Time - you can't buy it.

Or can you? Certainly you can't increase the number of minutes in a day or days in a week but you can make best use of the ones you have. What are the things that eat your time? Who are users of your time? What can you do to increase the number of productive hours you have in a day?

This is a massive subject and one that is personal to each of us. One exercise I do regularly (but not so it starts to eat my time) is to keep a Daily Time Log. Even if you do this one day each month, it will highlight areas for you to work on. Keep it simple - a lined sheet of paper with the day broken down into half hour intervals then write a one line description of what you did in that half hour.

Don't try to remember it later in the day - you won't so write it there and then. Later that evening, break the log into areas that are important to you. The heading could be Face to face sales time, Telephone sales time, administration, (now here are some interesting suggestions) Interuptions (and by who), Meetings, Unscheduled meetings, Incoming sales calls, non-work related time on the internet. Whatever works for you.

See what I mean, but you have to be honest with yourself. From this if you are not spending at least 50% of your time selling, likely you need to change something. The log will tell you what.

If you can get to 50% or more (particularly if you are a Start-up Business), you're getting ahead of the competition.

Jack Canfield tells a wonderful story in his book "The Success Principles" about when he hired a gardener from his home. The message here, for me, was - what value to you put on your time? For him, while he wanted to enjoy a beautiful garden, it paid him to delegate the responsibility to this task buying him more time to spend writing or with his family or exercising or recreation.

While I may not be ready (yet) to hire a gardener, I can see clearly that in time my money would be better spent delegating tasks like this so I can spend my time working on the business or just taking time out. Something to work towards. So perhaps you can buy time.

But how about making best use of your time. As a sales person, time is money. For the How To Sell Coach Top Tips for Effective Time Management - have a look at the tab at the top of the page.

Send Me A Brochure

Has anyone said this to you just to get you off the phone? Have you said this to anyone to get them off the phone? And here's the strange thing - income tax forms arrive in the post, as does you membership renewal for the gym but sales brochures seem to go missing, really!

Emailed sales brochures go missing too! There must be a Bermuda Triangle where all sales information sent out disappears to. So you call back, having sent the information and ask "Did you receive the information I sent?"

"Oh, comes the reply. Just tell me what it was for again. Right, I'll just check my inbox. No, nothing there. Could you send it through again."

If he checks the deleted box, no doubt he'll find it there.

So what to do? Clearly if someone requests that you send information, you should send it. Not everyone will bin it. But how about trying this:

"I'll happily send you the information, we have loads of good material available. But to be sure that I send you exactly what you require, can I just ask you a couple of questions?"

Your back in! Good open ended questions at the ready and the conversation continues.

Try it, it works!

Walking is good for you.

My first ever sales manager taught me a much but one thing that has stayed with me was: "If you want to find out what's happening, get out of your car and walk."

I haven't got time for that, I thought. I have appointments to be at, targets to achieve - I can't just spend my time walking about. But because I trusted him, I thought I'd give it a go. So one Sunday, I drove to my sales area, parked up the car and went for a walk armed with a notebook and pen.

I was working on retail sales at the time for a publishing house so my job was basically to increase the subscribtion sales of our publications. So what did I see in an hour.

• New housing development scheduled for completion in 3 months.
• 7 For Sale signs therefore 7 potential new customer soon to be moving in
• Our main competitor had renewed their point of sale material
• A planning consent notice for a new mini market shop
• A poster for a summer fair in 2 weeks time

So in all around a dozen new opportunities for me to follow-up.

• I posted welcome to you new home leaflets in the new development and the 7 for sale homes
• Put new point of sale material up
• Wrote to the owners of the mini market to take our publications
• Set up a stall at the summer fair

Think about it in your business, what are you missing that's there to see if you just set aside an hour a week. By the way following up on that hours walk about, I was asked to do a 20 minute presentation at theweekly sales meeting.

Anyway, it's Sunday - so I'm going for a walk!

Cold Calling - What's in a Name?

I've been out networking again (great way to get warm referrals but more of that later) and overheard this conversation. True by the way and as best I can remember - it went something like this:

"Hi, how's your week in business been? Making money?"
"I've had a terrible week. Three days cold calling. It's just sole destroying."
"I used to do that and just hated it."
"Total waste of time, might have made one sale from it."

Sound familiar? Now so called Cold Calling is a subject all on its own and there are a whole heap of views on that one. But before we deal with that more fully on How To Sell Coach, just do one thing for now - call it something different.

The image we have on cold calling, the way it can make us feel, how it makes others feel can be very negative. You feel low at the very thought of picking up the phone. So make up a new name - on that's positive and works for you.

Instead of joining the "Isn't life bad" club, how would the conversation have gone if you change the name?

"Hey, how's your week been."
"Good thanks, I'm looking to take on some new business by generating some new leads."
"Cool, business must be good."

Now I hear you say "if only it was that simple." And your right but why make it more difficult and depressing for those around you. Go on, find a new name. Mary perhaps?

Joking aside, Cold Calling is a big subject which I'll give my thoughts on in a later section. Come back soon.

Features and Benefits are Dead

Are they? Nobody said - I would have sent some flowers, perhaps a card.
While at a networking meeting last week, this is what our guest speaker said. What rubbish! No, let me think about that again.....................no that is rubbish.
If you don't know the features and benefit of your product, how are you suppost to identify which are going to be of most interest to your customers?
I thought I'd better understand what our guest speaker meant so I asked.

He replied that being able to list through countless features and benefits in a sales presentation doesn't work. What he didn't realise is that it never did work. That one sure fire way to either send- your potential customer off to sleep or you off to the car park.

What is missing here is not the Features or the Benefits but what I call the Personal Benefit or what some call "What's in it for me."

With good pre-sale planning and question technique you will be able to establish the need or needs specific to that customer. He may not want or need to know ever feature and benefit of your product (but it's important that you do) but just the ones that give him a Personal Benefit.

So are Features and Benefits Dead? I think not but your sales presentation may be if they're not used correctly.

Wake Up Call!

Some years ago I decided to leave the comfort of someone putting moey into my account every month and start my own business. I thought I was ready. I'd research the market, prepared a budget, set out the marketing plan - I was good to go, or so I thought.

Looking round for places and people who could help, I registered for a number of 'set up your own business' courses. I sat, I listened, I took notes - all was good until one of the course leaders asked the question,

"Which of you here believe you can sell?"

Looking round the room, there were various reactions. Some nodded wisely, fear and puzzlement. I fell into the last category. My thought process went like this:

• Yes, I can sell - I've made a career doing it. That's no problem.
• I used to teach selling for any sake. Of course I can sell.
• Hmm. That said - it's been a while.
• In fact, I can't remember the last time I face to faced with a client. I've had other people to do that.

My mind was now running at full speed. Panic was setting in. No sales, no customer, no business. With one question, my not yet luanched new business was in tatters. Woah, stop right there.

Self doubt had crept in, just for a moment, because I was out of practice. With the panic over, it did serve to remind to get all my notes out, book on a training course and get back into the one thing that likely before all else would be essential to the success of my business - selling.

Ever had that feeling?