Posts Tagged ‘time management’

Credit www.sxc.hu

The business myth of time management still prevails because it is much easier to provide some “time management tips,” some surface solutions than to really address the real problem of self management.

No one can manage a constant. 

Time management is an oxymoron.

Time is a constant as there will always be 60 seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 24 hours in the day; 7 days in the week; and 365 days in a year.

Yet workshop after workshop in order to secure the quick fix, maintain this business myth and not too mention make oodles of money, the short term thinking solution focuses on the symptom of the problem and not the problem.  For if the focus was truly on the problem of better self management, these business training, self improvement training to sales training workshops would not be able to fly in and fly out in just one day.

With my practice, I provide a diagnostic tool (performance evaluation) to determine 78 key attributes that have been sorted into specific roles or categories including time management.  There are 5 key attributes or talents within this category of time management and include:

• Attention to Detail – ability to see and to pay attention to details

• Concrete Organization – understanding the immediate, concrete needs of a situation, establish an effective plan of action

• Consistency and Reliability – being conscientious in personal and professional efforts as well as consistent and reliable in life roles

• Project Scheduling – understanding the proper allocation of resources for the purpose of getting tasks (goals) completed within a defined time frame

• Realistic Personal Goal Setting- setting goals that can be achieved using available resources and operating within a projected time frame.

Effective time management is a direct result of goal setting and achievement. For without goals, who cares if you are here or there?

Notice there is nothing about a “better time management” skill because one does not exist. Time management has and will always be a self management skill based upon specific attributes, talents or capacities.

If you want to get a handle on how to better operate within a given and constant time frame, then look to solutions that address self management or self leadership.  Invest a little more dollars and time to secure sustainable results otherwise next year at this time if not sooner, you will once again be seeking another time management solution and continuing this very expensive  business myth.

Time appears to be even more the sand of seconds when I recently read about what happens every 60 seconds on the Internet. How busy we are in staying connected through sharings of Tweets, updates, blogs, Skype calls, etc.  We certainly appear to be living in a mad, mad, mad time driven world.

Credit www.sxc.hu

Each day we have 86,400 seconds that once the sands of time fall they are never to be recovered again. This is why time management is an oxymoron as no one can manage a constant.

The leaves the question what are you doing with your sand of seconds?

Are you making them count towards your purpose, passion or plans?

Are you thinking tomorrow I will take care of that task?

Are you believing there will always be another day?

Benjamin Franklin wrote “Time is money” and that is certaintly true especially today with so much business being conducted through the Internet marketing as noted previously in 60 seconds on the Internet. Yes much of Internet marketing is free in that it costs no out of pocket expense, but it still does cost money when putting a dollar value to each second.

“Time is a created thing. To say “I don’t have time” is to say “I don’t want to.” These words were spoken by Lao Tzu a sixth century BC Chinese philosopher and the father of Taoism.

Returning to Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanac, he penned “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.“

Yes time is the sand of seconds and of life.

How you live your life is very much about how you live the seconds and minutes of each hour.

Insanity appears to rule for many crazy busy small business owners and salespersons as they look to how to increase sales.

They continue to do what they have been doing and

then hope for different results.

(Definition of Insanity)

The role of Captain Wing It supported by spraying and praying actions is still very much alive and maybe even growing.

One of my small business owners and sales coaching clients met me several years before she actually hired me.  She thought she could increase sales by herself.  However, she was unable to reach the level of success she envisioned for herself.  Now two years later she is on track to double her sales revenue and has set a plan to increase sales in 2012 by 150%.

In my book, Be the Red jacket, I discuss the importance of beginning with positive core values, understanding the difference of marketing and selling within the sales process along with the ability to consistent set and achieve goals in these 6 key areas:

1. Revenue
2. Self Leadership
3. Time Management
4. Productivity
5. Continuous Learning
6. Personal Life Balance

When working with new sales coaching clients, my first action is to begin with a diagnostic to assess their awareness of their talents or strengths and how they make decisions.  One of the talents that is assessed is “realistic personal goal setting.”

For if you cannot achieve your personal goals,

how can you achieve your

business, corporate or sales goals?

How to increase sales starts and ends with the ability to achieve goals by having a written plan of action. Unfortunately most people place far more value in the common, everyday written grocery list than they do for their businesses or their current professional roles.

What happens when you forget that written grocery list?

You know, you been there, done that.

So why would you keep all those business goals

and sales goals locked in your head

and not on a written piece of paper?

Is it not time to stop the insanity?

And unless your employees are mind readers, how do they know what you want, where you are going, what needs to be done first, second, third?

If your business is not performing to your levels of expectation, first make sure you have clearly written goals aligned to a written business action plan.  Do not blame your employees or even yourself if you are not where you want to be.

Stop the Insanity, right now, not later.

P.S. If you truly want to stop the insanity, you may wish to consider Triage Business Planning as an affordable solution but in time and dollars.

Sales Cartoon

Credit www.funnysalescartoons.com

Sales Quotation

All sales objections fit into one or more of these 5 buckets:

#1 – You

#2 – Your Company

#3 – Your Solution (product or service)

#4 – Your Price

#5 – Your Delivery

And in that order!

LeRoy C. Hoagland

Credit www.sxc.hu

Years ago I saw this exercise performed during a conference.  I am unsure as to the original author of this activity.

There was a large glass jar about 3 feet tall. The container was full of rocks.  Then speaker asked the audience if it was full.  Body language and verbal replies suggested it was.  Next the speaker poured a bucket of gravel into the jar and again asked the audience “if the jar was full?” This time the audience replied “No.” He then reached down and brought up two large buckets of sand.  After pouring the sand into the container, he again asked the audience if it was full and the response was a resounding “No!” Finally, he poured water into the rock, gravel and sand until the water appeared at the neck of the jar. Again, the same question and this time the audience said “Yes, the jar was now full.”

“Besides having a little fun,”  the speaker continued, “what was the point of this activity.” One lady replied it was about having too much on your plate. A man replied it was about the ability to squeeze more into getting done what needs to be done.

The speaker acknowledged both responses, but said that was not the answer he was seeking.  He replied that “unless you place the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all.” So he asked the audience “What are the big rocks in your lives? For those big rocks, are your big goals.”

Many crazy busy sales people to small business owners to executives continue to believe that they can manage time in their ongoing quest to increase sales.  This is truly an oxymoron as no one can manage a constant.  So the belief in better time management is a false one and supports behaviors that only lead to continue digging in the priority hole. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  The number one rule when in any hole is to stop digging.

Better self management or what I prefer to call self leadership is required.  This is confirmed by the millions of dollars spent on time management courses only to have the same issues reappear in several months to a year. And many time management seminars fail to connect this false belief to the behaviors. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Beliefs drive behaviors generating results. To improve results requires changing beliefs.  Focusing only on the behaviors creates expensive ReDo$.

Prioritizing happens when the overall game plan is laid out in front of you.  Until you know your purpose, your vision, your values (business ethics), your behaviors will be reminiscent of Casino card dealer who is continually shuffling the cards.

Invest the time to put together written action plans for yourself personally and professionally. If you have a business, then you will need an overall strategic plan with supporting action  plans (goal driven) for marketing, sales, management and leadership, innovation and growth and financials.  Without these written plans with the big rocks (think goals) placed into them, you will probably continue to engage in Captain Wing It behaviors.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Spray the actions all over the place and pray something will stick are Captain Wing It behaviors.

Many sales people are aware of the goal to increase sales. They can quickly scan their bank account to know how well their current actions are either achieving or not achieving that goal.  Yet after working with many crazy busy sales people these past years, I can say this with 100% conviction:

98% of all sales people fail to truly be aware

What I mean by this statement, is sales people are aware of what they think to be true.  Yet, when that awareness is assessed, what they believe to be true is no longer true because the assessment has created a new awareness. Sales Coaching Tip:  Many sales people are in a fog and do not know it.

Just imagine if you as one of the crazy busy sales people believe that your best talent is “Handling Rejection” you may be ignoring your true talent of “Evaluating What Is Said.”  What would happen if you truly knew that handling rejection is a secondary talent because your ability to listen and evaluate is truly what is supporting your goal to increase sales? Would you be able to focus more on your actions on even listening better?

Would that change in your behaviors increase sales for you?

One of the talents that separates high sales performers from not so high salespersons is the talent of “Realistic Personal Goal Setting.” The logic is quite simple.  If I cannot achieve my personal goals, how can I achieve organizational ones?

When working with clients, this talent of realistic personal goal setting is one I focus on when analyzing an awareness assessment that I employ within my sales coaching and executive consulting practice here in the Midwest, Chicago and Northwest Indiana communities.  Additionally, this talent is directly connected to time management issues.  For unless you have a promised commitment or a written goal, why would you give a hoot about the time? Life indeed would be more like that lazy river with you gently floating by. Sales Coaching Tip:  Time management is an oxymoron as no one can manage a constant.

Awareness is the first step to leverage one’s talents (think sales skills). After that awareness is assessed using a tool such as the Innermetrix Attribute Index (my personal favorite), then individuals can create clarity from which focus is the next step.  By having clarity around a presumed awareness has the potential of walking down the wrong sales path.  In simple terms by confirming what you actually know to be true allows you to work smarter not harder.

The failure to assess awareness when it comes to talents or sales skills has people focusing on non-talents or worst yet weaknesses.  Another fact that I have discovered after assessing the awareness of almost 400 people is:

98% know what they do not do well with greater accuracy than what they do well

This awareness is directly related to negative conditioning from years of education.  People are conditioned to focus on their weaknesses instead of their strengths.  Let me ask you this simple question:

Why do winning teams win?

Do they win because of their weaknesses or their strengths.  The obvious answer is their strengths.  So why the focus on improving weaknesses instead of leveraging strengths or talents?  Sounds a little backwards to me.

If you wish to increase sales, possibly now is the time to truly become aware by assessing your existing awareness.  Then using that information integrate it into a proven goal achievement process including writing WAY SMART goals.  By taking these actions, you will leverage your talents or sales skills and realize your goal to increase sales.

P.S. Consider taking advantage of the summer sales coaching special by assessing your awareness and receive 4 hours of sales coaching.

Having just read Strength Based Selling, I found the discussion about a balanced life versus an integrated life interesting.  Much has been written about having work life balance and the implications to the business life especially for crazy busy sales people and small business owners.

Integration according to the authors is not about balance, but rather bringing “different elements into alignment with one another.”

Over two thousand years ago, Buddha discussed the Life Wheel. His writings suggested the need for work life balance in the individual aspects of one’s life.

For those in sales, there is also a wheel.  This wheel is comprised of key aspects within the role of sales professional including:

• Marketing Skills
• Sales Skills
• Productivity
• Time Management
• Self Leadership
• Professional Development

Integration or integrated means to make whole or complete.  And thus to create alignment makes sense by having two wheels and not just one especially with the continued goal to increase sales.

Just as the wheels in a car need to be balanced and aligned, so do the sales and life wheels for crazy busy sales people and small business owners.  What happens is through clarity, these individuals can self determine what areas require focus and then can set WAY SMART goals specific to those key areas.

Life is more complicated today and therefore it makes sense to have two wheels instead of just one. When these wheels are united together with the various aspects working together to move the individuals forward, then far better results (think increase sales to more personal time) are achieved and many in lesser time.

One of the absolutely most evil words in the human language respective to human performance and success is “try.” This one word and its derivatives such as trying give individuals the opportunity to back out of their commitments and potentially creates a negative self fulfilling prophecy. I am reminded of Yoda in the Star Wars saga who tells a young Luke Skywalker:

There is no try; just do!

During these turbulent economic times, I hear a lot of trying being expressed such as:

• I’m trying to increase sales
• I’m trying to lose weight
• I’m trying to get my time management under control

The “Trying to List” goes on and on and on much like a broken record. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Now is the time to dump all those Try Records!

Today, I received this article about “the driving force of personal goals.” The author is so right on the money and reinforces Yoda’s words about “there is no try.” As Tammy writes at the end of the article, “success is not chance.”

Last night I had the opportunity to attend an event honoring numerous companies here in Northwest Indiana sponsored by the Michigan City Economic Development Corporation.  One of those honored companies is a client of mine – Integrative Flavors.

Georgeann Quelaly, President, and her husband Brian, CFO, have been working on a multiple year growth and innovation plan with their strategic planning process to move their small food manufacturing business from a limiting 6,000 square foot facility to a much larger one.  As they worked their plan, they encountered numerous unforeseen obstacles. And yet they continued “to do” by making course corrections from location, financing, plans, etc.  Finally from all of their “doing.” they moved this summer into a 25,000 square foot facility which will allow them to have managed and sustained growth well into the next 10 to 20 years.

Georgeann and I met during a strategic planning and sales development workshop I delivered at the Entrepreneur Center of Michigan City. We then began to work together. Never once did I hear Georgeann utter that “try” word. Her focus was always on DO! From all those doing efforts, Integrative Flavors is in a state of the art manufacturing facility. What is even better she and her husband renovated an existing unused building.

The Quelaly’s success is because of they shared a driving force of personal goals and a commitment to achieving those goals.  A bad economy, unsure financing, land deals that went south, increased government regulations all were viewed as obstacles to be overcome.

So if you are tired of the existing status quo and want to make 2011 better than 2010, you must take action, you must do to achieve those personal goals! Forget the word try or trying and in the words of Captain Picard – “Make it so!”

P.S. If you are unsure where to start specific to your personal goals or even sales goals, you may find this teleconference a get place to move into a new status quo for 2011.