16 Tips to Help

Sales Reps Manage

Time, Stay
Organized and
Boost Efficiency
Abstract
Since the dawn of time, getting sales reps to better organize and manage their days has been
plaguing teams from reaching optimum efficiency. Salespeople have been spending more of their
time on administrative tasks than they have actually selling.

In addition to what you should be doing, sales time management often comes down to what you
shouldn’t be doing.

In order to double your selling time you need to place as much of a focus on eliminating the tasks
you shouldn’t be doing as the ones you should. The primary reason for this is the countless
number of activities that simply waste your time each day without contributing to helping
achieve sales targets.
The timeless phrase “time is money” has never been more accurate for field sales organizations.
Prioritizing your workday can often result in the difference between closing a deal and being shut
out.

When your time is used in a strategic approach, you’re more likely to record your biggest week or
break out of a slump.

While many upsides to this specific topic, organization is commonly one of the most challenging
things for field sales reps to completely comprehend and implement. With the number of things
that need to be done on a day to day basis, field salespeople have numerous things competing for
their attention.

Time management in sales comes down to how you’ll prioritize and maximize your time each day.
Instead of working more hours, which takes you away from your personal life, a few easy-to-use
organizational tips can drastically improve your efficiency.
Table of Contents
Reduce Administrative Tasks...............................................1
Route Planning
Qualify Prospects
Automation ................................................................................2
Stop Procrastinating
Learn to Say No .........................................................................4
Dial in The Process ..................................................................5
Ride the Momentum
Avoid The Urge to Multitask ................................................6
Manage Your Inbox .................................................................7
Eliminate Distractions
Create Your To-Do List The Night Before ........................8
Use Time Blocks .......................................................................9
80/20 Rule ...............................................................................10
Build Your Schedule Around The Buyer
Expect To Pivot ......................................................................11
Conclusion ...............................................................................12

1. Reduce Administrative Tasks
Administrative tasks are the number one thing preventing sales from spending more time in the
field, where they should be. Look for the admin work that can be automated through one tool or
another. The minutes, and even seconds, you can save will begin to add up quickly, even if you
don’t realize it initially.

Aside from saving time, you will feel less flustered by the number of things weighing on them on a
daily basis. This allows sales reps to divert more of their energy and attention away from
mundane tasks, and focus on things like running demos or answering questions that show buying
potential.

A couple tips:

• To-do List: a to-do list app, uses AI to learn your personal productivity habits and schedule
your overdue tasks accordingly. In other words, the app will figure out the optimal time for you
to get everything done.
• Mailchimp: the world’s largest marketing automation platform. It’s like a second brain that
helps millions of customers—from small e-commerce shops to big online retailers—find their
audience and engage their customers.

2. Route Planning
Implementing a tool with route optimization is an extremely simple way to boost the production
of your field team. When you give reps the power to optimize their routes, they won’t be wasting
valuable time driving back and forth across town.

3. Qualify Prospects
Use the lead machine prospecting tool to narrow in on ONLY those people in your territory that
meet the demographic details of your ideal customer profile.

As you add your desired customer criteria, the number of leads decrease as Lead Machine hones
in on your target customers. No more time wasted selling to people who have no interest in your
product or service.

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4. Automation
The more you can automate, the more efficient you become. And thanks to the world of
technology and open API’s, you have the ability to automate almost every part of your day.

But what - and how - are sale professionals such as yourself automating their business processes?

Whether it’s lead creation, CRM data entry, opportunity creation, or document management
(just to name a few), sales enablement platforms like SPOTIO give you the power to choose from
hundreds of business process services to expedite every facet of your sales activity and tracking
tasks.  

As a sales person, the more redundant and administrative type tasks you can streamline, the
more time you will spend face to face charming your next buyer into a purchase.

5. Stop Procrastinating
Procrastination is extremely detrimental to field sales reps. It’s most often associated with the
tasks salespeople despise, like updating their CRM and other administrative work. Utilizing time
blocks is a great way to eliminate procrastinating. Breaking your work down into smaller steps is
also an effective sales organization tip.

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Being detailed in your daily tasks is another technique that has proven effective. By knowing
exactly what you have to do throughout the day, you can remain focused.

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6. Learn to Say No
Saying no to a manager or superior can be a scary proposition, but it’s one of the best sales rep
organization tips to get the most out of your day. The first marketing manager we had at SPOTIO
is the inspiration for this salesman organization technique. He often told people in our
organization that he couldn’t answer our questions or help us complete a task we needed
assistance on.

He handled it in a very respectful way. He told us when he had time available or requested that
we schedule an appointment on his calendar. What surprised our team was that he handled these
situations the same way with everyone in the company, including the CEO.

It wasn’t until after talking to the CEO about how he structured his day that I really put much
thought into it. Our CEO had a lot of respect for how plugged in he was on a daily basis, and how
he had the discipline to tell each of us that he couldn’t do what we needed the second we asked
him. This structure allowed him to remain extremely dialed in and focused on the task at hand.

Might we recommend the book ‘Essentialism’.  This is a great reach which shows you how
streamline your days by focusing only on things that are crucial to your end goal, and eliminating
all things that are not absolutely necessary.

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7. Dial in The Process
One task inhibiting sales rep organization is their pitch. Scripts are often looked down on, and not
a “fan favorite” for salespeople, but they usually serve a quality purpose. Many prospects are
similar to each other, which is why your company develops their ideal customer profile.

Instead of generating a completely new list of qualification questions for each prospect you speak
with, create a set of core questions that you can use as your framework and customize when
needed. This framework can be applied to other tasks that eat up a lot of time as well.

Some Example Questions You Can Use:

• How many salespeople do you have?

• What's your biggest challenge when it comes to managing your sales reps?
• Tell me about your situation... why are you on the market for a new product?
• What's your biggest challenge right now?
• How long has this problem been going on?
• Have you tried to fix it?
• What do you think it's costing you?
• How quickly do you need it fixed?

Take prospecting, for example. Develop a way to research and find prospects based on the
previous accounts you’ve won. Look for the similarities that show up throughout these accounts
over and over. Once you know which data sources are the most valuable, you can immediately go
to those sources when researching new opportunities.

8. Ride the Momentum

After winning a deal, completing an important task, or reaching a milestone, your sales reps first
instinct may be to reward themselves with a break. But this seemingly harmless practice is
actually counterproductive. Instead of taking a break, it’s best to build on our success and dive
right into another call.

Momentum is powerful, and difficult to come by. Your salespeople should use the positive flow of
energy and confidence to get going right away with another opportunity.

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9. Avoid The Urge to Multitask
The perception that those who are blessed with the ability to multitask are more productive
workers could not be farther from the truth. Multitasking is a productivity facade. Yes, you’re
checking off more boxes and hustling down your to-do list, but you’re not putting forth your best
work. Liken this to quantity versus quality.

A study reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that you lose up to 40% of
your productivity when trying to do more than one thing at the same time.

The reason is because your mind operates far better when it can focus on one thing at a time.
Each type of task requires you to think in a unique way, so by switching from one to-do to
another, you’re confusing your brain.

So instead of pulling the rug out from under your current task, stay the course and avoid
switching to something new. Let your mind get comfy and settle on one thing at a time.

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10. Manage Your Inbox
If you’re like most people, your inbox is sure to be a cluttered mess on a daily basis. Start by
blocking off time on your calendar each day to read and respond to emails. Remember that time
blocks are going to be your best friend. Eliminate all distractions during this time to complete the
task as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Create an auto-reply email that goes out anytime you

receive a new message. Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour
Work Week created a pretty witty template you can
replicate:

"Due to high workload, I am currently checking and

responding to email twice daily at 12:00pm ET [or your time
zone] and 4:00pm ET.

 If you require urgent assistance (please ensure it is urgent)

that cannot wait until either 12:00pm or 4:00pm, please
contact me via phone at 555-555-5555."

As you work through the sorting process, identify emails you can take action on immediately. The
thought is to prevent delaying something until a later time when you can accomplish a desired
action immediately. Look for the emails that you can instantly delete, like spam or promos. Use
labels and folders as much as possible to remain as organized as possible without doing any work.

The final thing you can do to manage your inbox more effectively is to unsubscribe from
unwanted messages. Sure, it might take a minute or two to complete that process, but it is much
more efficient to unsubscribe than it is to get an email from the same company twice a week that
you’re just going to delete anyways.

We suggest using a tool like unroll.me to manage and automate this process.

11. Eliminate Distractions

It can be hard to stay focused when your favorite time-wasting site is just a click away. To ensure
you stay focused, ruthlessly get rid of every distraction. If you don't use a website for your job,
block it using the browser extension Blocksite.

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Reps should also stow their cell phones out of sight. It's all too tempting to check social media or
your texts if you can see or hear notifications come up.

12. Create Your To-Do List The

Night Before
Instead of wasting your productive
mornings organizing your day, do it
right before you leave for the night.
That way, you can get right to work
when you come into the office the next
day. Save tasks like these for when
you’re burned out in the evenings, and
make the most of the time you have.

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13. Use Time Blocks
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy invented by Francesco Cirillo designed
to boost productivity by segmenting your day between bouts of intense focus and short breaks.

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14. 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) is nothing
new to the majority of salespeople. The rule
follows the principle that 20% of your time
produces 80% of your results. The goal is to
focus your time, effort and energy on the
tasks that will result in a maximum return on
your investment. Reduce the hours you put
into the tasks that are likely to have minimal
impact on achieving your sales targets.

For field sales reps, the best way to think of

and apply the 80/20 rule is to recognize that
80% of your sales will come from 20% of your
customers.

Salesman organization comes down to

knowing where to focus your attention. This
places an increased emphasis on qualifying prospects sooner rather than later.

Qualification is exceptionally important as it pertains to the 80/20 rule because you’ll

undoubtedly have names in your pipeline that will never convert, while others will become high-
value, long-term customers, but you have to know how to spot them.

Keep this in mind: if you’re speaking to an unqualified prospect, you’re not actually selling.

15. Build Your Schedule

Around The Buyer
According to experts, the best time to connect with prospects is in the afternoon, the very early
morning, the evening, the late-mid early morning, or on weekends. As you probably know, there is
no perfect time to connect with your target buyers. It really depends on that particular buyer’s
behavior and the way they allocate time to get their jobs done.

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 If a salesperson is selling to contractors, calling at 10:00 a.m. isn’t going to work because they’re
already busy on the job site. Calling on a restaurant with a thriving lunch and dinner business any
time after noon is probably not going to yield a favorable conversation. Strive to structure your
day around your target buyer’s schedule to avoid wasted time and unanswered calls.

16. Expect To Pivot

Being in outside sales, organize your leads by location and always have the date of your last
contact for each prospect noted. If you get stood up for an appointment, you can quickly regroup
and connect with other nearby prospects to secure a new meeting rather than drive back to the
office or cool your heels in a coffee shop until the next meeting. To help manage this process, a
tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Management feature is a tremendous help improving sales efficiency
while you’re out in the field.  

This tactic also applies to inside sales. Prospects cancel all the time, so salespeople should always
be prepared to pivot into other profitable activities. The trick is to not shift gears on those
activities.

Say you’re prepared to have an exploratory call scheduled to run an hour and the prospects flakes
on you. Since you’re already in the mindset of the exploratory call, spend that reclaimed hour
prepping for other exploratory calls you have booked that week. Your mind is already focused on
the exploratory process. Keep it there.

I’m sure some of you are saying to yourselves, that’s foolish advice -- you should use that time to
prospect or make follow-up calls. But here’s the thing: unless you have your leads at the ready
and you’re fully prepped to prospect, the odds are you’ll waste time getting ready to make those
calls.

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Conclusion
The goal is to work smarter as opposed to harder. Nobody wants to work longer hours to make
the same money or meet their sales targets. By eliminating distractions and having a strategic,
focused approach, you’re going to spend more time doing the things that will actually lead to
sales.

To conclude on the side of redundancy, we wanted to drive home one last time our tips for
exceptional time management:

1. Reduce Administrative Tasks


2. Route Planning

3. Qualify Prospects

4. Automation

5. Stop Procrastinating

6. Learn to Say No

7. Dial in The Process

8. Ride the Momentum

9. Avoid The Urge to Multitask

10. Manage Your Inbox

11. Eliminate Distractions

12. Create Your To-Do List The Night Before

13. Use Time Blocks

14. 80/20 Rule

15. Build Your Schedule Around The Buyer

16. Expect To Pivot

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