Selling Time | Time is Money?

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Let me today share some thoughts on a recently published article on Harvard Business Review: “It’s 10 AM. Do You Know What Your Sales Reps Are Doing?” [HBR.ORG, 2017].

The title is a wonderful invitation to reflect on the state of your organization, your approach to sales strategy, quantity versus quality and ultimately whether you want to manage activity or result. In any case, business acumen needs to be first!

The article itself is offering it´s own approach to sales management. Of course, sales leaders should rely on supporting data and take fact based decision. It´s also evident that Microsoft provides great products and tools to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. However, the way how data is used in this article and at which organizational altitude a certain tool like Workplace Analytics is applied remains unconventional.

For example, the authors are not asking why “CRM self-reported data maybe inherently flawed” but propose the approach “to analyze the digital exhaust of calendar and email metadata” instead.

We can be rest assured that it will be 10 AM again and that time will tell how many of their top performing sellers are willing to accept the proposed micro management approach to optimization.

It´s clear that maintaining business data in CRM is not the first thing a seller will fall in love with but why should metadata from calendar, mail or any other app maybe in better shape or even be more insightful than explicit business information?  - Data quality is about discipline but sustainability only can be achieved where relevant business conversation drives respective demand for it.​

Times of the Lone Wolves in sales are over and contemporary solution selling approaches mandate efficient teamwork. The better you coach this in every interaction with your sellers, the more you inherently drive demand for systematic alignment. This will make the case for efficient Time Management and, ultimately it shows the difference between a metering tool and CRM as a sales productivity engine.​

Selling into complex enterprises is a time intense endeavor, so let´s maximize selling time for your teams, e.g. balancing all internal work with the amount of time they need to spend properly serving customers. Time Management also remains a key enabling factor on seller level, requiring to systematically coach and develop every individual – probably starting with yourself!

​If you want to learn more on how to practically approach Time Management, Keith Rosen recently published his new book: “Own Your Day!”. It´s worth reading and opens eyes on why your calendar may yet not be the ideal starting point to conclude optimization from.

Either way, ​Coaching or Inspection - you decide but be aware: ​No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! 😉