Applying the Pareto rule and the best of 7 Habits: Is your sales team not doing enough selling? So w...

Applying the Pareto rule and the best of 7 Habits: Is your sales team not doing enough selling? So w...: "Studies with over 500 field sales people show that the amount of time sales people spend selling is often less than 20% of their total h..."

Is your sales team not doing enough selling? So what are they doing and how can you change this

Studies with over 500 field sales people show that the amount of time sales people spend selling is often less than 20% of their total hours worked!

If you are concerned that not enough selling is being done, don’t start by criticising the salesperson. Instead, take a serious look at your sales team’s responsibilities and what you’re asking of them in the way of non-selling activities.

Field sales people are expensive and it is reasonable to want to know where they are spending their time.  But the fact is when you ask them to fill out complicated digital forms (Though Speadsheet or CRM format) that require them to give detailed information on their activity and provide information for other departments such as customer service, marketing, finance etc.  This all takes time, significant time.  Time I would rather have my sales team spend with customers and prospects discussing sales opportunities!

The study showed that sales people feel that significant time is being taken away from the selling activity by the following

• Capturing marketing information about customers so customers can be segmented and marketing initiatives developed to appeal to individual segments.
• Writing reports to keep the office informed of what they’re doing with their time.
• Writing proposals
• Designing and writing promotional material
• Gathering competitor intelligence
• Collecting outstanding debts
• Attending non sales related meetings 

It can be argued that these activities are part of their job as a salesperson since most of them are related to making sales and retaining customers. But that’s not the point. Selling is a skill not everybody possesses, and a good (expensive) salesperson is someone to be valued, nurtured and set free to use the skill of selling your goods or services on your behalf rather than being saddled with a lot of administrative tasks.

So what should a salesperson’s role be restricted to? That will vary from business to business but let’s suggest three general areas:

1. Selling – face-to-face selling to purchasing decision makers  
2. Prospecting – using their experience and field knowledge to identify prospects or groups of prospects.  Depending on volume it is often recommended to have a junior sales person do the actual prospecting for field sales agents.  Technology may also help with this.
3. Relationship building – participating in managing customer relationships, but only as really necessary 

If the members of your sales team are focused on these activities, and only these activities, their time will be spent more productively.  

So what should you do next?  Start by analyzing the non-selling activities now carried out by your sales team.

1. What are the non-selling activities carried out by your sales team today?
2. What non selling activities could be delegated elsewhere to ensure sales can spend more time selling?
3. What parts of prospecting/customer relationship management can be taken up by others in the business or by technology? 

The Paretos Pipeline management system is a tool that helps solve these and other sales related issues.   Try it now for FREE!   

Applying the Pareto rule and the best of 7 Habits for sales people

The 80/20 or Pareto rule states that there certain activities that you engage in are vital but that MOST of your daily tasks although they require your attention and need to get done have a limited impact on the big picture. The Pareto or 80/20 rule states that it is the vital 20% or critical few activities that have the largest impact. To understand the premise of the 80/20 rule visualize 10 people who are stacking boxes over a given time period. Pareto says that two people stack 8 boxes, while the other eight only stack 2 between them over the same time period! This may seem extreme but it should give you the visual of how the Pareto principle works. Stephen Covey Covey in his Book 7 Habits refers to the Q2 quadrant where activities are NOT urgent but important as sales people these activities often get overlooked in our eagerness to chase the sale. These same activities would typically fit into the Critical 20% as per the 80/20 rule.

Stephen Covey Time Management Matrix        

   

So how can you apply Pareto as a sales person? Some examples that could put you in the top 20% of your sales team may be:

- Educating yourself to a new higher level for your products

- Spending time to understand who your best customers are and how can you find more of them?

- Strive to have a deeper understanding of your market

- Know your your top customers (top 20%) and ensure you give them the time they deserve

- Talk to the top performers in your team, learn what they are doing right

- Improve your sales skills by going over some old training notes or listening to Audio Books at least once a week while in the car instead of the radio

- Take 20 minutes at the end of the day or even an hour at the end of every week to think "what could I have done better "?



If you decide to think about how to apply the Pareto rule, you will find what it is for you. Decide what the critical activities are for you and make sure that whatever else happens these activities get the attention they warrant. You will find that they will typically fit into the Not Urgent / Important quadrant but it is these activities that will separate you from the herd.