’ business bringing in 80 percent of your sales, you are in danger of never making your goal. We cannot depend on history to determine our success because we live in a fluid world. Regardless of your industry, business constantly changes. Your best customer today may be acquired, merged, or go out of business, and your lowest revenue customer might expand. You could be blindsided by an unexpected turn of events and you will have absolutely no control over your ability to capitalize on the changes.

Your company may be rolling out a new product to a potential new market and you may find that you have no sales history with that type of customer. Perhaps these new customers will be the ones that will contribute the most to your growth. Your sales history is irrelevant. Future success should be your focus. This is especially true because the money from past sales is gone—either spent or absorbed. The only meaningful question for you as you prioritize your selling time must be, “What am I going to do this year?” Have you had a major customer that has gone out of business? What prime, top-of-the-line customer this year is one you couldn’t even get on the phone last year? Begin analyzing your accounts to look for future business without presupposing the 80/20 classic rule.

PRIORITIZING CUSTOMERS

To determine how you are going to invest your time for maximizing sales, you’ll need an A, B, and C customer identification matrix. Figure 2-2, Strategic Master Planning Form, shows a method of future account prioritizing that you might not have used in the past.

Figure 2–2

STRATEGIC MASTER PLANNING FORM

Before you begin your planning, you’ll need to honestly consider where your best customer potential lies. By filling out the matrix in Figure 2-2 for each of your customers and prospects, you will discover where you should be investing your time to maximize your income.

Consider these ideas when planning:

What is your relationship with the buyer? On a scale of 1 to 5, your relationship might be a 4. If you have all the customer’s business, that’s a 5.

Future growth potential may be a 5.

You can total different categories and begin to look at all accounts.

Perhaps totals of 27 to 35 would be an A account, 19 to 26 would be a B, and 18 or fewer would be a C.

This is a time-management and time-investment determiner, because you will never get your time back. Remember: You’re planning for sales growth.

Look at the future. Some former A accounts might be maxed out, but Bs might be in a position for greater growth. One other determiner from a time-management decision is “How needy is that account?” If there are complexities, problems, or a high need for attention, it may actually be in your best interest to assign the account to an account manager or to customer service because it might be costing you money in terms of your time. Remember, you are basing all these business-planning decisions on greatest result for time invested.

These are business decisions. If you don’t have the freedom to choose these courses of action, make a case for a change and take it to your manager. A $15-per-hour employee can maintain an account, whereas your $80-per-hour attention for a limited return might not be a good business decision. As a phone sales professional, you need to spend your time doing what you do best—selling on the phone, not maintaining already sold accounts that lack growth potential.

Let’s look at an example of an inside computer salesperson who secures a $1 million sale to Garrison School District. The school district also needed a service contract worth another $300,000. The total sale for the current year was $1.3 million. This is an A account for this territory.

Now it’s time to plan for the new fiscal year. The salesperson considers this customer an A account, then schedules the time in his calendar to work the account, say, one call a week. A close examination, however, shows that it is, disappointingly, now only a $100,000 per year service account—not a priority at all for this territory. In fact, this customer won’t be eligible as an A account for another two years after the existing contract is up. This account has thus become a B or C customer. Calls from the salesperson to this customer for the current year should be strategically reduced and not disproportionately allocated by occurring once weekly.

What about you? Are you thinking past or future? Your company most probably bases goals on projected revenues—not past sales. So, take a look at your A, B, and C accounts. You’ll probably find that some of your Bs are your best As for the upcoming sales year. You’ll also probably find that some of your As are now Cs because of buying patterns. Take a look at your business and make these forecasting determinations. Just be honest when evaluating each customer.

Now that your priorities have been determined, you have to parcel out your forty phone hours very efficiently. Because Garrison School District (in our previous example) was an A account last year, too many salespeople would spend an A equivalent number of calls when the potential for new business just isn’t there. The result is wasted time that should be spent selling more to existing accounts and developing new accounts.

For example, in a forty-hour week:

A accounts should take up approximately twenty-five hours of time (which includes planning, calling, leaving messages, having conversations with gatekeepers, and preparing proposals).

B accounts require ten hours.

C accounts require only five hours. (Voice mail messages, email, and mailings can be used instead.)

Remember that prioritizing is based on this year’s potential, not last year’s performance!

IMPROVING EFFICIENCIES IN DAILY ACTIVITIES

With the million and one activities you do each day as you make your phone calls, there are probably just as many ways to become more efficient. Some salespeople swear by wireless headsets. Some believe that a pen writes faster than a pencil. Scheduling calls in your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software or device the day before saves planning time in the mornings when you have the most potential to reach customers.

Here are a few hints that can help you improve your efficiency:

Monitor your personal calls. These calls not only interrupt your day for the duration of the call, they make even the most focused salesperson procrastinate about getting work accomplished. Set aside a slow time of your sales day to deal with your personal business. You will be amazed at how much more efficient you will become when you plan your days this way.

Turn the audible signals off. If your email inbox, PDA, or mobile phone is ringing, it is difficult to concentrate on your customer calls. You’ll be interrupted and wondering who’s calling, whether it’s important, and more.

Maximize your efficiency by having anything you might need at your fingertips. You shouldn’t have to sift through personal bills, magazines, or your lunch leftovers. Organizational experts say to put the other items away where they are not distractions or clutter.

Set time goals for yourself. “I will make twenty-five calls before ten o’clock” or “I will make forty calls by noon.” At the end of the time, get up and reward yourself. Be sure to plan your reward in advance so you don’t lose a lot of time figuring out what you would like to do. By stopping at the end of a goal time and returning to calling at the end of your break, you stay fresher and put more energy into your calls. Tired people dawdle. It’s better to organize your day around calls than to call arbitrarily until you are too exhausted to pay attention.

Clear your desk at the end of every day. Things that become covered on your desk rarely receive proper follow-up. Hunting for misplaced reports, notes, or orders is time-consuming. Reduce your paper by recording your call information regularly into your electronic tracking system.

Once you have begun managing your time by cutting out time-suckers and by efficiently organizing your phone call preparation, you will need to develop a solid system for locating and tracking customers.

Locate Quality Customers

One activity that does not differ whether you are selling in person or selling by phone is uncovering leads that can point you in the direction of quality customers. Leads are the lifeblood of your selling process and finding them is where your selling begins.

EXTERNAL RESEARCH

Here are some sources of likely leads for your sales calls:

Existing customers—clients who are purchasing regularly.

Inactive customers—clients who have bought before but not lately.

Potentials—people in your database who have been contacted either by you or a predecessor but have not yet bought.

Passive leads—leads generated by an inbound call to your company from a website registration, trade show, interest card from a magazine or advertisement, letter of inquiry, or a coupon.

Referrals—leads generated by customers, employees, acquaintances, organization members, or other potentials.

Networking—involvement in associations, groups, or face-to-face types of activities, including alumni organizations, chambers of commerce, volunteer organizations, industry groups, training, or speaker events.

Industry publications—magazines, newspapers, local business publications, or online sources.

Lists purchased from third-party sources—these can be defined by target market parameters.

Suppliers and business partners—people who sell in the same industry but are not competitors.

Web searches—keywords, industry articles, and similar searches.

Since we’ve just mentioned networking, let’s look at a special category of networking sources, social networking sites. Every investigator and military officer knows the value of “recon” (reconnaissance). Any information about a customer gives you inside knowledge that you can use for strategizing. The Internet offers many organized sources for this information in the form of networking sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook.

LinkedIn specifically has a question, “What are you working on?” Everyone on your network list can see and comment on that. If you know someone who has access to an entry, then you can follow through on it as well. You can also invite contacts to LinkedIn. If they accept your invitation, you can get access to customer updates and use that information to keep your callbacks current. In addition, you will know if some new contract or expansion is coming.

For either a potential or existing customer you can find out what’s new: travel, new contracts, etc. Go to that decision maker’s page or, better yet, pinpoint a specific product (or service) that might connect directly with what he or she is doing. Sure this takes more time, but is this customer a significant growth opportunity for you? Could this be a potential top-ten account? It might be worth that extra five or ten minutes to add personal information to your database about an important decision maker or a large account.

For example, in a conference call about a proposal a sales rep noticed a casual comment about an art project the customer was working on. A visit to one of the social networking websites revealed that this person was not only a decision maker with the company but an artist “on the side.” When the rep later followed up on the proposal by phone, she was able to make direct reference to the website. She so impressed the decision maker with her knowledge that she gained an important foothold, which eventually led to a sale.

INTERNAL RESEARCH

Your company’s intranet can tap you into forecasting programs, inventory pages, online slide presentations, and even your organization’s customer service department. These are good places to get leads. If your customer service personnel or sales support teams are trained to address service situations as sales opportunities, access to those records or personnel can result in new business.

For example, recurrent technical problems could mean that a better or upgraded product would be appropriate. If a personal trainer has purchased home-use equipment and trains many clients all day on the equipment, he or she might be having problems with it, since it wasn’t designed for such heavy use. For you, the salesperson, this knowledge gained from customer service might provide a valuable lead that could result in a sale of commercial-grade equipment.

Think about who else in your company has opportunities to uncover leads. For example, who are your customers’ employees contacting within your organization? And what might your boss or predecessor know about a customer? Perhaps one of your business partners or vendors knows about a customer’s situation. Trade show exhibitors and attendees are a valuable source of information for many salespeople as well. Of course, you’ll want to check the prospect’s website and use the Internet to obtain additional company information.

Just as important as uncovering leads is the need to break down those leads according to their potential. This helps you prepare a blueprint to guide your sales calls. Phone time ROI (return on investment) relates directly to the revenue potential of the individual or organization on the other end of the phone. Plan your day around gaining new accounts and be wary of spending too much time on accounts that perhaps just bought but won’t be up for additional purchases again soon, like the Garrison School District.

Now that you’ve explored these important sources of client acquisition, let’s look at what data you should be gathering and storing on these potential customers.

Gather and Manage Customer Information

You need to keep track of a great deal of information about your customers. Since everyone’s company does this differently, this section will be a rough guideline for what kind of information you need to maintain and which methods work best to store that information for easy retrieval.

KEY ELEMENTS OF A CONTACT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

Filling in a document (electronic or otherwise) similar to the form presented on the next page on each of your customers will keep their vital information in one place, available when you need it. No more wondering where that scrap of paper with the cell phone number went, no more wondering if you have their name spelled correctly, or their precise title for the memo you are writing.

Essential Information

Name: __________________________

Title: __________________________

Position: __________________________

Phone number and extension: __________________________

In addition to the essential information that’s needed for easy retrieval, you’ll want to include the following in your contact management program:

Cell or alternative phone: ______________________

Time zone: ___________________________________

Fax number: _________________________________

Email address: ______________________

Physical address: _______________________________

Company website URL:__________________________

________________________________________

Status designation (existing customer, prospect, referral, cold call, strategic partner, etc.): _____________________________________

_________________________________________

Occasion of discovery (networking function, met on plane, etc.): ______________________

Sales history: _______________________________

Products/services used: ___________________________

Customer since (year): ___________________________

Service agreements (yes/no): ___________________

Renewals: _____________________________________

Lease expiration: ___________________________

Follow-up date: ___________________________

Assistant’s name/phone:_______________________

Home phone:_____________________________

Personal interests (sports, organizations, associations, etc.): ____________________________________________

Spouse name, children’s names: ____________________

Referred by: ________________________________

Personality type (see Chapter 3): __________________

Best times to reach:________________________

Competitors (direct and indirect): ___________________

Notes or comments (captured conversations, dates, discussions, etc.): _________________________________________

____________________________________________

Link to a proposal or sales agreement, if applicable: ____________________________________________

________________________________________________

In addition to the data above, you might also include information such as how decisions are made and whether the customer contact person is a gatekeeper or purchasing agent, or whether this individual simply makes purchasing recommendations.

As you can see, the information that can be gathered on a customer from behind the scenes is practically limitless. You just need to decide what is important, with “more” often better. However, more information is useful only if you can catalog and retrieve it in a timely and purposeful way. The following approaches can help you manage the customer information you gather.

METHODS OF KEEPING CUSTOMER RECORDS

Now that you have strategically gathered a full range of “recon” on your customers, you will have to determine how best to manage it all. Information is just data; you will have to record it in some meaningful way using a medium that makes sense for your work style and company. Here are various methods of record keeping with the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Pen and Paper Methods. Pen and paper methods of keeping customer records can include using index cards, call report forms, or paper files.

The advantages are that these methods:

Improve your ability to retain customer data.

Create visual and hands-on organizational systems.

Keep direct quotes or customer details private.

When you hold a pen or pencil and write down customer information such as interests and needs, you mentally retain it longer than you would otherwise. Neurological studies have shown that writing by hand is actually more effective for memory retention than keying in the data electronically. Then, when you transfer the information to your database, you reinforce the memory.

If you are a visual person, you can use a color system of files or index cards for cataloging—for instance, past customers could be pink, current large customers green, and so forth. For some people, having a physical, hands-on organization system is the most helpful.

The disadvantages of these methods of retaining customer information are that:

Individual pieces get lost.

Papers and cards must be filed.

File cabinets take up space.

Information may not be easily transferable to someone else who might need it, such as a sales manager, another rep, or your customer service department.

Management of hard-copy information can be time consuming—collating, alphabetizing, filing.

Paper records are heavy and bulky, especially where there are many customers.

Too many possible problems (illegible handwriting, misplaced information, lack of space on a note card, etc.).

Electronic Methods. electronic methods of keeping customer records can include using specialized software on your desktop or laptop and personal digital assistant (PDA). In addition, our cell phones are hand-sized information storage devices, although they are not always the easiest to use for planning purposes.

You may have a company database system adapted from existing software or created specifically for company use. Off-the-shelf products, including Web-based programs, work well, too.

An electronic management system can be as minimal or robust as you prefer. Since there is such a broad range of prices and applications, you should be aware of what you actually need. Readily available customer contact management software includes ACT!, GoldMine, and Salesforce.com. A recent search on Yahoo yielded thirty-five listings of CRM software, including some open-source offerings.

Many of these programs can be put onto company networks, so your information technology manager might need to be involved in your consideration of which to choose. You can also find software that is compatible with PDAs, but be sure to check for compatibility with your company’s hardware and software systems.

The advantages of using electronic methods of record keeping are that:

They are reliable.

Portable devices are easy to use and connect with desktop systems quickly.

Information is easily duplicated and backed up.

Records can be kept for a long time to track purchasing history.

Databases allow you to use many different identifiers to locate customers. For example, you might remember that a customer likes California wines and that you met the person at a telecom conference, but you can’t remember the person’s name. With a robust database, you’ll be able to find that individual effortlessly.

Data can be backed up regularly and easily to reduce the risk of lost information.

The disadvantages of using electronic methods are that:

Desired software packages might be cost-prohibitive.

Your IT department might restrict use or flexibility of the company system.

You might not have the staff or time to convert data—transcription, scanning, etc.

You could lose your PDA or handheld computer.

A virus in your desktop computer or on your company’s network could cause you to lose everything.

Whatever contact management software you choose, be sure it is flexible enough to allow you to create your own fields. One example might be “I.D.” In this field, you could record how you know a customer. Perhaps you met this person at a conference, professional association meeting, school alumni party, or even at the gym or in a seminar. This field is also an ideal location to include a referral name so that when you call the customer, you can use the referral name.

Sometimes, as part of planning, you will contact everyone you met through a specific association or at a certain seminar. You can customize a phone or mail campaign based on an approach relevant to those people in a particular organization.

You can also sort by fields to plan. For example, you might decide that you want to plan your day by contacting customers in a particular time zone or zip code and, using your contact manager, you can call customers in those areas. Make sure that the system is robust enough to hold the tracking information you need—and, of course, be sure to fill it in: empty fields will not help you one bit. Also, choose a system that is easy to operate; otherwise, you won’t use it.

You may inherit a system that your predecessor used or that your company dictates and find that it’s not working for you. If that’s the case, you may need to adjust (with approval) your planning and tracking system. Whatever you use, be consistent with your procedures—effective record keeping is essential to your sales success.

The Payoff

Whatever method you use to make the most of your calling time, you are bound to be able to improve your efficiency. Far too many salespeople never even ask themselves if their work could be managed better or more economically. If you are getting the same numbers or, worse, higher quotas on shrinking territories, you will have to improve somewhere. Addressing the management of your professional activities to make your time work better for you is money in your pocket and time for living a balanced life.

Let’s see what Anthony is saying now:

“I spent a half hour on Geek.com today and got three new leads from a news item, put them in my database, called them referencing their new expansion, and set up appointments with all three!

“Just last week I was heading out the door to a meeting when my CRM system alerted me of a follow-up that I was supposed to do with a new potential. So I called on my cell phone, and the customer said, ‘Well, hello Anthony, I was expecting your call. Do you know that you’re the only rep on this bid who has called back when he said he would? That’s the kind of person I want to work with.’

“I got the business just by ‘showing up’ by phone on time. But I have to admit that I never would have remembered to make the call if I hadn’t gotten the alert.”